Description
Tina Blaine, Tim Perkis · Carnegie Mellon University · DIS 2000
A circular table with drum pads set into it and real-time graphics projected onto its surface. Several players sit around it and improvise together; embedded sensors read each strike and use it to drive the music, the visuals and the game logic at once.
The Jam-O-Drum is a multi-player controller that encourages team building and collaboration. By combining novel input devices with real-time computer graphics on an integrated tabletop surface, the Jam-O-Drum allows people to explore interactive game play and collective music-making experiences.
It belongs here as the early ancestor of almost everything else in this section. In 1998–2000 it had already put together the round table with no head, the requirement that complete novices could join and play immediately, game-like goals used to structure a jam, and the idea that the point of the thing is the social interaction rather than the output. reacTable seven years later, and Cave of Sounds a decade after that, are working the same seam.
Unverified. The commonly repeated figure of “up to six players” still has no source. Blaine’s own site describes the individual game experiences as four-player (“a four player collaborative game”, “up to four players”), which is evidence against six but not a statement about the table itself. Check the DIS paper before citing a number.
source — Tina Blaine’s project page · CMU HCII · paper
CircleMaze, one of the game experiences built for the table — players work together to collect the pieces at the centre of the maze.
images: Tina Blaine (Bean), jamodrum.net