This lab is looking at a model we've made of the Stargate. For those not familiar with the films and TV series take a look 'here' with particular reference to the paragraph entitled "Destiny's Gate" under Technical specifications. Empirical Modelling is an open exploratory process where there is some referent artifact (in this case the Stargate as seen in the film) and we are attempting by experiment to recreate this on the computer. The process of modelling the Stargate helps us understand its mechanics better. We are not trying to write a program to accurately simulate a Stargate efficiently but instead are looking to learn something about it and explore possibilities in an interactive fashion. The resulting model (if ever finished) should resemble our understanding of how it works and not be abstracted to how it can be best implemented on a machine. There are actually many flaws in our model - i.e. respects in which it is not faithful to the Stargate as it is portrayed in films - that we have yet to resolve. If you are familiar with Stargate then perhaps you will notice these. Once we have worked out how to model a Stargate it may then be possible to write a more efficient program to simulate it but our modelling comes before a complete understanding exists.

To do this modelling we have, over the years, constructed our own tools. The purpose of this lab is to introduce you to CADENCE, one of the two tools that we shall be using in the module.  CADENCE is a research prototype that is being developed by Nick Pope. The CADENCE environment comprises an extensible suite of modules that run on the DOSTE engine. In this lab, the focus is on how models can be built in DOSTE using the DASM notation.

Getting Started

First take a look at our attempt to model the Stargate. Open up a shell window (you can do this by pressing Alt+F2 and typing "konsole" into the search box) and copy the following into it:

~empublic/bin/cadence

This should bring up our new prototype tool with an interface that is still under development. This has two components: a Browser and an interface window that serves several functions, including that of a DASM input box. Each node in the browser corresponds to what can be viewed as a different context for observation. Initially the browser displays only a single node, corresponding to the current focus of attention, in this case the key components of the Cadence environment itself (also known as the 'root' context). Clicking on a blue node in the browser will reveal the subcontexts within that context. Contexts that contain no subcontext are indicated by green nodes if they are associated with an explicit observable (e.g. running, time, os) or red nodes if they are null. Contexts are highlighted in bold when they are updated - time and lasttime are being continuously updated for instance. You can open up contexts represented by blue nodes by clicking on them. For example, the ui context, which designates the user interface, contains the browser subcontext which in turn contains a root subcontext.

Explore the browser interface by clicking on nodes and interpreting the result. What is the meaning of the '.' subcontext?

Interaction with Cadence is done via the DASM input box by entering script. To bring up the Stargate model enter the following into the DASM input box:

%include "stargate/stargate.dasm";

Click 'Accept'. This should load up the model and display a window containing the Stargate. Click on the blue node in the browser to reveal the context containing all the observables in the Stargate model. The nodes in the browser are a visual representation of information that is described textually using DASM. Click on the small "Dial" button in the top left which should start an animation of the dialling process with the changes also appearing in the browser.

Entering the following into the DASM input box will display the observables in the @stargate context in textual form in the Konsole window:

%list @stargate;

In the listing, observational contexts containing subcontexts are listed by abstract context identifiers: for instance, orientation = <[1:0:1:2360]>. To explore this subcontext, enter:

%list @stargate orientation;

The %list command displays observables together with their definitions. It is convenient to use the term 'observable' in a broad sense, so that it not only refers to commonsense observables such as the speed of motion of a chevron (chevspeed), but also to observational contexts. This is quite appropriate, since in CADENCE observational contexts are also subject to change. To query the current value of  a specific observable, you can simply specify the observable in the input box, as in:

@stargate orientation y;

You can use a query to determine what observational context is currently being displayed in the browser. Note that the most natural query you can use for this doesn't relate to an observable that is directly displayed in the browser. (It can actually be displayed indirectly though. Can you find out how?)

An alternative way to explore the Stargate model is to inspect the script itself. To do this, take a look at the 'gate.dasm' file in the '~empublic/share/cadence/projects/stargate' directory. You can use a text editor called 'kate' to open this file and this can also be run from Alt+F2 or from the start menu. The gate.dasm file describes the key components and behaviour of the model. Other files describe the visual effects and other structures which we are currently not concerned about. We hope that by the end of the labs you will understand the concepts behind the DOSTE engine and that many of you will be able to understand the DASM language as well.

In your initial examination of the gate.dasm file, you will probably find it difficult to understand fully how observables and dependencies are specified.The best way to deepen your understanding is to interact with model.

Interacting with the Stargate model

For the rest of the lab you will be working with a simplified version of the Stargate model which has had all our work on the dialling sequence removed. Start by closing Cadence. Create a directory called 'stargate' in your home directory and put the 'gate.dasm' file available from here in the stargate directory. When you run the following command, this file will override the one you looked at previously:

cd; ~empublic/bin/cadence

When Cadence is running, include the stargate as before. You now have the simplified version running. To test this try clicking on the 'Dial' button and nothing should happen this time.

Type the following into the DASM Input box:

@stargate chevrons 0 on = 1;

Click Accept and watch the light on the top chevron turn on. The same can be done for any of the chevrons and they can be turned off again by setting them to 0. Now try the next line:

@stargate ready = true;

This will reactivate the Stargate, turning the puddle effect on.

Finally we have the inner ring rotation (given in radians)  which can be changed as follows:

@stargate rotation = 2.0;

As explained above, you can use the browser to explore all the observables in @stargate that you can observe or change, and write queries in the input box to find out the current values of specific observables. Using these features, you can play around with redefining observables for a bit and again take a look at the simplified 'gate.dasm' you downloaded to see what other observables exist in the model. If you look in some of the other files you may find some really interesting observables to change. Note the way in which you can act to change the state of the model freely by entering new observables and dependencies at any point in time and the fact that all other kinds of state change in the model are also carried out by making redefinitions (though possibly automatically). This feature is characteristic of Empirical Modelling.

In the interface, you can recall the previous command etc using Ctrl-p and Ctrl-n, or inspect the complete history via the History tab.

Creating dependencies

Now that we know what we can change and what we can see let's try connecting things together using definitions which are similar to spreadsheet formula. A simple definition might be to say that the stargate is 'ready' when chevron 8 is turned on.

@stargate ready is { .chevrons 8 on == 1 };

What we have said is that 'ready' is true if the value of 'chevrons 8 on' is 1. Note the '.' (dot) before chevrons means 'this' or current context which corresponds to the object that the 'ready' observable is in, which in this case is '@stargate'. You could use '@stargate' instead of '.'.

Now try turning chevron 8 on and see what happens.

There is another observable in the stargate which may be of interest. It is called 'dial' and becomes true whenever the mouse is clicking on the 'Dial' button. Just to check this you can define chevron 8 to come on when that button is clicked:

@stargate chevrons 8 on is { if (@stargate dial) {1} else {0} };

The stargate will also activate when the button is clicked because of the previous definition. We now leave it to you to play with these definitions, ask questions and look at the code for the stargate model. Try getting the puddle to activate only when all the lights are on. We will look at animation and making objects in later labs.

Varieties of definition

You should note three ways in which observables can be defined in DASM, however:

• by direct assignment of a current value, as is done by using the symbol "="

• by giving a definition of the current value, as is done with the keyword "is"

• by specifying the process by which the value of an observable is to be updated, as is done using the symbol ":="

The first and second ways of associating a value with an observable are of the same essential type as traditional procedural assignment and cell definition in a spreadsheet environment respectively.

The third way of defining the value of an observable (also called a "will be" definition) takes account of the fact that the DOSTE engine updates the state of all observables continually. A "becomes equal to" (:=) definition asserts that, on each update, the next value of the observable on the LHS of the := will be equal to the current value of the expression on the RHS. Note that:

• in an "is" definition, the RHS cannot be linked via a chain of "Is" definitions that refers, however indirectly,  to the observable on the LHS : this would be a cyclic definition.
• in a "will be" definition, it is perfectly possible for the RHS to refer to the observable on the LHS, since it makes sense to define the next value of an observable in terms of its current value.
• the value of an observable is not completely specified by a "will be" definition alone: some initial value has to be assigned in order for the update process to generate a stream of values.

You can test this by contrasting the effect of the two definitions:

.a is {.a}; .a

.a := {.a}; .a

Find examples of all three kinds of definition in the gate.dasm file. See if you can figure out what commonsense observables they correspond to in Stargate, and why they have been defined in this particular way.