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From: jac@steppenwolf.rutgers.edu (Jonathan A. Chandross)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac,news.groups
Subject: Re: Call for votes: comp.binaries.hypercard -- suggestion, info
Message-ID: <3581@steppenwolf.rutgers.edu>
Date: 28 Feb 88 22:29:56 GMT
References: <18323@topaz.rutgers.edu> <6848@drutx.ATT.COM> <1037@athos.rutgers.edu>
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
Lines: 21

The point was made several times about "the hypercard is graphically oriented, 
and this precludes portability."  Something has been overlooked in all the
discussions:  postscript.

Postscript is not only portable, but interpreters exist on a wide variety of
machines.  This hypothetical Mac to postscript converter need not be terribly 
efficient - i.e. large, slow programs are acceptable.  It just has to work.
This converter would seem to be fairly easy to write given a description of 
how the stacks store images.

Sound is a totally different matter.  But I don't think not having sound 
facilities would render a the hypercard stacks completely useless.  Maybe 
now is the time for an portable music format which functions analogously to 
postscript. This would take care of machines which have sound capability
like the Mac, Atari, Apple ][ GS, and Amiga, to name a few.  



Jonathan A. Chandross
ARPA: jac@paul.rutgers.edu
UUCP: rutgers!jac@paul.rutgers.edu