Aspen Movie Map

The Aspen Movie Map was a revolutionary multimedia system developed at MIT by a team working with Andrew Lippman in 1978 with funding from ARPA.

Purpose and Applications

ARPA funding during the late 1970s was subject to the military application requirements of the notorious Mansfield Amendment introduced by Mike Mansfield (which had severely limited funding for hypertext researchers like Douglas Engelbart).

Related Topics:
Mike Mansfield - Hypertext - Douglas Engelbart

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The Aspen Movie Map's military application was to solve the problem of quickly familiarizing soldiers with new territory. The Department of Defense had been deeply impressed by the success of Operation Entebbe in 1976, where the Israeli commandos had quickly built a crude replica of the airport and practiced in it before attacking the real thing. DOD hoped that the Movie Map would show the way to a future where computers could instantly create a 3-D simulation of a hostile environment at much lower cost and in less time. See virtual reality.

Related Topics:
Operation Entebbe - Virtual reality

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