Ken Kahn's Ani (MIT, 1978), running again
Ani's Cinderella and Beyond
Ani, the program in Ken Kahn's 1979 thesis (rewritten as AI-TR-540 ), turned a short description of Cinderella into this film. Play it, then click a character to see what Ani decided it should do, and why. You can also change the story and have Ani make the film again.
A guide for students A guide for teachers How this was made
Ani's 1978 film
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Ani's 1978 film
Your version
The film is drawn from a record of every frame Director filmed when this revival ran Ani's scene programs on a 550 by 413 picture: 24 frames a second, as Ken's camera shot the film, or 4, as his TV previews ran, which is the run the thesis's flipbook shows. The two are different runs, because each scene is planned from where the last one's filming left the characters. The reasons are what Ani itself recorded while planning; the plain-English readings (dotted underline) are ours, and each one opens to Ani's own words.
Making the film again runs Ani itself: the 1978 MacLisp files from the MIT tapes, on Director and a MacLisp interpreter rebuilt for this revival, here in your browser. A new story is first put into Ken's notation by a language model of your choice; everything after that is Ani's.
Pass 1, where Ani chose each character's way of moving, has its own page: Ani's Choice Points . The code itself, with every name linked to its definition: Ani's Code .
More about Ani: How this was made · A guide for students · A guide for teachers .
What this page keeps in your browser
When something on this page goes wrong, the error is reported to Ken so that he can fix it, without any story, key or personal data.