Prototyping NBC's GEnesis Broadcast Automation System Using Tcl/Tk
Brion D. Sarachan
GE R & D Center
Alexandra J. Schmidt
GE R & D Center
Steven A. Zahner
National Broadcasting Company, Inc.
Abstract
As part of the re-architecture of their television broadcast transmission
facility, NBC is using Tcl/Tk in developing a prototype system, known as
GEnesis, for monitoring and editing on-air television broadcast schedules.
This paper discusses application of Tcl/Tk and its extensions to rapidly
prototype a highly-interactive GEnesis user interface that leverages the
power and flexibility of the Tk widget set. In particular, canvases are
used to implement custom graphics, while tags and the binding mechanism
enable a high degree of interactivity. The ability of Tcl/Tk to work
seamlessly with other, heterogeneous software components enables the GEnesis
system to combine its custom Tcl/Tk user interface with a Sybase database
and C-based device controllers. We address a number of implementation
issues including the handling of display updates and managing the Tcl data
space.
Download the full text of this paper in
ASCII (35,715 bytes) form.
To Become a USENIX Member, please see our
Membership Information.