fischer@iesd.dk (Lars P. Fischer) (04/01/89)
In article <179@opus.NMSU.EDU> lrasmuss@dante.nmsu.edu (Linda Rasmussen) writes: >These hypertext products are currently available for UNIX: >--KMS... >--GUIDE... >EMACS INFO... Both GUIDE and Emacs Info are based on browsing static collections of text. An author creates a hypertext document (e.g. a manual), using some form of document language to set up links, create document structure, etc. A reader can then browse the document using the links. You cannot add links dynamically, based on your own ideas of information relations, say. Neither can you use these systems to create database-like systems, the way you do in HyperCard. I would really like to see a dynamic hypertext system for unix, possibly based on a network server... INFO is very nice for browsing documentation, by the way. Much better than standard unix manual-pages. /Lars -- Lars Fischer, fischer@iesd.dk, {...}!mcvax!iesd!fischer Dept. of Math. and Comp. Sci., University of Aalborg Strandvejen 19, DK-9000 Aalborg, DENMARK Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. -- Arthur C. Clarke
fischer@arisia.Xerox.COM (Ronald A. Fischer) (04/04/89)
Guide on UNIX is the original version from U of Edinborough (sp), which is different from the Mac version. The Mac one does allow you to create links dynamically. NoteCards is availible under UNIX (from ENVOS Corp.) and also allows completely dynamic link creation either by the user or under program control (if you're not Lisp paranoid). I posit that the reason the folks on comp.sys.hypercard spend all of their time talking about programming problems is their limited language, HyperTalk. (ron)
uevans@mcnc.org (Elizabeth A. Evans) (04/04/89)
>In article <179@opus.NMSU.EDU> lrasmuss@dante.nmsu.edu (Linda Rasmussen) writes: >>These hypertext products are currently available for UNIX: >>--KMS... >>--GUIDE... >>EMACS INFO... Does anybody know if the KMS system can run at least minimally from ASCII terminals? I requested info on it for Suns and from the literature it looks like it requires a console. Most of our users log into Suns from microcomputers and don't have consoles. If they could still access the info in KMS (without windows, etc), it could be useful to us. Thanks in advance. -- Elizabeth A. Evans internet: uevans@med.unc.edu Office of Information Systems usenet: ...!mcnc!uncmed!uevans UNC-CH Chapel Hill, NC
fischer@arisia.Xerox.COM (Ronald A. Fischer) (04/04/89)
Apple Computer is one of the larger sponsors of the InterMedia project at Brown University. I suppose that at some point they're likely to release it out on their higher end workstations. There's an interesting story behind this which goes something like this: Brown ported MacApp or some portion of the Mac toolbox calls onto UNIX to support their development of IM. Intermedia now depends heavily on this code. Apple is one of a consortium of sponsors for IM. The sponsors have varying rights to the resulting code. For Apple this is a drag because they don't have exclusive proprietary rights (unless this has changed). I wonder if Apple has required the other sponsors to separately license from them the user interface technology used in Intermedia? That could give Apple a strong position. Apple's problem will be integrating embedded editors with its existing toolbox in a compatible way, in addition to allowing compound documents, although the latter could be acheived by substructuring text forks. Systems like InterMedia (or ENVOS NoteCards) are to HyperCard as Microsoft Write is to Microsoft Word, or Assembly language is to Modula-3. Unfortunately these kind of relations make it hard to provide upward compatibility, since one tends to hook deeply into low level systems like HyperCard to accomplish the things that are missing. Perhaps we'll have a division of the Hypertext market into entry level and professional tools. Remember that in a few years Apple's next generation OS and tools like Intermedia will make the current toolbox and HyperCard look like the Apple // tools seem to us today. (ron) Ron Fischer ENVOS Corp. 1157 San Antonio Rd. Mountain View, CA 94043 415-966-6206
fischer@arisia.Xerox.COM (Ronald A. Fischer) (04/05/89)
I called IRIS regarding Intermedia last year. They indicated that if I wanted to find out more I would have to join IRIS and pay about $10,000. That is for state of the art info, there were several papers published on Intermedia a while ago. You'd probably have better luck in a library actually. (ron) PS- MacWeek contains the rumor that Apple and Brown will announce a co-marketing agreement for Intermedia at a Dallas show next month. The software will be provided without any customer support and only under A/UX. If its true this is an interesting dip of toe in the water.
mcw@ukc.ac.uk (Mark Wheadon) (04/05/89)
In article <669@arisia.Xerox.COM> fischer@arisia.Xerox.COM (Ronald A. Fischer) writes: >Guide on UNIX is the original version from U of Edinborough (sp), >which is different from the Mac version. The Mac one does allow you >to create links dynamically. No. The Mac and PC versions of guide are marketed by OWL, who are based in Edinburgh. The UNIX version of guide was developed here at the University of Kent at Canterbury by Prof. Peter Brown and is available, for a modest sum, for the Sun3 (SunView or X11) and VAXstations (Ultrix+X11). For more details contact Judith Farmer, The Computing Laboratory, The University, Canterbury, Kent CT2 7NF, ENGLAND, or e-mail me. Mark Wheadon (mcw@ukc.ac.uk)