deh0654@sjfc.UUCP (Dennis Hamilton) (02/05/88)
The following refer-format bibliography items are the short collection of
reviews and articles that I catalogued in January, 1988. The peculiar
coverage stems from this being a partial bibliography, with more items
to be added as I work retrospectively through old materials and any new
arrivals. -- Dennis E. Hamilton
- - - HYPR8801.BIB - - -
%A Theodor H. Nelson
%T Managing Immense Storage
%J BYTE
%V 13
%N 1
%D January, 1988
%P 224-238
%K Xanadu Hypertext Unifying Cross-Reference Linkage Organization of Files
%X Xanalogical storage lets units be built from parts of other units and
linked together in various ways. This is meant to be a unifying solution
to the organization and clarification of files at all scales, up to
the deposit, delivery, and continual revision for simultaneous users
of hypertext, graphics, audio, movies, and hypermedia.
HUMBERS, used in the linkage mechanism, are byte strings where the
first is a 0-127 value or it is a length byte for the full number,
with the high bit set to flag the length interpretation. [There is a scheme
for variable-length coding that is being proposed as part of coding of
electronic-mail and datagrams for interchange among computers. It would seem
useful to appropriate that scheme, if practical.--dh]
TUMBLERS are hierarchical (Dewey-style) numbers formed of humbers.
They appear to impose a dense ordering on the leaf values. The tumbler space
is an "accordian-like master address space, potentially very large, that
provides for the notation of the complex relations between documents,
their ancestors and progeny, their owners, their home locations on
the network, and the expansion of the network itself." Tumblers are written
in Dewey fashion, n1.n2. ... .ni.
For Xanadu, standard PLACE TUMBLERS have form
.br
Server.0.User.0.Document.0.Contents
.br
where each component is a tumbler of one or more digits (humbers: none 0).
The SERVER parameter specifies a physical/logical location, a storage
address of some sort. USER parameters specify ownership of the item.
DOCUMENT identifies a logical entity in which materials are stored.
[Hmm, is this globally universal, or relative to Server and User?-dh]
Within the Document field, subdivisions can branch off to represent
different versions (just like Revision Control System branchings).
CONTENTS fields of form 1.byte identify bytes in 1-origin sequence (that is,
they are the ordinal positions of bytes in the corresponding document).
Contents fields of form 2.link are links. The links contained within
a document are also numbered sequentially in 1-origin sequence.
Place tumblers are of the form already discussed. SPAN TUMBLERS are
pairs of tumblers: A STARTING-PLACE TUMBLER and a DIFFERENCE TUMBLER
that specifies how far to go. The Starting-Place Tumbler identifies the
first leaf in the subtree being included. The Difference Tumbler determines
the ENDING-POINT -- the first node beyond the desired subtree. The difference
is obtained by piece-wise subtracting the Starting-Place Tumbler from the
tumbler for the point beyond the end, and simply copying the Ending-Place
information after the first non-zero position (humbler) difference is
encountered. Adding this back to the start-place tumbler operates on a
similar left-to-rigth principle in reconstructing the Ending-Place tumbler.
FEBE is the front-end-to-back-end protocol between applications and
the Xanadu system. The BEBE protocol works between nodes of the
Xanadu network, so as to "meld the contents of separate Xanadu servers
into a single unified space, where different nodes contain maps of the
whole docuverse with varying degrees of detail." BEBE is still being
defined. [I bet they have a hellish time with the naming problem!--dh]
"Today's conventional databases will not satisfy the information
needs of the noncomputing public, nor can they provide methods for
publishing the ever-more-interconnected writings now being placed on
electronic networks. It is our hope to bring the power of electronic
access to the new and sweeping literary medium of hypertext, in all
the forms that the mind can devise."
[This system also has a type-coding problem. Ah, yes, this is going
to be a wonderful set of problems related to centralized/decentralized
control.--dh]
.br
-- Dennis E. Hamilton, January 4, 1988
revised : January 30, 1988
%A Russ Lockwood
%T Hypertext Runs Under MS-DOS
%J Personal Computing
%D January, 1988
%P 236-238
%O Product Review
%K Hypertext Windows Owl Guide PS/2
%X "Guide is a hypertext program that organizes and cross-references
information without rigid data structures; it runs on IBM PS/2 and
PC AT computers and compatibles with 640k RAM, EGA video card, and
a mouse, under Microsoft Windows (a runtime version of windows is
included); 5.25-inch and 3.5-inch disks are available; a Macintosh
version is available; not copy protected; $199 retail; Owl International,
Inc., 14218 NE 21st St., Bellevue, WA 98007; (503) 747-3203."
"By the time you read this, version 2.0 of Guide, running under
Windows 2.0, will be available. Its new features will include a
new type of button, the command button, which invokes a command
language called Genesis. Genesis will access and run programs
written in C, Pascal, and other languages."
This is a highly-recommended tool.
%A Keith Ferrell
%A Selby Bateman
%T Out to Change the World: A Conversation with John Sculley
%J Compute!
%V 9
%N 12
%D December, 1987
%P 18-22
%O Interview
%K Apple Hypercard Hypertext Odyssey literacy education Knowledge
Navigator
%X "Compute!: ... Hypercard has attracted a lot of attention as an
example of the sort of interactive software that will ultimately
make the Knowledge Navigator possible. Underlying it are echoes
of hypertext -- the linkage of all information into an easily
accessible database.
"Sculley: [Current technologies have their roots in the 1960s.]
The one fundamental idea that didn't make it across from the
sixties was hypertext. I felt very strongly that hypertext had to
be in the roots of future technology.
"Compute!: Do we run the risk of hypertexting changing in
fundamental ways the nature of knowledge? Will the continuous
flow of knowledge and culture be transformed into a collection
of *snippets*, hypertexted together by key phrases rather than
concepts.
"Sculley: No, I think that what *Hypercard* will do is rather
let us avoid the problem of information doubling every three to
four years. ... Hypercard makes the process of organizing
information completely natural and intuitive. ...
I think hypertext and the zoom-trace view of being able to explore
information databases vy hyperlinks has natural appeal to computer
technologists. I also sense a non-sequiter in how this is going to
help abate the information-explosion and overload "problem." Note that
the Knowledge Navigator is the name that Sculley gives to a vision of
an *active* hypertext-like system suitable for education. Sculley sees
the Knowledge Navigator as a way of *engaging* students in ways in which
the educational system/process fails to do so today. [dh:88-01-30]
%A Knowledge Garden
%T KnowledgePro HypertExpert Systems
%I Knowledge Garden, Inc.
%C 473A Maiden Bridge Road, Nassau, NY 12123
%D 1987
%O $495 + $5 s/h for full development system;
$30 demonstration disk with credit towards full purchase;
$15 or network download for run-time system and examples
%K Hypertext Epert Systems inference list-processing inheritance
dBase III Lotus 1-2-3 interface import
%X KnowledgePro is a development environment that combines hypertext
facilities with expert-system control.
The hypertext provides for linking of related concepts, logic,
and procedures. It provides an user interface where the reader
controls the level of detail and the type of information displayed.
The expert system provides for author control. The combined
KnowledgePro processor is billed as the first system to provide
an effective, simple and aesthetic medium for the communication
of knowledge on disk.
-- information derived from advertisement in February 1988
issue of AI Expert magazine. [dh:88-01-30]
%A Pete Gannaway
%T No Profit in Xanadu
%J Personal Computing
%V 12
%N 2
%D February, 1988
%P 13
%O letter
%K Xanadu Ted Nelson hypertext objections
%X "Regarding Ted Nelson's utopian vision (`On the Road to Xanadu,'
Personal Computing, December, 1987), ...: It is a great idea which,
like all utopian ideas, will fail because it ignores the importance
of wealth and power. Ideas and informatio are produced by creativity
and lots of hard work. People want recognition and money for their
work. Xanadu offers the fruits of people's labor to the world, but
does not offer adequate compensation to the workers."
The implication is that appearance of articles and contributions in
Xanadu, an international hypertext, will dilute the opportunity for authors
to be rewarded and for advertisers to subsidize writing. The basic argument
seems to be that such a system can't servive against a free-market mechanism
for dissemination of knowledge, the structure presumed to be in place today.
[dh:88-01-30]
%A David Allen Gewirtz
%T HyperTalk and the External Commands
%I Softpress Publishing
%C Foster City, CA
%D 1987
%Z 0-945266-00-6
%O spiral "pocket reference" (5 by 11), $11.95 at Waldenbooks
%K HyperTalk HyperCard programming scripts messages commands functions
control properties communication importing
%X "HyperCard works on two levels. The first is the level where users
interact with pre-written HyperCard programs. The second skill level
is scripting using a language called HyperTalk and is where the real
power of HyperCard can be found. ... [This pocket reference] is
70 pages of tightly organized reference information. ... [It] includes
a complete summary of all HyperTalk commands, functions, control
structures, system messages, properties, constants and operators, a
detailed interface description for external commands and functions
(compiled extensions to HyperCard) and a valuable glossary of HyperCard
and HyperTalk terms. -- from the cover blurb
The HyperTalk language is very direct and very clean, being an
easy way for non-programmers to start developing their own scripts.
There are simple ways to direct user interaction and the defaults that
apply without exercise of over-riding control are natural and easy.
An useful contrast of this level is with the kinds of detail that
have to be dealt with when using a conventional programming language
to interface with Microsoft Windows.
I also notice that there is a lot of detail-independence, although
there are still places where unqualified numeric coding is used. (E.g.,
the beep command allows the ambiguous "beep 3" and does not support the
specific "beep 3 times".) While formats, tools, and objects are mostly
named, there are still numbers for userLevel and a number of values for
painting properties. Similarly, the wait command defaults to ticks when
seconds are not requested. (There are 60 ticks per second.) Display
information is sometimes in character coordinates, sometimes in pixels.
Finally, there is the usual unwarranted reliance on side-effects in
operations (e.g., an operand is often also used as source of data and the
receptacle of a result), especially in reliance on common receptacles,
"it" and "the result" for results of a number of operations. (The special
term, "me" is not so problematic, of course.)
The HyperCard metaphor is hierarchic, working from stack to background to
card to buttons and fields on cards. Any of these can be named, and any can
have an associated HyperText script. Within a stack, objects also have
unique identifiers, which can be handy for constructing absolute references.
The script of an object is usually invoked by arrival of messages, either from
other, running scripts, or from HyperCard as part of reporting user or
system activity, including the lack of all activity (idle condition). In
particular, objects can be notified of their creation and imminent destruction.
Owing to the hierarchic nature, and the use of script actions to get other
interconnections, the method of referencing objects is strictly hierarchic
(and called a chunk-expression). Implementing hypertext-level associations
off of fragments of the stored text apparently requires script intervention.
There is some nice machinery here. [dh:88-01-31]
[Note: There are other linkages and structures, but they are evidently
defined using menus separate from the HyperTalk script language. This is
evidently how HyperCard learns to present a map for the user, is given
graphic and iconic-form defintions, etc. dh:88-02-01]
%A (staff)
%T Will Hypertext Save Mankind?
%J BYTE
%V 13
%N 2
%D February, 1988
%P 14
%O Microbytes department
%K Ted Nelson Project Xanadu docuverse Hypertext Tumbler Arithmetic
%X "Calling hypertext `the next step in literature,' the man considered
the concept's creator urges software developers to adopt his approach."
At the Software Entrepreneur's Forum in Palo Alto, Nelson urged adoption
of Xanadu as a back end for software applications.
"Hypertext, said Nelson, `is a literary concept and a cultural watershed.
Hypertext is an ongoing parade of documents, linked to previous documents and
pointing to future ones.' ...
"`The present-day computer world stinks,' said Nelson, `What we see out
there is an unholy mess; ... .' In Xanadu, there is no distinction between
text, databases, spreadsheets, or any other data structure. [I *still* want
to know who is going to manage the issuance of type-and-representation codes
for this system -- dh.] Xanadu is a `write-once' system in which every
entered document is assigned an address in a huge, virtually limitless
address space. ...
"Not only does Nelson propose to revolutionize the way computers are
used; he proposes to save the human race. `The objective is to save humanity
before we send it into the garbage pail. We must remove the TV-induced
stupor that lies like a fog across the land.' Nelson said he wants to
'make the world safe for smart children.' [Gee Ted, why not start in the
third world where corruption of the gifted by TV may not be so advanced?]
"`Xanadu is not a conventional project,' Nelson said. `This is a
religion. The proper person is one whose mind is free to roam.'"
[dh:88-02-02]
%A (staff)
%T Hyperquotes from Hypertext Pioneer Ted Nelson
%J BYTE
%V 13
%N 2
%D February, 1988
%P 14
%O Nanobytes Department
%K Ted Nelson Macintosh CD-ROM Databases Chipmunks
%X "The Macintosh is simply a paper simulator. Think of all the forests
we've cut down to supply Macintosh screens. We have deforested the
American mind, my friends."
CD-ROM: "Information lords offering information to information
peons."
Database and spreadsheet concepts: "Compartmentalized and
stratified fields produce compartmentalized and stratified minds."
Programmers who prefer stick-shift cars: "[not] positioned to
design interactive ssytems. Shift cars are an inane complication
in the process of going forward and backward."
User-friendliness: "I have enough trouble socializing with
people. I don't need some object saying `good morning' to me."
Chipmunk mentality: "People rushing to the next copy of BYTE to
find the next table of instruction sets. There is very little
importance in instruction sets."
Foresight: "In 1960, I was sure screens would replace paper
publishing by 1963. I was always in the forefront, but that was
27 years ago."
[dh:88-02-02]
%A (staff)
%T Twelve Volumes of English Words Now on Two CD-ROMs
%J BYTE
%V 13
%N 2
%D February, 1988
%P 18
%O Microbytes department
%K Oxford English Dictionary OED 1928 edition no supplements A-N O-Z
%X Available from Tri Star Publishing (Fort Washington, PA) for $1250.
Is complete 1928 edition in 800 of the 1200 megabytes on two CD-ROMs.
Can search for entries, but also for specific words in the
definitions, the etymological descriptions, or the many enhancing
quotes. Example: "Find every entry that includes quotes by both
Shakespeare and Milton that contain either the words `education'
or `knowledge.'"
[dh:88-02-02]
%A (staff)
%T Hypertext Word Processing
%J BYTE
%V 13
%N 2
%D February, 1988
%P 84
%O What's New Section (product announcements)
%K Black Magic Hypertext Word Processor EGA Graphics
%X Black Magic runs on PC XT/AT compatibles with EGA graphics. It
creates hypertext documents that can integrate text and graphics
and can be viewed using CGA, EGA, or Hercules reader programs.
Price: $150.00
Contact: Ntergaid, 955 Connecticut Avenue, Bridgeport CT 06607.
(203) 368-0632.
[dh:88-02-02]
%T C Code for the PC
%J Computer Languages
%V 5
%N 2
%D February, 1988
%P 52
%O advertisement
%K Austin Code Works Data
%X The Austin Code Works, 11100 Leafwood Lane, Austin TX 78750-3409 USA
(acw!info@uunet.uu.net), (FidoNet 1:382/12), BBS: (512) 258-8831,
Voice: (512) 258-0785, advertises a number of data disks of potential
interest to Hypertexicans:
WordCruncher text retrieval & document analysis program, $275
GenBank 48.0 of 10,913 DNA Sequences with fast similarity search
program, $150
Protein Sequences (5,415 sequences with 1,302,966 residuals), with
similarity search program, $60
Webster's Second Dictionary, with 234,932 words, $60
32,000 U. S. Cities with names and longitude/latitude, plus 6,000
state boundaries, $35
Digitized World of 100,000 longitude/latitide points for world
country boundaries, $30
KST Fonts of 139 mixed fonts totalling 13,200 characters, in either
TeX or bitmap format, $30
US Naval Observatory Floppy Almanac of high-precision moon, sun,
planet & star positions, $20
National Bureau of Standards Hershey Fonts (14 fonts with 1,377
stroke characters), $15
U. S. Map with 15,701 points of state boundaries, $15
[dh:88-02-04]
%T CD-ROM Drives
%P 3
%B Rupp Brothers Catalog
%C P. O. Drawer J, Lenox Hill Station, New York, NY 10021
%D undated
%O Mailed with Dr. Dobb's Journal #136 (February, 1988)
%K CD-ROM Software Encyclopedias Hitachi CDR-1503 CDR-3500 Bookshelf
%X The Hitachi CDR-1503S is a full-height, stand-alone, front auto
load, combination CD-ROM and hi-fi CD-audio read-only laser disk.
The unit will play standard CD-audio disks. For IBM PC/XT/AT and
compatibles, $729.
The Hitachi CDR-3500 is an internal, half-height CD-ROM drive,
also with audio output, $979.
Grolier Electronic Encyclopedia CD-ROM software, $269
Microsoft Bookshelf CD-ROM software/data disk, $269
Mc-Graw Hill Science and Technical Reference Set, CD-ROM disk
data and software, $269
PC-SIG Master Disk (of public-domain software), $269
PC-SIG Sampler Disk, $99
Audio management software puts lets CD-audio disks be played
under PC control, from a "pop-up" accessory menu. CD-Play alone
is $95. Other software including tests and utilities and sampler
disks, up to $195.
[dh:88-02-04]
%T Compact Disc Optical Storage
%P 4
%B Rupp Brothers Catalog
%C P. O. Drawer J, Lenox Hill Station, New York, NY 10021
%D undated
%O Mailed with Dr. Dobb's Journal #136 (February, 1988)
%K CD-ROM WORM Optotech Laser Databank
%X 400MB WORM optical disk cartridges (2 sided, 200MB per side), $125.
5.25" srandalone Optotech Laser Databank WORM drive unit, with PC/XT/AT
interface and driver software, $2950.
A proprietary Optotech Read/Write Device Driver is used to provide complete
transparency through PC-DOS and MS-DOS, allowing access of drive by existing
software without modifications.
Recorded WORM disk cartridges are expected to last 10 years or more. [It is
also argued that CD-ROM data is permanent and doesn't need backup, but that
sounds foolish, since physical damage is certainly possible.]
[dh:88-02-04]
%T IZE
%P 4
%B Rupp Brothers Catalog
%C P. O. Drawer J, Lenox Hill Station, New York, NY 10021
%D undated
%O Mailed with Dr. Dobb's Journal #136 (February, 1988)
%K CD-ROM WORM OCR scanner software textbase management
%X IZE, Persoft's Large-Memory Storage Organization software, MS-DOS version,
$445.
Package "automatically, structures randomly entered information and the
process is dynamic. Outlines, in the form of tables of contents, are created
on the spot at will."
"With IZE you can organize, prioritize and visualize. IZE allows you to
keep track of information that may be unrelated, unstructured and unplanned.
Gather all the information into IZE, and IZE will help you locate anything you
need to know, no matter what form that information may take. And you will find
that information very quickly."
[dh:88-02-04]
%A Keith Thompson
%T Hypercard: Mac Program Revolutionary in Concept, Features --
Hypertalk Makes Programming More Accessible to Beginners
%J InfoWorld
%D October 5, 1987
%P 70-73
%O InfoWorld Software Review
%K Hypercard Hypertalk Macintosh Apple
%X SCORE 7.5: Very Good
SUMMARY: "An innovative data handling environment, Hypercard
lets you put information in stacks of index cards, then easily
link elements of the data in amazingly complex ways. Includes
rich programming language, sample card stacks. ... PROS:
Revolutionary in concept; fast data retrieval; compresses graphics
data for fast loading and reduced disk storage; easy to learn and
use as application or as programming environment; inexpensive
[$49.95; free with Macintosh purchase]. CONS: No documentation
for programming language; intermittent crashes [version tested: 1.0.1];
no vendor support.
"Call it hyperspace for data. ...
"Information -- sound, animation, music, voice, or video -- can
be stored on various cards. Several of these cards comprise a
stack. So far, it's like a simple file manager. ...
"What makes Hypercard so unlike any other software tool is the
way it relates information. Links embedded in areas of individual
cards permit you to move smoothly and quickly among cards, stacks, and
even Macintosh applications. To access the links you point to them
with the mouse and press. Links can be buttons, arrows, or text
on the card.
"Hypercard bears some similarity to Owl International's Guide,
the first hypertext tool on a PC. Like Hypercard, Guide uses a
system of hot spots in a Macintosh window to link a user to other
related information. ...
"Hypercard's on-line help system suffers from a limitation
inherent within Hypercard itself. You cannot access the Help stack
on the fly from within another stack unless you program your stack
to do that. But the Help stack is an impressive demonstration of
Hypercard on its own. ... While the help is not context sensitive,
it is interactive. For example, you can try out different features
and receive instant feedback on whether you did it right.
"Hypercard has five user levels of increasing functionality,
ranging from simple browsing to writing full-fledged scripts using
Hypertalk. ... You can graduate form one level to the next
whenever you're ready. Setting levels hides from view menus and
commands that are reserved for deeper levels. A novice doesn't
have to deal with any of the complicated stuff ... .
"In the painting and authoring levels, you can create new
stacks or modify existing stacks using ... cut-and-paste procedures.
Hypercard comes loaded with templates. ... When you cut and past
an object from these stacks ... the function of the object gets
pasted along with the graphic -- so if you copy the icon of the
phone dialer into your stack, the instructions for dialing the
phone get copied as well.
"Hypercard includes an updated set of Mac Paint tools you can
use to design card templates or add designs to individual cards."
[dh:88-02-04]
%A William Hershey
%T Guide
%J BYTE
%V 12
%N 10
%D October, 1987
%P 244-246
%O Software Review
%K OWL International Macintosh Guide 1.0 Ted Nelson Hypertext Guidelines
Envelopes Guidance
%X For the Macintosh at $134.95
"In 1965, Ted Nelson proposed hypertext, a way to link interrelated
information so computer users could jump from topic to topic, find related
subject areas, and generally extract only what they needed from large
quantities of information. ...
"While limited to text and graphics, Guide lets you create hypertext-like
documents. ... The main Guide program lets you create Guide documents (called
Guidelines), read them on the screen, save them as MacWrite documents, and
(if you insist) print them. ...
"A Guideline can be a mixture of text and graphics. ... But certain
words, phrases, or graphic objects can be `buttons' that provide links to
hidden text and graphics. Text buttons may appear in any style, but they
typically have distinctive attributes, like boldface or italics, to
distinguish them from the rest of the text."
"Clicking on [a replacement] button reveals hidden replacement text or
graphics that are inserted after the button or displayed on top of it; it's
similar to expanding a heading in an outline processor to reveal more
details.
"When you click [a note button], a pop-up text/graphic definition of the
item appears in a window ... . It remains on the screen as long as you hold
down the mouse button.
"[A reference button] opens up a new window to show a different Guideline
document (at a specific reference point within that document) or branches to
a different part of the Guideline containing the reference button.
"You can make any graphics object into a button, which means that you can
link various parts of a pixture to textual descriptions of the parts or to
exploded pictures that show more detail. ...
"The Guide Envelope system, available separately for $199.95, lets you
convert Guidelines to stand-alone applications, called Envelopes, which you
can copy and distribute to as many people as you want. ...
"The third read-only package is called Guidance, a $2500 [$500 without
distribution license] package designed to replace printed documentation
manuals with interactive, on-line, hypertext documentation. ... Guidance
is based on Guidelines, which developers can incorporate into applications
as desk accessories with context-sensitivity."
[dh:88-02-04]
--
-- orcmid {uucp: ... !rochester!sjfc!deh0654
vanishing into a twisty little network of nodes all alike}