JavaSketchpad Debut

Stephen Weimar (steve@forum.swarthmore.edu)
Thu, 13 Feb 1997 13:07:47 -0500


>To: geometry-announcements@forum.swarthmore.edu
>Date: 13 Feb 1997 07:07:44 -0500
>From: njackiw@keypress.com (Nicholas R. Jackiw)
>Organization: Key Curriculum Press
>Sender: geometry-announcements-owner@forum.swarthmore.edu
>Subject: JavaSketchpad Debut
>
>Geometry readers with good Internet connections and Java-capable web
>browsers may wish to visit the Math Forum's Corner for Interactive
>Geometry Software, where the first release of JavaSketchpad is now
>available for your inspection and testing.
>
>JavaSketchpad is an exciting new web technology which permits authors,
>teachers, artists, curriculum developers, researchers, and all other
>geometry fans to publish dynamic geometry illustrations directly in their
>web pages. More technically (...and less grandiloquently...) JavaSketchpad
>is a Java applet which displays sketches developed using Geometer's
>Sketchpad desktop software (available from Key Curriculum Press for
>Macintosh and PC) directly on the web. Anyone with a Java-capable web
>browser can then dynamically explore the sketches you've created, without
>requiring access to Geometer's Sketchpad. JavaSketchpad enables you and
>your students to publish geometric illustrations, demonstrations, and
>investigations on-line.
>
>Eventually, publishing your sketches on the web will be as easy as
>choosing "Save as Web Page" from Sketchpad's File menu. But right now,
>JavaSketchpad is unpolished. As a "developmental release," the software is
>slow, incomplete, and error-prone...and the same is true about the current
>generation of Java-capable web browsers!
>
>Both Java and Sketchpad are rapidly evolving technologies, however, and I
>expect that JavaSketchpad will mature quickly into a full-featured dynamic
>geometry environment for the Internet. Meanwhile, I invite your early
>comments on it. My goal is to make JavaSketchpad as useful as possible.
>
>JavaSketchpad's first developmental release--and more information--is
>available at:
>
>http://forum.swarthmore.edu/dynamic/java_gsp/
>
>Enjoy!
>
>- Nick Jackiw
>Key Curriculum Press
>
>(n. b. Please note that at this time, JavaSketchpad is in no way an
>"official product" of Key Curriculum Press. If you have questions or
>concerns about it, please address them to me by e-mail or post them in
>geometry.software.dynamic; don't call or write to Key Curriculum Press.
>Thanks!)
>