Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ucbvax!UIAMVS.BITNET!AWCTTYPA
From: AWCTTYPA@UIAMVS.BITNET ("David A. Lyons")
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: HyperCard
Message-ID: <8801092210.aa23894@SMOKE.BRL.ARPA>
Date: 10 Jan 88 03:44:01 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Distribution: world
Organization: The ARPA Internet
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X-Unparsable-Date: Saturday 09 Jan 88 9:13 PM CT

>Date:         Sat, 9 Jan 88 19:07:29 EDT
>From:         CS656%OUACCVMB.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU (Bob Church)
>Subject:      Hypercard

>Would Hypercard be considered more of an Operating system, programming
>language, or both/neither.

Well, it's not *just* a programming language, and it's not *the* Operating
System (since the real Mac OS is still there).  I consider it a very large
piece of application software.  Apple considers it "system software," I
think, so they can bundle it with the system.  Also, Apple is no longer in
the Application software business; Claris is doing the application software.

>I don't own a Mac, and from what I've heard
>Hypercard is now my only impetus to buy one.
>[...]

I'm not sure I understand; previously you had *no* impetus to buy a Mac, or
you someone convinced you that your previous reasons for wanting a Mac were
bad?

>Is stackware written by Hypercard or for it with Assembly, C, etc?

Yes.  All of the above.  Generally it's written just by using Hypercard--you
move things around, choose options from dialog boxes, etc, and have a simple
piece of stackware.  You can write in their script language (called HyperText)
to attach special actions to different actions on things.

If you need to, you can write external commands (XCMDs) and external functions
(XFCNs) in other languages (Assembly, C, Pascal, etc.) and call them by name
from your HyperText scripts.

>And back to the original point that was brought up, about Hypercard
>being ported to the //GS, is it the way in which Hypercard itself works,
>or the way in which it uses Mac technology. That is, would it be as unique
>if it was running on a IIGS?

I'm not sure if this is what you're asking, but the biggest problems with
porting HC to the IIgs are speed (it might be hard to make the IIgs version
work fast enough) and differing screen resolution.  It would/will be tricky
to port existing Stackware to IIgs HyperCard.

>I should point out that I have never had the chance to use Hypercard. [...]

You should *definitely* go play with it for a couple of hours at an Apple
dealer sometime.

--David A. Lyons  a.k.a.  DAL Systems
  PO Box 287 | North Liberty, IA 52317
  BITNET: AWCTTYPA@UIAMVS
  CI$: 72177,3233