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From: mrwittma@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Martin R. Wittmann)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Free form PC database
Message-ID: <7999@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
Date: 27 Apr 89 22:55:16 GMT
References: <111700071@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu> <4577@megatest.UUCP>
Reply-To: mrwittma@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Martin R. Wittmann)
Organization: Princeton University, NJ
Lines: 43

In article <4577@megatest.UUCP> palowoda@megatest.UUCP (Bob Palowoda) writes:
>From article <111700071@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu>, by mms00786@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu:
>> 
>> Fill your IBM with cement, fly over Boca Raton, drop it, buy a macintosh,
>> comes with free Hypercard, live happily ever after.
>> 
>> Frustrated.
>
>  ................................... Your idea suggesting the
>  person go out and spend 2-3 thousand is rediculous. But your
>  right I would be frustrated also if I had to buy two computers.
>
>  ---Bob 

The first reply above is the most amusing (and perhaps most tempting, if
practically realizeable) proposed solution to my query that I (the
original requestor) have seen.  However, I have a laptop, so:
	* I'm afraid dropping it over Boca Raton wouldn't make a big
		enough impact on IBM;
	* It still beats the Mac for portability (...oh, for a laptop
		Mac!).

Thanks for the many e-mail and net replies.  Some who replied were not
aware that *freemacs* DOES have an Info mode, available in a separate
archive from Clarkson U. and Simtel20.  I still am not sure how suitable
Info would be for creating a free-form, hypertext-ish, database.
Someone wrote me that Info files are *quite* structured and awkward to
create and maintain.  Any comments?

I haven't gotten any responses from satisfied users of MaxThink or
Houdini (are there none?).  The HYPERTEXT.ARC package on Simtel is
"interesting," but (a) doesn't allow links to different parts of a
*single* file, which would seem to lead to an explosion in the number of
files, (b) is oriented toward *static* hypertext (not very easily
modifiable by the user), (c) is incomplete, requiring MaxThink or
Houdini to create the top level Net files, and (d) would be difficult
to force to extract sections of a list of links into a single new
document.

So why ISN'T there a HyperCard for the PC?

martin wittmann			(mrwittma@phoenix.princeton.edu)
#include <disclaimer.h>