The MILESTONE CAI System : An Open-ended and APL based Stand-alone/TSS CAI

Abstract

A powerful stand-alone and TSS CAI system with microcomputers, called MILESTONE CAI, is presented in this paper. Its development entailed major revisions in the open-ended capability of CAI and the CAI man-machine interface, as well as the development of an optical video disc. The system consists of two Z-80A microprocessors in a single terminal able to handle Kanji, as well as graphics and movie. The system further can be linked into a host computer as an intelligent terminal. The CAI software (CAI executor and language) was designed on the basis of upwardly-compatible APL, and using the special characteristics of APL and the OS, we developed open-ended CAI features under TSS of a host computer. The system is flexible enough so as to be easily converted from general-purpose CAI to specialized CAI and to execute such different CAI systems at the same time under this environment. With its dynamic linkage functions, the system can also implement a database or knowledge-base version of CAI. The system is part of a project to create an "educational electronic campus system. "And this MILESTONE CAI system has been used for information processing education to all University of Tsukuba freshmen (1,640 students), CAI education, medical education and pedagogical education in higher education.