🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1947@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu> chow@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu (Christopher Chow) writes:
>
>I stumbled upon the following on Delphi recently:
>
>
>MacWorld Expo/Boston Daily Summary Report / Preview
>
>Sunday, August 9, 1987
>RUMORED: HyperCard (sometimes called WildCard), will SHIP at the show.  This is
>a new product from Bill Atkinson that Apple is expected to bundle with every
>Mac sold.  We did notice that in the show guide, the following appeared in the
>description for Bantam Electronic Publishing, booth 657:
>
>  * THE COMPLETE HYPERCARD HANDBOOK by Danny Goodman.  A comprehensive guide to
>using and programming HyperCard.  Includes the only documentation available on
>HyperTalk, the program generating language for HyperCard.
>
I assume that Hypercard has been announced at the show by now, and that I
won't be stepping on any Apple corns if I post a few comments.
Having spent the last two days happily immersed in HyperCard, experimenting 
and building small examples, I can say that Goodman's book, at least the
draft I'm using, while well-intentioned, is not really up to the splendid
conception of the product itself.  Luckily the on-line help is really
nicely done, and as usual, you learn a lot by studying other people's
working scripts, especially as the system is designed to be re-constructable
in di Sessa's sense, so that rather than typing code, you are modifying
the results of cutting and pasting from an (already) rich assortment
of usable stuff.  I certainly hope the nifty (and complicated looking) examples
at the end of the Hypercard User's Guide will be on the disks.  Otherwise
almost instantly, someone will be bugging the Net to see if those stacks
have been posted.

I understand that HyperCard is being bundled with new Macs -- very clever!
Remember what MacPaint did to convince people to buy Macs in '84? However,
now there's a large crowd of existing Mac owners, and I don't see how it
will be possible to keep them from getting their hands on
HyperCard even if Apple decides to try to charge them for it. 
It's hard to imagine that anyone with a MacPlus or better would want to do
without it.  So I hope Apple will not try to stem the tide, and just let it
all flow out to a world thirsty for hypertext.  

>  * BUSINESS CLASS by Danny Goodman.  HyperCard stackware
>
I can think of at least 3 good reasons why HyperCard businessware won't
amount to much (for one, too many will wait for IBM to announce that
hypertext products will be available under the Presentation Manager in
'89 :-); for the other 2? well, of course, that would cost you!), and
the predictable pooh-poohing from "industry watchers" can be discounted.
It's those of us in the educational market who are going to have the
real fun with this product, and that's going to make the market for
"the rest of them" and sell a lot of Mac hardware to boot. 

The question now is -- what happens to Intermedia, and Boxer? and
in  general, all those neat systems running on Suns,
Apollos, RTs, Symbolics etc., which are unaffordable for most individual users,
and for most schools too, (particularly when it comes to equipping labs for
undergraduates)? Are they still interesting? Is the extra power of those
systems worth the enormously greater cost? 

And should one shed a tear for the authors of Course Builder ($299 US)
and Owl/Guide ($335)?? (see August Byte, page 263) It must be painful
to be wiped out by software that's not only better but (almost) free.
                        Peter Roosen-Runge
			...!mnetor!yetti!peter
	          or    CS100006@YUSOL  (NetNorth; BITNET)

		        Dept. of Computer Science, York University
                        4700 Keele St., North York (really Toronto), 
                        Ontario M3J 1P3


"Who is it that speaks? It is the Logos that speaks.  It is the universe
that speaks and we are the machines to translate the universe."
            Alfred Tomatis, 1978, quoted in MUSICWORKS 35
-- 
                        Peter Roosen-Runge
			...!utzoo!yetti!peter
	          or    CS100006@YUSOL  (NetNorth; BITNET)

		        Dept. of Computer Science, York University
                        4700 Keele St., North York (really Toronto), 
                        Ontario M3J 1P3



"Who is it that speaks? It is the Logos that speaks.  It is the universe
that speaks and we are the machines to translate the universe."
            Alfred Tomatis, 1978, quoted in MUSICWORKS 35