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From: thom@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu (Thom Gillespie)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hypercard
Subject: Re: hypertext =/= HyperCard
Keywords: cards v. links; product v. concept; stacks v. The Docuverse
Message-ID: <32568@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 15 Nov 89 00:30:17 GMT
References: <6971@pt.cs.cmu.edu>
Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: thom@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu.UUCP (Thom Gillespie)
Organization: School of Education, UC-Berkeley
Lines: 33

In article <6971@pt.cs.cmu.edu> toad@nl.cs.cmu.edu (Todd Kaufmann) writes:

>HyperCard is not hypertext.  Please note the existence of comp.sys.mac.hypercard.
>
>HyperCard is ``hyper'' cards [Kimb89]; 
>  ``cards'' in the sense of NoteCards [Hala88]; 
>  hyper in the sense of buttons and graphics and other whizzy things.
>
>This is not to say there is no intersection between the two; 
> some hypertext-type things can be done within it.  
>It provides a more constrained structure and a simple language, which are
> good for some things, like: fast proto-typing, simple front-ends, and
> CAI-type uses.
>
>
>But I'd like to see more discussion of hypertext issues (especially see
>[Hala87]), rather than HyperCard trivia.

I think there is room on this discussion for 'trivial' things like stacks.

How much energy does it take to press the 'n' key to get to the next
'important' thing. 

You quoted Ted Nelson. He was called trivial for a long time. Does trivial have anything to do with the number of people interested in something? 

I have seen a lot of discussion on 'non-trivial' things which were not 
significant. I think just the fact that thousands of people who 2 years ago
couldn't spell the word hypermedia are interested in this issue indicates that
while hypercard may be trivial it is not insignificant.

Please Press 'n' to continue :-)

--Thom Gillespie