GRASS (programming language)

GRASS was a programming language created to program visual animations in 2D. It will remain most famous for its use by Larry Cuba to create the original "attacking the death star will not be easy" animation in Star Wars.

GRASS (GRAphics Symbiosis System) was developed by Tom DeFanti for his 1974 Ph.D. thesis. GRASS was a language for specifying 2D object animation in which you could script scaling, translation, rotation and color changes of 2D objects over time. It quickly became a hit with the artistic community who were experimenting with the new medium of computer graphics.

In 1978 the GRASS system was updated as ZGRASS' to work on the Zilog Z80 microprocessor in the experimental Z-Box DeFanti had been working on. The Z-Box somehow (the history is unclear) mutated into an add-on device for the Bally Astrocade system known as the ZGRASS-100. However this system was slow in getting to market and the same hardware was later released in an all-in-one configuration as the Datamax UV-1.