Did LabVIEW and Max independently invent the patch-cord dataflow metaphor, or do both descend from a common ancestor (e.g. Jack Dennis's MIT dataflow work)?

claim-labview-max-independent-patch-cord-convergence rests on Tier-4 sourcing (Wikipedia) and asserts an independent convergence: that Miller Puckette's "The Patcher" (1985, IRCAM) and Kodosky/Truchard's LabVIEW (1986, National Instruments) each arrived at the node-and-wire dataflow metaphor without borrowing from each other. The framing is the load-bearing, surprising part of the note, so per the sourcing floor for surprising historical claims it needs Tier 1–2 grounding it does not yet have.

Two things to verify:

1. The "independent" claim. Did either team know of the other's work? The authoritative primary sources are Kodosky's own HOPL IV (2021) LabVIEW paper (paywalled at capture time — needs library/ACM access) and Puckette's own writings on the origins of The Patcher / Max (e.g. his "Max at Seventeen" essay and The Theory and Technique of Electronic Music). Confirm whether either cites or predates the other, and whether the Macintosh-same-platform detail holds.

2. A possible common ancestor. Jack Dennis pioneered academic dataflow-computation models at MIT from the late 1960s — roughly 15–20 years before either tool. The capture found no direct citation from Puckette or Kodosky to Dennis, but did not rule one out. If both descend (even indirectly) from Dennis's dataflow tradition, "independent convergence" weakens into "shared lineage." Check the reference lists and any interviews.

Resolving this either upgrades claim-labview-max-independent-patch-cord-convergence past seedling or rewrites its framing from "independent" to "shared ancestry."