| Art Facts: Drawing with Computers | "Art Facts: Drawing with Computers." By Pat Clinton. "The Reader," Oct. 9, 1980. |
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"Bally Arcade! A Great Video Game Becomes a Great Computer, The!" By George Moses. 1982 (?). This is possibly marketing material. |
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"Bally Debuts Three-Level Computer System at CES. "Intelligent Machines Journal," Feb 7, 1979. |
| Beyond the Planet of Pac-man | "Beyond the Planet of Pac-Man." By Umberto Tosi "AirCal Magazine," November 1982. |
| C.E.S. | "C.E.S. (Excerpt)." "Creative Computing," May 1982. |
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Chicago Biographies of an Interactive Life-style. February 22 - March 17, 1985. Walter Phillips Gallery for the production, presentation and exhibition of contemporary art. Four Chicago artists (Copper Giloth, Phil Morton, Dan Sandin, and Jane Veeder) are featured in this document. The artists use computers, for example the Datamax UV-1 and ZGRASS, to create art that is output to video tapes. In the arena of the larger culture, eccentric milieus often suffer (or could it be "benefit") the misrepresentation and mystification of their art. The video/computer community in Chicago, which has been dedicated to analog and digital electronic visualization for more than a decade, is such a case. For its constituents, the result has been a general recognition of "The Chicago Community" as an entity, with a delayed and only partial understanding of that community's contribution and art. The ambiguity has been caused by a sensibility (there) that is not restricted to the art historical discourse alone; what is required to break through the ambiguity is a more rigorous comprehension of the structural and discursive context that exists in Chicago. The purpose of this project, in the exhibition and subsequent analyses, is to articulate the idiosyncrasies of the Chicago milieu and so to initiate a better evaluation of its productions. This intention begins with this presentation of the career production of four artists (the "Biographies) and a detailed look at the larger community (the "Chicago Survey").
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"Chicago Computer Artist Accelerates to Warp Speed" "Softalk" (February 1983): 227,229. Jane Veeder's use of the Datamax's UV-1 and the ZGRASS language to create "WARPITOUT" and "Montana," as well as other graphic art is covered in this article. This article prompted Bob Fabris to write a letter (in draft form, at least) to Phil Morton (also mentioned in the article). A text version of the color scan is available and a B&W version of the article, with the same content, is also available. Though the B&W version states that it is also from "Softalk," it certainly doesn't have the same layout as the color version of the article.
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| The Circle Graphics Habitat | "Circle Graphics Habitat, The" 1974 |
| Color My World | "Color My World." By Lucinda Furlong "Afterimage," October 1982. |
| Computer Art as a Way of Life | "Computer Art as a Way of Life." By Gene Youngblood "Send Magazine: Video and Communications Arts," Issue #8, Fall, 1983. |
| Computer Art Breakthrough: Painting by Number | "Computer Art Breakthrough: Painting by Number." "Rolling Stone," March 18, 1982. |
| The Convention Explosion | "Convention Explosion, The." By Tom Tolnay "Business Screen," Oct. 23, 1981. |
| Creative Computer Graphics | "Creative Computer Graphics (Excerpt)."
By Annabel Jankel and Rocky Morton. "Creative Computer Graphics," 1984. Also available in text format. |
| The Datamax UV-1R Zgrass Graphics System Ad | "Datamax UV-1R Zgrass Graphics System Ad, The. "Videography," February 1983. |
| Digital Paint Systems | "Digital Paint Systems." By Jerry Borrell "Computer Graphics World," April, 1982. |
| The Engineering of Art | "Engineering of Art, The." By Susan Figliulo "U of I Chicagoen," December 1982 |
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"GRAFIX Accompanies Bally Computer Intro." "Intelligent Machines Journal," Feb 7, 1979. |
| In the Mind of Tom Defanti... Inventor of ZGrass | "In the Mind of Tom Defanti... Inventor of ZGrass" By Suzan D. Prince "Business Screen," June/July 1982. |
| The Inventors: Tom Defanti, Creating Graphics with a Special computer Language | "Inventors, The: Tom Defanti, Creating Graphics with a Special computer Language." By Melanie Mitzner "Video Systems," November 1983. |
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"Language Control Structures for Easy Electronic Visualization." By Tom Defanti. BYTE 5, no. 11 (Nov. 1980): 90-106. "Control structures are the program-flow manipulation features of the language that you use to beat your computer into submission. [...] Electronic visualizations are important because producing and manipulating images, especially animated ones, is a truly multidimensional task which reflects our real-world interactions much more than maintaining an accurate laundry list or printing payroll checks. [...] Electronic Visualization is an intentionally broad term meant to conjure thoughts of computer graphics, animation, image processing, video synthesis, and even advanced word processing. [...]" "Zgrass is a programming language and operating system written in assembly language for the Z80 microprocessor by Nola Donato, Jay Fenton, and [Tom DeFanti]. [...] Zgrass started out as GRASS (Graphics Symbiosis System), a language designed to bring the immense complexity of a Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-11/45 and a Vector General 3DR Display system within the grasp of artists and educators at Ohio State University."
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| Let's Get Animated | "Let's Get Animated." By James Meigs "Videography," February 1983. |
| Look Homeward, Computer | "Look Homeward, Computer." By Mark Andrews "AudioVideo International," May 1982. |
| Making Waves: An Interactive Art/Science Exhibition | "Making Waves: An Interactive Art/Science Exhibition." Sponsored by the Evanston Art Center. An Interactive Art/Science Exhibition, October 17-November 16, 1986. |
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"Pictures by Funny Numbers." By Frank Dietrich and Zsuzsa Molnar. "Creative Computing" (June 1981): 102-107. "What do pictures and numbers have in common? Nothing. Unless a computer is used to generate the pictures. [...] The three concepts illustrated here, Vedic and Latin Squares and Permutations, require minimal input, but generate a large variety of change and harmony, two extremely valuable principles in image-making. Implemented on a microcomputer graphics system, the ZGrass UV-1, these number games brought about interesting visual results we'd like to share."
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"Pix-Art" By Frank Dietrich and Zsuzsanna Molnar. 1981. This article covers ZGrass and specifically talks about several pieces of art that have been written using the language. Pictures of some of the art is included. The "Pix-Art" article seems to have been printed in "Computer Graphics and Art," 1980-1981 Yearbook 5. This version of the article is from the Bob Fabris collection. It doesn't appear to be a photocopy of the "Computer Graphics and Art" article. Given Bob's ties to the Bally Arcade community, perhaps this version was what was submitted to the magazine that eventually printed it. A similar article to "Pix-Art" was published in "Creative Computing" (June 1981) as ""Pictures by Funny Numbers." Credit in the article is give to "Frank Dietrich and Zsuzsa Molnar." I'm not sure which is the correct spelling of the names.
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| Real Time Animation Techniques with Microcomputers | "Real Time Animation Techniques with Microcomputers." By Frank Dietrich. IEEE, 1982. |
| Report on Siggraph '82 | "Report on Siggraph '82."
By Mark Schorr "Robotics Age," Sept/Oct, 1982. |
| Video Art: A Very Creative Channel for Computers | "Video Art: A Very Creative Channel for Computers." By Marilynn Preston. "Chicago Tribune," Sept. 23, 1980. |
| Which Computer System is Best for Use By Graphics Professionals | "Which Computer System is Best for Use By Graphics Professionals. "Popular Computing," July 1982. |
| ZDNet - An Interprocess Computer Network for Naive to Expert Graphics Users | "ZDNet - An Interprocess Computer Network for Naive to Expert Graphics Users." By James R. Marselle. |
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"ZGRASS-32 And The Consumer Market." By Tom Defanti. February 10, 1981. Covers the market segments affected in probable order of penetration:
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"ZGrass Language." By Tom Meeks. BASIC EXPRESS, THE, 3, no. 1 (April 1981): 5-7. "Editor's Note: To show our readers the ease with which ZGRASS (the system language utilized by the AstroVision Add-Under for the Bally Arcade) can be learned, we asked Tom Meeks, who is a proud owner of the UV-1 (hi-res, $5,000 version of the Add-Under) to write an article for us explaining the use of the language. Tom, needless to say, is in love with the unit and plans to purvey ZGRASS-32 units to educational institutions." "Actually, it's much harder to write about Zgrass objectively than to learn it in the first place. There is something about the Zgrass language that brings out the "G-O-l-l-y!" and "Gee-Whiz!" in me. So, while I'll do my best to be objective and cool in appraising the capabilities of Tom DeFanti's brainchild... the truth is that it's just too much fun to pick at with any fervor." |
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"ZGRASS Opens New Vistas for Computer Artists." By David Needle. "InfoWorld," April 5, 1982: 25-26. "Computer artists working in areas such as animation and video synthesis have usually had to negotiate access to expensive ($80,000-plus) mini- and mainframe computer systems. Now the creator of a high-level graphics language called ZGRASS says he's developed a far less expensive system that costs about $11,000 and is more interactive than the equipment video artists are used to dealing with. "ZGRASS was developed by Professor Thomas De Fanti of the information engineering department of the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle. Much of the groundwork for ZGRASS had been done previously in another graphics language De Fanti developed called GRASS (Graphics Symbiosis System). GRASS was designed to run on the university's PDP-11/45 minicomputer."
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| ZGrass Upgrade Turns Game Into Business Graphics | "ZGrass Upgrade Turns Game Into Business Graphics." "Mini-Micro Systems," February 1982. |
