[MA][GNU]S

(formerly The Juggler)

Here's a brief list of

Features

  • Does vanilla siteswap, plus synchronous patterns, multiplexes, bounces, and outside throws.
  • Fully interactive
  • Accepts new patterns interactively. Even has a history!
  • Provides interactive control over many internal parameters, including speed, ball size, gravity, width of pattern, how far the hands dip to throw a ball, how far the hands carry a ball after a catch, how fast it zooms, "how random to be" in random mode, and the spacing of the space-time diagram. We know of no such parameter that you'd need to edit html, much less java code to change. (If you see one we overlooked, please tell us and we'll add the control.)
  • Does real transitions. When you enter a new pattern it computes and does transition throws to get there. Includes changes in the number of balls and changes in synchrony. Automatically zooms in or out as necessary.
  • Can draw an orbits diagrams, showing how a pattern works or doesn't work.
  • Can animate space-time diagrams alongside the juggler.
  • Can animate transitions of the state graph alongside the juggler.

    • Running [MA][GNU]S

    There are several options for running [MA][GNU]S. It can be run as either an applet or an application, and you can either run over the web or get your own copy. What's the difference? The distinction is that an applet is run via a WWW browser, whereas an application is a standalone program. Applets are nice because they can be run over the web, but for security reasons they impose limitations on functionality, which can be annoying. So if you don't want to get your own copy of the Juggler you want to run it as an applet; if you want to have features like saving your settings and favorite patterns you have to run it as an application. To run it as an applet you need a browser: netscape, internet explorer, hotjava, appletviewer, or somesuch. To run it as an application you need the java interpreter, which comes in the JDK available from www.javasoft.com.

    There are 46 class files, so especially over a modem it can take a while for [MA][GNU]S to load. I recommend downloading it and running it off local disk. But if you're an optimist or have already downloaded, you can run it now.

    If you download it (see below), then to run as an applet you should open either this page (index.html) and click above, or just open juggler.html. To run as an application, run "java Juggler.class".

    Downloading [MA][GNU]S

    This is version 1.01 (4/13/97). See the change log for a list of changes from previous versions.

    As I said above, you may want to download your copy. You can get the current version in either a gzipped tar file or a zipped file.

    [MA][GNU]S is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

    This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

    If for some reason that link to the license fails you can always get a copy from the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.

    Please note that the source code is currently a mess. If you want to modify [MA][GNU]S you are of course free to, but for the moment we are discouraging you from sending us changes that implement new features. It will be hard for you, and we'd like to clean things up and add a few more features that we know roughly how we want to code before taking code from anyone else. Suggestions, bug reports, and bug fixes are of course welcome.

    Feedback

    If you have problems, questions, comments, criticism, suggestions or anything of that sort, please mail one of us:

    Allen Knutson (allenk@alumni.caltech.edu)

    Matt Levine (mslevine@theory.lcs.mit.edu)

    Greg Warrington (gwar@math.harvard.edu)

    If you are having problems like netscape crashing or hanging when trying to run this, please don't complain to us. If anything, complain to Netscape. In the meantime consider downloading the Java Development Kit from Sun; this seems to work better, and will allow you to run [MA][GNU]S as an application.

    There is a known bugs list that you should check before submitting reports of problems, and a future plans list you might want to check before submitting suggestions.