ftdkl@acad3.fai.alaska.edu (LaSota Daniel K) (09/23/90)
The mood here in Fairbanks amongst HyperCard developers is generally depressive. Its true that we don't know the whole story about the new distribution of HyperCard but we do have a real sick feeling about it. Maybe I should cross post to alt.angst Dan LaSota FTDKL%ALASKA.BITNET@CORNELLC.cit.cornell.edu (best) ftdkl@acad3.fai.alaska.edu (if you must)
leue@galen.crd.ge.com (Bill Leue) (09/24/90)
In article <1990Sep22.224859.20395@hayes.fai.alaska.edu> ftdkl@acad3.fai.alaska.edu writes: >The mood here in Fairbanks amongst HyperCard developers is generally >depressive. Its true that we don't know the whole story about the new >distribution of HyperCard but we do have a real sick feeling about it. >Maybe I should cross post to alt.angst I also got an immediate feeling of gloom when reading the press release. Gee whiz, Apple! Couldn't you have considered the timing of this one a little better? Consider: -- HC 2.0 is already quite late. I think that most people of good will were assuming that the delay was for valid technical reasons; something quite understandable, and for which we were all willing to give Apple as much time as needed to straighten things out. Now, however, a "reasonable observer" might very well wonder how much of the delay is attributable to the political decision to transfer the product to Claris -- Claris has been making itself unpopular lately by the unprecedented (for them) delay in shipping Filemaker Pro; and it looks as if Claris CAD 2.0 will be late as well. Now they can a chance to add months to HC 2.0, too. -- The press release is totally unclear as to whether Claris is adding any value of its own to HC 2.0. Since all the news has said that HC 2.0 had already "gone golden" while still an in-house Apple product, outsiders may well assume that this first release from Claris will change only the splash screen and the box color -- and, of course, add another 1-2 months delay. -- The single largest virtue of HC was its universality. Now, however, it's just another development system, with some strengths but also major weaknesses compared to competing systems. Wouldn't it have been better to ship HC 2.0 as an Apple product and THEN announce the transition to Claris while we were all happily playing with our new toys? My feeling is that Apple has tossed away tremendous amounts of good will by timing this decision they way it did. The usual disclaimers apply. Return flames cheerfully accepted. -Bill Leue leue@crd.ge.com
stm@apple.com (Steve Maller) (09/25/90)
In article <1990Sep22.224859.20395@hayes.fai.alaska.edu> ftdkl@acad3.fai.alaska.edu (LaSota Daniel K) writes: > The mood here in Fairbanks amongst HyperCard developers is generally > depressive. Its true that we don't know the whole story about the new > distribution of HyperCard but we do have a real sick feeling about it. Don't worry too much yet. We here on the engineering team haven't yet heard the fat lady sing. And if the old broad sings the _wrong_ tune, I personally will strangle her. We are fighting for what we all know is the Right Thing... Steve Maller HyperCard Engineering Team Apple Computer
a544@mindlink.UUCP (Rick McCormack) (09/25/90)
Okay - here's my 2 cents worth - just before our dreaded VAT (Value added tax) takes it to 2.07 cents, my price. I understand from a recent talk with a guy who heard from a girl who knows, etc. that Claris has indeed settled on two versions. The packaged version for distribution with Macs will be run-time, and the authoring system will be commercially distributed, no price set yet. I know, I know! just more rumor - but I have always valued the source, and he did just return from visiting Apple in their lovely home base in sunny California. The plot thickens - as does my blood. This is an unnice thing to do Apple-Claris - especially to the people who have done such a good job of promoting HC (and the Mac) to enquiring minds looking for experienced answers when they want to buy a computer. Re-think this insane two version idea!
hv@uwasa.fi (Harri Valkama LAKE) (09/25/90)
In article <10388@goofy.Apple.COM> stm@apple.com (Steve Maller) writes: >In article <1990Sep22.224859.20395@hayes.fai.alaska.edu> >ftdkl@acad3.fai.alaska.edu (LaSota Daniel K) writes: >> distribution of HyperCard but we do have a real sick feeling about it. >Don't worry too much yet. We here on the engineering team haven't yet >heard the fat lady sing. And if the old broad sings the _wrong_ tune, I >personally will strangle her. We are fighting for what we all know is >the Right Thing... Hmm. I don't want to start flaming but where were the fighting mentality of yours when they stopped thinking of ftp'able Hypercard v2.0 ? I'm still bitter about it and don't even think that the press release was any better. -- == Harri Valkama, University of Vaasa, Finland ================================ P.O. Box 700, 65101 VAASA, Finland (tel:+358 61 248426 fax:+358 61 248465) hv@uwasa.fi hv@nic.funet.fi hkv@flame.uwasa.fi harri.valkama@wmac00.uwasa.fi Moderating at chyde.uwasa.fi (128.214.12.3) & nic.funet.fi (128.214.6.100)
Jim.Matthews@dartmouth.edu (Jim Matthews) (09/25/90)
In article <1990Sep25.054326.22994@uwasa.fi>, hv@uwasa.fi (Harri Valkama LAKE) writes: > Hmm. I don't want to start flaming but where were the fighting > mentality of yours when they stopped thinking of ftp'able > Hypercard v2.0 ? I'm still bitter about it and don't even think > that the press release was any better. Whoa. Steve and Kevin and the other HyperCard engineers didn't make the decision to pull HC 2.0 from ftp access, and they didn't decide to make a runtime version. In fact, they have been remarkably candid about their resistance to those moves. The decision to move HC to Claris (and therefore to restrict free access to it) was presumably made at a very high level, and I imagine there's little that the HC team could have done to sway Apple management. Let's just hope that their efforts do succeed in heading off a runtime-only HC binary. It's hard to tell whether that decision has been made yet, so input from users and developers who don't want to deal with two HyperCards may still be worth something. Jim Matthews Dartmouth Software Development --
jpm@cs.hut.fi (Jussi-Pekka Mantere) (09/25/90)
In article <1990Sep25.054326.22994@uwasa.fi> hv@uwasa.fi (Harri Valkama LAKE):
... when they stopped thinking of ftp'able
Hypercard v2.0 ? I'm still bitter about it and don't even think
that the press release was any better.
[ IMHO, that's the general problem, too many bitter people around ... ]
To give the folks at Apple the benefit of doubt, I'll make up my mind
when I see what's going to be available at ftp.apple.com.
As Mark B. Johnson put it:
From: mjohnson@Apple.COM (Mark B. Johnson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer,comp.sys.mac.misc
Message-ID: <45061@apple.Apple.COM>
...
On another note, as soon as we get through the legal hassles that
the transfer of HyperCard to Claris and European System Software
are causing, we will open the new FTP site...until then, hang tight.
Can you see some light at the end of the tunnel? Well, maybe you
wouldn't, but I'd rather wait and see than go blindly fruit-squashing...
BTW, I'd be more upset about not having Apple Finland around than
about not being able to ftp HyperCard.
Chapejkc@Apple.COM (John Kevin Calhoun) (09/25/90)
In article <24691@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> Jim.Matthews@dartmouth.edu (Jim Matthews) writes: > Whoa. Steve and Kevin and the other HyperCard engineers didn't make the > decision to pull HC 2.0 from ftp access, and they didn't decide to make a > runtime version. In fact, they have been remarkably candid about their > resistance to those moves. The decision to move HC to Claris (and therefore > to restrict free access to it) was presumably made at a very high level, > and I imagine there's little that the HC team could have done to sway Apple > management. > > Let's just hope that their efforts do succeed in heading off a runtime-only > HC binary. It's hard to tell whether that decision has been made yet, so > input from users and developers who don't want to deal with two HyperCards > may still be worth something. Jim's right. Please just tell us what you think about the decision, and we'll do our best to present your views to the right folks. We've already sent a truckload of postings on their way down the forwarding chain. In the meantime, I'm sure it's best if Steve, Martin, and I leave our personal feelings out of the public discussion. Kevin Calhoun Lead Engineer, HyperCard 2.0 Present Company Notwithstanding
thom@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu (Thom Gillespie) (09/26/90)
In article <10388@goofy.Apple.COM> stm@apple.com (Steve Maller) writes: >In article <1990Sep22.224859.20395@hayes.fai.alaska.edu> >ftdkl@acad3.fai.alaska.edu (LaSota Daniel K) writes: >> The mood here in Fairbanks amongst HyperCard developers is generally >> depressive. Its true that we don't know the whole story about the new >> distribution of HyperCard but we do have a real sick feeling about it. > >Don't worry too much yet. We here on the engineering team haven't yet >heard the fat lady sing. And if the old broad sings the _wrong_ tune, I >personally will strangle her. We are fighting for what we all know is >the Right Thing... > >Steve Maller >HyperCard Engineering Team >Apple Computer What I think the right thing to do is to make sure everyone gets a HyperCard version which can read, write, create -- just like in the past, and just like a pencil. Low cost, functional tool. A run time version is yesterdays marketing ideas today, very backwards. HyperCard is very close to the tool for doing hyperInfo because anyone can use it and change it. In terms of selling more hardware for Apple -- I do think they make more money from Hardware than from Software -- this makes sense, in terms of Claris, they would like to skim the loot. This is not a user-friendly happening from Apple. Just a little vision would be nice. Maybe Apple could hire Stallman from GNU for a little consulting. I was just at the MacAcademy at Berkeley this weekend. Speaker after speaker said that the power of HyperCard was that the user is in control. Run-time versions take away that control. This is not directed at Steve Maller, it is directed at the Soda salesman. Let's send all our empty pepsi cans to Apple in protest. HyperCard was supposed to make the Memex come true. --Thom Gillespie
gft_robert@gsbacd.uchicago.edu (09/26/90)
---- In article <45126@apple.Apple.COM>, jkc@Apple.COM (John Kevin Calhoun) writes... [...] > >Jim's right. Please just tell us what you think about the decision, and >we'll do our best to present your views to the right folks. We've already >sent a truckload of postings on their way down the forwarding chain. > OK, here's what I think about the decision, based on what little I know about it: I would begin an earnest search for saboteurs in the upper ranks of Apple management. I say this tongue-in-cheek of course, but I really have to wonder why anyone would decide to just throw away one of Apple's competitive advantages vis-a-vis Windows: the bundling of a complete personal development system with every computer sold. Contrast this with ToolBook, or whatever it's called. It really seems that this move can only hurt Apple and help Microsoft. I've got an MBA, and as much as I'll defend Apple, I'm really left somewhat bewildered by management decisions during the last 2 years. Thanks for forwarding it on. No one blames the engineers. Robert ============================================================================ = gft_robert@gsbacd.uchicago.edu * generic disclaimer: * "It's more fun to = = * all my opinions are * compute" = = * mine * -Kraftwerk = ============================================================================
gollman@tuvie (Georg Gollman) (09/26/90)
Just for the record: In the HC 2.0 Training Course stack (on the Disky Business CD-ROM) there is a section "Common User Questions". One of the items reads: Q: Is Apple planning to unbundle HyperCard ? A: Absolutely not. HyperCard is a key piece of the Apple platform. It offers functionality that our users expect, and Apple will continue to offer and enhance that functionality. So what's going on. Is the press release a fake or has the developer community been wilfully misinformed (note the restrained wording, it has been a major effort 1/4 :-). Dipl. Ing. Georg Gollmann USENET: gollman@tuvie.at TU Wien, EDVZ BITNET: gollmann@egraph.una.at
cpk@valideast.COM (NANJIL NESAN) (09/26/90)
I join the ranks of the disappointed and bitter. We have just developed a hypercard based analysis software which we were going to distribute to our customer base. This would have given Apple added visiblity in the important Electronic Design Automation Market. Now we cannot distribute it since we cannot be sure who will buy or not buy the hypercard 2.0. It is strange that Apple's management will make such a crucial decision undermining it's customer's confidence when they most need it. -- C. Kumar Valid Logic Systems, PCB Division, 2 Omni Way Chelmsford, MA. (508) 256-2300 !uunet!valideast!cpk
kraig@biostr.biostr.washington.edu (Kraig Eno) (09/27/90)
Another opinion for the world to see, here. I long ago resigned myself to using h/w and s/w based on what it can do for me now, and largely ignoring promises about the future. All that I hear about 2.0 on the technical front is very promising, and I'd love to get it, but if it's not free, I don't need it. I have no use at all for a "runtime" version, since I make most of my stacks myself for my own purposes. I'll just keep on using 1.2.5 (unless they've put in a time bomb that will render it useless after the new version appears), and I think many others will do the same. Talk about a waste of effort for the development team! I think that's what would cause so much chagrin on their part. I appreciate Chuq's presence in the discussion here. I hope his projections about the availability of scripting in 2.0 are true, but like so many others, I can't see how Claris could add enough value to make a "developer version" worth paying for once I get my hands on a full working version of the program itself. Certainly, I wouldn't give more than about $25 for all the debuggers and manuals and examples in the world. Heaven knows I've done without them up to this point! :) Kraig Eno, kraig@biostr.washington.edu "To Coin a Phrase, I'm Perplexed." -- James Gaskin
francis@arthur.uchicago.edu (Francis Stracke) (10/05/90)
In article <1990Sep25.211247.21185@midway.uchicago.edu> gft_robert@gsbacd.uchicago.edu writes: >[...] >OK, here's what I think about the decision, based on what little I know about >it: I would begin an earnest search for saboteurs in the upper ranks of Apple >management. > >I say this tongue-in-cheek of course, but I really have to wonder why anyone ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Hey, don't be too sure. Maybe Microsoft has corrupted some Apple people. I wouldn't put anything past the beings that shipped a version of Windows that didn't let you resize horizontally or tile your windows. (Or, for that matter, created Word--much as I love it, it's NOT a true MacProgram, eh?) | Francis Stracke | My opinions are my own. I don't steal them.| | Department of Mathematics |=============================================| | University of Chicago | A mathematician is a professional | | francis@zaphod.uchicago.edu | schizophrenic.--Me. |
francis@arthur.uchicago.edu (Francis Stracke) (10/05/90)
In article <38814@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> thom@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu.UUCP (Thom Gillespie) writes: > >What I think the right thing to do is to make sure everyone gets a HyperCard >version which can read, write, create -- just like in the past, and just like >a pencil. Low cost, functional tool. A run time version is yesterdays >marketing ideas today, very backwards. HyperCard is very close to the tool >for doing hyperInfo because anyone can use it and change it. In terms of Has anybody looked into setting up a newsboard that would contain stacks? Then you could write a HyperCard-based interface that would access the net for you (does a stack to read news now exist?), download, & put you into the stack directly. (Or, perhaps, with appleEvents, another app could access the net, & tell HyperCard to open up the downloaded files.) >This is not directed at Steve Maller, it is directed at the Soda salesman. > >Let's send all our empty pepsi cans to Apple in protest. Huh? (In the first place, why would we have empty PEPSI cans--unless we had maliciously dumped the gunk out on the ground? In the 2nd, well, basically, huh?) > >HyperCard was supposed to make the Memex come true. What's the Memex? | Francis Stracke | My opinions are my own. I don't steal them.| | Department of Mathematics |=============================================| | University of Chicago | A mathematician is a professional | | francis@zaphod.uchicago.edu | schizophrenic.--Me. |
clarson@ux.acs.umn.edu (Chaz Larson) (10/05/90)
In article <38814@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> thom@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu.UUCP (Thom Gillespie) writes: >HyperCard was supposed to make the Memex come true. Oh, please. Hypercard was supposed to sell Macintoshes. chaz -- -- "I Am The Reincarnation of Abraham Lincoln", Insists Prince. -spew clarson@ux.acs.umn.edu AOL:Crowbone
viking@copper.ucs.indiana.edu (Jon W. Backstrom) (10/05/90)
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...) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
thom@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu (Thom Gillespie) (10/06/90)
>>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. > ... >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). > ... >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...) > Jon W. Backstrom Interactive Multimedia and Electronic Publishing A couple of corections Jon. Aple marketing didn't decide to rename WildCard to HyperCard, they had to since there was already a product on the market which used the name Wildcard. I think it was a firmware board for the Apple 2 to defeat copy protection. It's true that "...HyperCard was *not* supposed to make the memex come true" but there is an obvious historical line of development from Bush's Memex thru the Augment system, the hypertext/media concept, the Dynabook, to HyperCard. All this development is to organize information: visual, aural, textual, etc in a way that has some cognitive fidelity to the way people think -- remember Bush's article in the Atlantic Monthly [ As we may think, July 1945, 101-108 ] was a reaction to the death and destruction of World War 2 -- people don't think like Library of Congress subject headings of ISBNs, we associate things in strange fashion: size, color, time, smell. Bush had no idea how this was going to work anymore than he had any idea of the media which would be used. He used microfilm because that was the 'current' technology in 1945. If you hook up a a color mac with Mac Recorder, a flat bed scanner, a laser disk, a worm drive, and HyperCard to provide the associative link-to-ness then you have a working version of the Memex. The only thing missing are the direct brain links...next year maybe :-> Stop s-i-g-h-i-n-g Jon --Thom Gillespie