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Concept
GRASS (programming language)
Summary
GRASS (GRAphics Symbiosis System) is a programming language created to script 2D vector graphics animations. GRASS was similar to BASIC in syntax, but added numerous instructions for specifying 2D object animation, including scaling, translation and rotation over time. These functions were directly supported by the Vector General 3D graphics terminal GRASS was written for. It quickly became a hit with the artistic community who were experimenting with the new medium of computer graphics, and is most famous for its use by Larry Cuba to create the original "attacking the Death Star will not be easy" animation in Star Wars (1977).
As part of a later partnership with Midway Games, the language was ported to the Midway's Z80-based Z Box. This machine used raster graphics and a form of sprites, which required extensive changes to support, along with animating color changes. This version was known as Zgrass.
The original version of GRASS was developed by Tom DeFanti for his 1974 Ohio State University Ph.D. thesis. It was developed on a PDP-11/45 driving a Vector General 3DR display. As the name implies, this was a purely vector graphics machine. GRASS included a number of vector-drawing commands, and could organize collections of them into a hierarchy, applying the various animation effects to whole "trees" of the image at once (stored in arrays).
After graduation, DeFanti moved to the University of Illinois, Chicago Circle. There he joined up with Dan Sandin and together they formed the Circle Graphics Habitat (today known as the Electronic Visualization Laboratory, or EVL). Sandin had joined the university in 1971 and built the , or IP. The IP was an analog computer which took two video inputs, mixed them, colored the results, and then re-created TV output. He described it as the video version of a Moog synthesizer.
DeFanti added the existing GRASS system as the input to the IP, creating the GRASS/Image Processor, which was used throughout the mid-1970s.
Official source
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