Heinz Lemke, who wrote the PDP-7 code between 1967 and 1972, and with Neil Wiseman and John Hiles published "PIXIE: A New Approach to Graphical Man-Machine Communication" in 1969, is still doing cool things, like actively running the Computer Assisted Radiology and Surgery conference that he founded, and diligently working as Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Computer Assisted Radiology and Surgery:
https://cars-int.org/
https://cars-int.org/editorial-board/
I found the reference to his 1969 PIXIE paper, which describes his radial menus, in December 1986. His pioneering work inspired me over many decades to publish papers, free open source code, and develop pie menus for X10, NeWS, X11, TCL/Tk, ActiveX, JavaScript, SimCity, and The Sims.
I have been actively tracking down his PIXIE papers, the films, and the listing since May 2008, to tell his story and give him credit while he is still alive and active, and to see and feel first hand how his radial menus worked with a light pen.
I asked Cambridge University Library to help me find the films. David Chapman tracked them down, had them digitized, and the library published them in July 2019, and I made a music video from them in March 2020. I asked Heinz if he had any code listings or other resources. He had kept the listing, and sent me the scan in July 2026.
Please explain and justify which specific objections you have to using AI to OCR and correct the scans of handwritten notes and 128 pages of line printer listings, and implementing an emulator that runs that code in a web browser? Can you suggest a better approach, please?
It simply would not have been possible to do in this time frame at such a low cost without AI, which only just recently enabled a quest I've been on for 40 years since 1986.
I am doing it all on my own time, paying for it all out of my own pocket, while Heinz is still around to help by sending scans of his listings, papers and handwritten notes, generously answering my questions, and patiently explaining the history and details of his work.
PIXIE System Analysis -- Heinz Lemke's handwritten scanned notes and AI assisted transcript:
https://github.com/SimHacker/WillWrightShowForFood/tree/main...
https://github.com/SimHacker/WillWrightShowForFood/blob/main...
How do you suggest I should have done anything differently? Are you volunteering your own time to help out with this project without using AI?
If you want to do cool things without AI, I could certainly use your help manually proofreading the transcript of his handwritten notes, carefully looking at these 128 scanned pages of line printer listings from 1972, meticulously cross checking the octal machine code against the PDP-7 assembly language source, and thoroughly testing and debugging the code in the emulator, or on a real PDP-7 if you are lucky enough to have access to one. The scans, the assembly, and the octal are all here:
https://github.com/SimHacker/WillWrightShowForFood/tree/main...
The version the browser emulator runs is here:
https://github.com/SimHacker/WillWrightShowForFood/tree/main...
Please submit PRs for any errors you find, and I will appreciate and credit your constructive criticism and contributions more than your banal unhelpful low-effort drive-by knee-jerk anti-ai trolling.
Or do you believe I just should not have done any of this research and work at all, nor published it as free open source code for other people and museums to use, nor shared it on Hacker News?
https://cars-int.org/
https://cars-int.org/editorial-board/
I found the reference to his 1969 PIXIE paper, which describes his radial menus, in December 1986. His pioneering work inspired me over many decades to publish papers, free open source code, and develop pie menus for X10, NeWS, X11, TCL/Tk, ActiveX, JavaScript, SimCity, and The Sims.
I have been actively tracking down his PIXIE papers, the films, and the listing since May 2008, to tell his story and give him credit while he is still alive and active, and to see and feel first hand how his radial menus worked with a light pen.
I asked Cambridge University Library to help me find the films. David Chapman tracked them down, had them digitized, and the library published them in July 2019, and I made a music video from them in March 2020. I asked Heinz if he had any code listings or other resources. He had kept the listing, and sent me the scan in July 2026.
Please explain and justify which specific objections you have to using AI to OCR and correct the scans of handwritten notes and 128 pages of line printer listings, and implementing an emulator that runs that code in a web browser? Can you suggest a better approach, please?
It simply would not have been possible to do in this time frame at such a low cost without AI, which only just recently enabled a quest I've been on for 40 years since 1986.
I am doing it all on my own time, paying for it all out of my own pocket, while Heinz is still around to help by sending scans of his listings, papers and handwritten notes, generously answering my questions, and patiently explaining the history and details of his work.
PIXIE System Analysis -- Heinz Lemke's handwritten scanned notes and AI assisted transcript:
https://github.com/SimHacker/WillWrightShowForFood/tree/main...
https://github.com/SimHacker/WillWrightShowForFood/blob/main...
How do you suggest I should have done anything differently? Are you volunteering your own time to help out with this project without using AI?
If you want to do cool things without AI, I could certainly use your help manually proofreading the transcript of his handwritten notes, carefully looking at these 128 scanned pages of line printer listings from 1972, meticulously cross checking the octal machine code against the PDP-7 assembly language source, and thoroughly testing and debugging the code in the emulator, or on a real PDP-7 if you are lucky enough to have access to one. The scans, the assembly, and the octal are all here:
https://github.com/SimHacker/WillWrightShowForFood/tree/main...
The version the browser emulator runs is here:
https://github.com/SimHacker/WillWrightShowForFood/tree/main...
Please submit PRs for any errors you find, and I will appreciate and credit your constructive criticism and contributions more than your banal unhelpful low-effort drive-by knee-jerk anti-ai trolling.
Or do you believe I just should not have done any of this research and work at all, nor published it as free open source code for other people and museums to use, nor shared it on Hacker News?