Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!apple!jkc
From: jkc@Apple.COM (John Kevin Calhoun)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hypercard
Subject: Re: Hypercard 2.1...(long & slightly off-subject!)
Message-ID: <53120@apple.Apple.COM>
Date: 20 May 91 21:21:56 GMT
References: <3586@spim.mips.COM> <32946@usc> <53000@apple.Apple.COM>
Organization: Apple Computer Inc., Cupertino, CA
Lines: 43


In article <53000@apple.Apple.COM> robg@Apple.COM (Rob Griffiths) writes:
>If Apple were only out to make scads of money, they (my opinions,
>remember!) would never have given away the original Hypercard.  Bill
>Atkinson agreement or no, they would've found a way to charge for the
>product.

I think that Apple "gave away" the original HyperCard because enough
people here thought that it would help to differentiate Macintoshes
from other PCs and to sell more Macintoshes.  I think that Apple
stopped giving HyperCard away because enough of those same people
decided that it didn't do that well enough to justify the cost.

>Oh yea, for the record...I hope we find a way to continue the current
>distribution of HyperCard.  It was this package that really got me
>interested in the Macintosh all those years ago...

I think that a general authoring tool should be readily and cheaply
available.  However, I don't think that there will be much of a
demand for it until far more content is readily and cheaply available.
When there's a lively interchange of digital news, instruction,
entertainment, and gossip, after we've solved the various problems
that keep us from passing these things around, then far more people
will want an authoring tool that helps them to create, store, and
arrange such things.  And when that day comes, we'll need something
better than HyperCard.

>                                       Kevin Calhoun and the rest
>of the Hypercard team aren't required to read comp.sys.mac.hypercard,
>and answer user's questions, comments, and concerns (Right, Kevin??).
>But they do...

No, I'm not required to read this newsgroup.  But I get a lot of good
bug reports here.  And I don't get enough opportunities to hear directly
from people who use HyperCard what they think of it.  So I do it, even
when it's painful.

Thanks for your comments, Rob.

Kevin Calhoun
jkc@apple.com
-----
No unusual disclaimers need apply.  (Although the usual ones do.)