Xref: utzoo alt.hypertext:322 comp.org.ieee:125 Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucsd!ames!pacbell!hoptoad!gnu From: gnu@hoptoad.uucp (John Gilmore) Newsgroups: alt.hypertext,comp.org.ieee Subject: "IEEE Standards Launches Hypertext Series", quote with comment Message-ID: <8014@hoptoad.uucp> Date: 16 Jul 89 20:53:22 GMT Organization: Grasshopper Group in San Francisco Lines: 100 This arrived in the Summer 1989 IEEE Standards Catalog, page 5. "IEEE Standards Launches Hypertext Series by Jay Iorio IEEE Standards Department Manager of Information Systems Very soon, the IEEE Standards Department will begin to release selected standards in a new electronics form -- hypertext. For the reader, a hypertext document allows for easy and intuitive access by linking dispersed yet interrelated information throughout a document or series of documents. Hypertext is especially suited to highly structured techhical works like standards. The implicit outline in such documents constitutes one level of organization that can be mimiced electronically. Once freed of its paper two-dimensionality, the electronic version can be organized using any number of coexisting schemes. At its most evolved, this browsing methodology begins to mimic our thought processes. A major criterion for selecting a standard to convert to a hypertext document is how much extra value this method would offer the reader. For example, a family of related standards might be a good candidate for this treatment. Our first product will be a hypertext version of IEEE Std 1003.1-1988, Standard Portable Operating System Interface for Computer Environments -- the POSIX standard -- prepared using HyperTRANS(TM)* Software from Texas Instruments. This book is the first in a series. As new POSIX standards are published, they will be added and linked to the first, and sold as a collection. Eventually, after the entire series is published, you will have the choice of purchasing either close to 5,000 pages of paper documentation -- or simply a disk (maybe a set of floppies, maybe a CD-ROM...) that contains the whole series in an intricately interrelated fashion. What does the customer need in order to use such products? The POSIX pilot project will initially run only on MS- DOS microcomputers (IBM PC compatibles), owing to the popularity of these machines. If there is sufficient demand for Macintosh or other (POSIX?) versions, we will be able to provide them. Crucial to the buyer is the fact that everything needed in order to use this product will come *with* the product. In the case of IEEE Std 1003.1-1988, the text and the necessary software will come on a single 5.25" DS/SS 360-K diskette. In order to develop hypertext products that meet the needs of our users, we'd like to get your comments or suggestions. The opinions of the IEEE standards community are invaluable in making these decisions. Please call me directly at (212) 705-7150. * HyperTRANS is a trademark of Texas Instruments Incorporated." What follows is my personal reaction. Flame on. WHAT THE HELL DO THESE ASSHOLES THINK THEY'RE DOING?!!!? They take a perfectly good standard, which was edited by Unix people in machine readable form on Unix machines, refuse to release the machine readable copy (reportedly to protect their revenue stream from the overpriced paper copies) and then turn around and shove an MSDOS pointy-clicky "hype-text" implementation at us! We don't need any crud "hype-text" version of IEEE standards. What we need is straight ASCII versions on media common in the POSIX community. Like 9-track reel-to-reel tapes. Or uucp archives. They could make a floppy version if demand warrants, but 5-inch floppy? Why not 8-inch? Does anybody still BUILD machines with 5-inch 360K floppies? If they really wanted to benefit the industry they'd release it for copying by anyone -- then we could just get it in two minutes' Telebit time from uunet, or from a local user group, or from the Austin Code Works if we really wanted a floppy version. The really galling part is that they only release this product for MSDOS. "Here you go, the standard the Unix community has slaved away at for years, in a nice machine readable form." But most of our machines can't read it, and the only ones that can execute it are the cruddy Intel DOS machines that have set the industry back for the last eight years. How much do you want to bet that "Hyper"TRANS will not let a full, sequential copy of the document in straight ascii to be output? At least we could buy this product, rent a DOS machine, point and click at it with one finger while holding our noses, output a real copy of the document, and move it over a serial port to a Unix system. But I bet they have cut out that option, if TI even put it in their software in the first place. There are several systems on Unix that are evolving toward true hypertext. It won't be possible to put a copy of this standard into them, though. It's stuck on a proprietary MSDOS pointy clicky product. Thank you, IEEE. -- John Gilmore {sun,pacbell,uunet,pyramid}!hoptoad!gnu gnu@toad.com "And if there's danger don't you try to overlook it, Because you knew the job was dangerous when you took it"