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From: viking@copper.ucs.indiana.edu (Jon W. Backstrom)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hypercard
Subject: Re: HyperCard sellout
Message-ID: <62350@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu>
Date: 5 Oct 90 08:35:10 GMT
References: <1990Sep22.224859.20395@hayes.fai.alaska.edu> <10388@goofy.Apple.COM> <38814@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <1990Oct4.175541.17442@midway.uchicago.edu>
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In article <1990Oct4.175541.17442@midway.uchicago.edu> francis@arthur.uchicago.edu (Francis Stracke) writes:
>In article <38814@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> thom@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu.UUCP (Thom Gillespie) writes:
>>
>>HyperCard was supposed to make the Memex come true.
>What's the Memex?

This really *bugs* me...HyperCard was *not* supposed to make the memex
come true.  It started as a free-form object-oriented database program
named Wildcard, I believe...hence the WILD creator type for stacks.

The memex was an device envisioned to organize and associatively link
a vast amount of information (microfilm was proposed in this concept,
first ventured by Vannavar Bush in 1945).  Ted Nelson drew from this
concept and coined the term "hypertext" when he concluded that
computers could be used to realize the functionality of Bush's memex.

Just when hypertext and hypermedia became such buzzwords in the late
80's Apple marketing decided to rename WildCard to HyperCard...and
there we are.  HyperCard can do some wonderful things and it can work
for developing certain hypertext/hypermedia documents, but it wasn't
supposed to be a memex.

(...sigh...)

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 Jon W. Backstrom             Interactive Multimedia and Electronic Publishing
 Applied Digital Arts
 5601 N. Tunnel Road            Internet: viking@copper.ucs.indiana.edu
 P.O. Box 176                   UUCP: {ames,rutgers,att}!iuvax!copper!viking
 Bloomington, IN  47402-0176    BITNET: viking@iubacs
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