For 10 years, until his retirement from PARC in 2012, I had the privilege of working with Bryan Preas on a broad set of projects in system engineering. From portable X-ray imaging systems, to parallel printing machines to bio-agent detection instruments, Bryan was the "go-to" person for the more complex aspects of hardware design and hardware/software integration across multiple labs at PARC. In this talk, I will share examples of Bryan's great skill, technical versatility and wonderful collaborative spirit.

This paper describes the Liveboard, a large interactive display system. With nearly one million pixels and an accurate, multi-state, cordless pen, the Liveboard provides a basis for research on user interfaces for group meetings, presentations and remote collaboration. We describe the underlying hardware and software of the Liveboard, along with several software applications that have been developed. In describing the system, we point out the design rationale that was used to make various choices. We present the results of an informal survey of Liveboard users, and describe some of the improvements that have been made in response to user feedback. We conclude with several general observations about the use of large public interactive displays.