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Dan Bricklin’s Demo Program

By Keith J. Stanger Coordinator, Access Services Eastern Michigan University

Reaching students and faculty with a microcomputer-based “slide show.”

Many librarians are working to develop their elients’ understanding of computer database searching. Central to this understanding are the principles underlying the formulation of a search strategy to retrieve information from computerreadable data files. However, before attempting to teach searching principles, presentation of a general overview of database searching concepts and procedures is often helpful.

Many methods are being employed to provide this introduction to what database searching is, how to prepare for it, and what actually occurs during a database search—lectures, demonstrations, printed brochures, video tapes, computerassisted instruction. With a relatively inexpensive computer program written for the IBM PC (and MS-DOS compatibles) I have found that I can quickly put together both a microcomputer-based tutorial that introduces database searching as well as a simulation of an actual database search— without my learning a programming language.

Dan Bricklin’s Demo Program (as the co-creator of VisiCalc aptly named his new program) is a prototyping program. It was designed to help software authors as well as non-programmers to conceptualize new programs, describe them to others, and teach the final product. For example, with Dan Bricklin’s Demo Program (called Demo from here on), users can show developers how they want a program to look and act.

With Demo you create, edit, and view a series of “slides” on the screen of an IBM PC (or compatible) microcomputer. Each slide is an image of what one screen of a program looks like. When Demo “runs” the slides it can switch the display from slide to slide (i.e., screen to screen) either automatically (with or without a delay between slides) or after waiting for a keystroke from the viewer. The procession of screens makes it appear that an actual program is running—not just a sequence of precomposed snapshots.

Most capabilities of the PC’s 25 x 80 text mode are supported (including the “special” characters in the PC’s character set) as well as the standard attributes (inverse, underline, etc., on the MDA (Monochrome Display Adapter) and foreground/ background colors on the CGA (Color Graphics Adapter) and EGA (Enhanced Graphics Adapter). Demo does not support bit-mapped graphics. The full-screen editor, which includes line and box drawing commands, makes it easy to create slides with the text, attributes, and layout you desire. In addition, a program included on the Demo diskette allows you to capture screen images from other programs and “import” them into a set of Demo slides, which can then be edited using Demo.

The short tutorial that I wrote with Demo, which introduces computer database searching and reviews the steps that can be followed to prepare for a database search, is simply a set of text slides that the viewer can page forward or back through at a keystroke. It is true that the same information can easily be printed on paper. However, this computer-based set of tutorial screens can be seen as just another channel through which one can communicate one’s ideas. The novelty of viewing the information on a computer screen and the use of color might more readily engage the attention and interest of some users than would reading the same material on paper.

The slide show I created really goes beyond the printed page when it provides a simulation of a computer database search. How was this done with Demo? I performed a short database search and downloaded the entire interaction to a diskette. When offline, I reviewed the results one screen at a time, using one of the many programs that are available to do this, e.g., Vern Buerg’s LIST. As I viewed each screen I copied it with Demo’s capture program. I then called up Demo and used its retrieve command to create one Demo slide/screen from each captured screen. Once imported into Demo, the screens were edited, e.g., test repositioned, comments added, attributes changed.

The trick to turning a series of “dead” single screens into a simulation of interactive responsiveness was to make each screen only slightly different from the one before it with user input triggering the transition from screen to screen. For example, a screen shows the BRS AFTER DARK system prompt with a cursor flashing to its right. The onscreen instruction to the user says “TYPE academic achievement.” If the user presses the letter “a,” this triggers the appearance of the next screen, which is exactly the same as the previous one, except that the letter “a” appears adjacent to the BRS prompt with the cursor to the right of the “a” (moved over one position from the previous screen). While it looks to the user like pressing the letter “a” types it directly to the screen, in fact this action simply calls up the next prewritten screen, which is exactly the same as the previous one except that the “a” is where the cursor was and the cursor is shifted one place to the right.

If the user then presses the letter “c” the appearance of the next screen is triggered, which displays the letters “ac” followed by the blinking cursor, moved over one position from the previous screen. The speed and smoothness of the screen transitions provide the illusion that one is interacting with a real system, rather than calling up precomposed screens. If the correct letter is not typed in sequence, a screen pops up which says: “You have made a typing ERROR. Please type EXACTLY what is asked. Press any key to continue.”

While the main program on the Demo diskette allows one to create, modify and run “slide shows,” a “run-time only” version of the program is also supplied. This program, substantially smaller in size than the full Demo program, can run, but not modify, a slide show written with the main Demo program. Thus you can copy the run-time version of Demo to a diskette along with the file(s) you wrote with the main program and know that your audience will be able to view, but not change, the screen sequence you composed. (Note: None of the programs on the Demo diskette are copy protected. However, the software license you agree to when you use the program specifies that the main Demo program can only be running on one microcomputer at a time and that you cannot make more than 50 copies of the “run-time only” version of Demo.)

Using Demo, I plan to create a number of search simulations, each from a different disciplinary database. A file of these diskettes will be made available in the library. In addition, academic departments can be given diskettes which present an introduction to database searching as well as a discipline-relevant search simulation. Democreated simulations can also serve as a costeffective way to introduce novice searchers—staff or clients—to the mechanics of interacting with an online system.

Two diskettes prepared with Dan Bricklin’s Demo Program—one with the database searching tutorial and one with a simulation of an ERIC database search—are available for loan from the LOEX Clearinghouse. In addition, these two diskettes are available together directly from the author for $6.00 (check or money order). Write:

Keith J. Stanger, Coordinator, Access Services, Eastern Michigan University Library, Ypsilanti, MI 48197. Dan Bricklin’s Demo Program is available at a list price of $74.95 from Software Garden, Inc., P.O. Box 238, West Newton, MA 02165; (617) 332-2240.

For additional information, consult these sources:

Aarons, Richard, “Bricklin’s Demo Program Breaks Original Ground,” PC Magazine 5 (April 29, 1986):54.

Bonner, Paul, “Dan Bricklin’s Demo Program: A Gem of a Tool for PC Managers,” PC Week 3 (March 18, 1986) :87, 100.

Duntemann, Jeff, “Prototypes in Motion,” PC Tech Journal 4 (March 1986) :29.

Edlin, Jim, “Human Interface Design: From the Outside In,” Dr. Dobb’s Journal of Software Tools 11 (May 1986): 24–31.

Hamilton, Rosemary, “Dan Bricklin Demo Speeds Prototyping Via Simulation,” Computerworld 20 (April 7, 1986) :33, 36.

Walkenbach, John, “Dan Bricklin Crafts a Demo Program,” Infoworld 8 (March 31, 1986):41–43.