Go Fish! A multi-user game in the Rendezvous System

The Rendezvous™ System is an infrastructure for building multi-user, synchronous applications. Multi-user, synchronous applications are those that are designed to be used by several people simultaneously. Examples of such applications range from collaborative debugging of software to multi-party contract negotiations to games for several players. This videotape shows a demonstration of one multi-user application we have built. The application is a card table that allows up to four people to play any card game they wish. On the tape, you will see several rounds of a game of fish. This game, though simple, serves to highlight four key capabilities that an infrastructure for building multi-user applications must support. These are: 1) support for separate, customized views for each user of the same underlying data, 2) support for public data (i.e., data shown to all users) as well as private data (i.e., data shown only to a particular user), 3) support for access control among users so that certain data is only accessible to some users, and 4) support for the direct manipulation of data objects on the users' displays. We believe that the ability for people to communicate with one another in the structured manner of multi-user applications offers an enormous opportunity for people to enrich the way they work, learn, and play. Many sorts of multi-user applications are possible and research into infrastructures like the Rendezvous System may some day allow for the rapid production of these types of systems. For more information, please see the suggested readings.