All Glossary

Digitalfire Insight

A downloadable program for Windows, Mac, Linux for doing classic ceramic glaze chemistry. It has been used around the world since the early 1980s.

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Details

A glaze chemistry desktop application for Windows, Linux, Macintosh first introduced in 1979. It shows side-by-side recipes and their formulas. It was interactive in the sense that the chemistry impacts of changes to a recipe are immediately displayed and the process of formula-to-batch is automated. It stored recipe and material data locally and did not communicate with any server or peer online. Insight was a classic glaze chemistry calculator. Its release marked the first time that people everywhere could easily do glaze chemistry, grow their understanding of glazes at the formula level and learn how to solve problems like crazing, shivering, blistering, leaching, cutlery marking, etc.

Insight was first released in 1979 running on TRS-DOS on Tandy computers. By 1983, it was working on the IBM PC. The following year on the Tandy 100 notebook, one of the first laptop-sized machines. By 1985, it ran on the Apple Macintosh. As of 2021 (although now discontinued but still downloadable for free) it still worked on Mac, Windows and Linux.

From the beginning, it was designed to be able to see the recipes and chemistries of two glazes, side-by-side. This was accomplished by an in-memory materials database. Insight name-matched materials in recipes with those in the database to be able to compile the combined chemistry. Before graphical operating systems, it used the box-drawing characters of the OS to create separate recipe and formula frames. Before menu-driven systems, it used keyboard shortcuts to navigate through the horizontal menus at the bottom of the screen (like early versions of Lotus 1-2-3). During the early 1980s Insight migrated to color displays. Around 1990 it moved to graphical operating systems (Windows, MacOS). During the 1990s, as systems became more powerful, it was able to do calculations live (the calculate-menu-choice was no longer needed). From the beginning, Insight stored recipes as separate files on the disk (first in simple text format, then in XML). Around 2000 it moved to storing all data in an SQLite single-file database. Materials storage also evolved from text to XML to CSV files, Insight has always loaded the msterials database at startup and maintained it in memory. The CSV export/import format enabled users to manage their materials database outside of Insight using Excel or compatible spreadsheet software.

Early distribution of Insight was done by magazine advertising and mailing of diskettes and manuals. During the late 1980s this migrated to a BBS system that enabled customers to dial-in and search reference material. In 1995 distribution moved online and the reference materials grew to what is now digitalfire.com.

Related Information

Digitalfire Insight 4.1 running on DOS cerca 1983

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This was on the IBM-PC, it was introduced in 1982. Until then, Insight was running on Tandy TRS-80 Model 1 and 3 computers. The program was shipped by mail on floppy disks. It was lightning fast, recalculating the chemistry instantly. It could handle as many 1000 recipes on a 1.44MB floppy disk and knew about 100 materials and their chemistry. However, only one recipe could be displayed at a time. Many of my customers stuck with the old DOS version of Insight well into the 2000s (and some even into the 2020s). It could be even by run in Windows (up until XP) by double-clicking the Insight program file (shown here running in Windows 3.1). Even today, it can be run using DOSBOX in windows or from MSDOS or FreeDOS running on a virtual machine (e.g. VirtualBox).

Retro glaze chemistry calculation - 1980

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I did this batch-to-formula glaze chemistry calculation on a version of Desktop Insight that ran on the TRS-80 Model I and III. The TRS-80s were the first popular consumer microcomputers for business (outselling Apple 5-to-1). Notice the report only uses capital letters; the machines did not support lower case! The dot matrix printers of the time lasted forever on an ink ribbon. Fanfold paper fed from a box, I could tear off only as much as was needed for a report. Boot time was less than 5 seconds. Here is what is amazing: In 2021 I found this same recipe in my Insight-live account (the green screenshot)! The results are a little different; I had the chemistry of talc wrong in 1980. Through the years, as I migrated from one system to another, I wrote code to carry the data forward. This machine was advanced; during the late 70s I was storing data on cassette tape!

Digitalfire Insight in 1983. On a Macintosh 128K and original IBM PC.

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These were the machines that put the microcomputer revolution into the mainstream. Insight had already been available for years. This was 12 years before the Internet. Computers like this cost the equivalent of $10,000+ today. Programmers and geeks were the early customers. It was expected that PC users would write their own software (the instruction manual taught programming). Early Mac users used the bundled programs to play around with MacPaint and MacWrite. Lotus 1-2-3 and WordStar for the PC had just appeared. Microsoft Excel and Word for DOS, Windows and Mac were still years away. To most businesses, machines like these were just a curiosity.

Modern PCs are 1000+ times faster and have a minimum of 250,000 times more memory! Yet with efficient programming, both of these original machines had plenty of power to do glaze chemistry and recipe management at amazing speeds and efficiency. Both could store more recipes than multiple large three-ring binders and find them far more quickly.

The Digitalfire glaze calculation worksheet for Excel

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From the 1980s to 2000s, we made this spreadsheet available. It stored materials and did the calculations in the same way that Insight did. I used it to verify that calculations were being done correctly. Many customers downloaded and used it to learn more about the theory and to teach it.

Digitalfire Insight materials dialog window

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Desktop Insight remembers materials (in its database) as formulas and their formula weights. From this it can calculate the LOI. Materials can have alternate names so they are more likely to be found in calculating recipes. This dialog provides tools for adding, editing, deleting, importing and exporting materials.

Desktop INSIGHT showing formula and analysis side-by-side

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Desktop Insight was the first to enable users to compare two recipes and their formulas side-by-side and interactively update when recipe changes were made. It also enabled users to show formulas and analyses side-by-side.

Digitalfire Insight running on a Macintosh middle 90s

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The Macintosh version used the same file formats as the Windows version right from the start. Macintosh customers however, were more likely to think that the program should think for them and more likely not to know which way to put the floppy disk in!

Digitalfire Insight 5.0 running on Windows 95

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This was the Insight jump from the old DOS version to a modern graphical user interface. Although Insight was available in Window 3.1, Windows 95 was the first version that was good enough that people left DOS behind.

Here is what digitalfire.com looked like in 1997!

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We already had a large library of educational material (the predecessor of the Digitalfire Reference Library). The Foresight product was the fore-runner to insight-live.com today. And it was free like today. And we were warning people about the importance of safe glazes and understanding the "why" questions about the ceramic process.

Digitalfire Insight 5.1 running on Windows 95

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It is not really that dissimilar to Insight as it is today. It packed a lot of power, but people of the time were largely still not inclined to believe that it was possible to do the chemistry that easily, or even that the chemistry was even worthwhile learning. It took many more years for it to enter the mainstream.

The main recipe window in Digitalfire Insight software

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Insight installs on your Linux, Windows or Mac computer. It provides a very interactive way to comparing two recipes and their calculated formulas or analyses. As you make changes in the recipe you can see how it impacts the recipes. It is ideal for demonstrating concepts like unity, analysis,
formula, mole%, LOI, formula-to-batch conversion.

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Vintage DOS Insight runs on a web page

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