Apple's 'Hypercard': promise equals hype - Software Review - evaluation

Software Magazine, Feb, 1988 by Len Horton

APPLE'S 'HYPERCARD': PROMISE EQUALS HYPE

One evening last fall, executives, secretaries, graphic artists, programmers and a few people off the street all tried to merge into one large room at the Omni Hotel in Atlanta. Yet, there were no bands playing, no rock groups or movie stars. There was just Bill Atkinson and Hypercard.

When demonstrated by Atkinson, Hypercard is the one product for the Apple Macintosh that generates as much enthusiasm as the Mac itself. After all, how many new products lead IBM to counter with an announcement of its own? IBM wants everyone to know that it will soon have a similar product, if not Hypercard itself, available for its new PS products.

Already, OWL International has Guide and Quickview Systems has Zoomracks, but neither product is designed to be a programming environment for nonprogrammers.

With all the attention on Hypercard, is it really that special?

Yes. Hypercard is designed to be computer programming for the rest of us. Even using an English-like programming language, as simple as WIPL (Wisconsin Interactive Programming Language), Hypercard enables real people (nonprogrammers) to write real programs that solve real problems. It uses a deck of cards as a metaphor. After examining Hypercard, one can see that a deck of cards can be used to represent almost anything-from records in a database to pictures to pages in a book to maps ... to desktops.

And any card in the deck can be linked to any other card, there is no wasted time flipping through hundreds of cards to reach a related card. And special codes aren't needed, like or some other exciting command. Instead a user just clicks on a button. The really exciting part is that one doesn't have to be very smart to set up such a button system. Studying Hypercard manuals is required, but it won't take up nearly as much time as learning to program in dBase.

For users, part of the attraction of the Mac is its relative ease of use and the fact that the Mac doesn't require esoteric coding. Such ease of use is also what makes Hypercard so interesting to so many people.

It is said to work the way people think. What an advantage and a disadvantage-few people think the same way. So Hypercard's major strength may turn out to be its major weakness.

Hypercard is great for creating an individual information system. But if the individual decides to create such a system for others, the advantages of Hypercard may disappear unless the Hypercard programmer takes pains to try to be logical and systematic. Unfortunately, as the application is adjusted to make it more like other applications, tradeoffs may penalize the individual.

A brilliant thinker could create a brilliant Hypercard program by taking advantage of the program's ability to link information in logical and not so logical ways. But if a user happens to think illogically (as we all do at times), then Hypercard may produce some of the worst programs ever written.

There are those who say that Hypercard can do anything. Others say it cannot replace a DBMS. Looking at its features, one cannot generate lists of records and see them on the screen. Atkinson is working on it.

But considering it's free when you buy a new Mac, what do you expect? If you already have a Mac, it costs $49. Look out, Borland, here comes Apple.

Okay, so it's cheap and it's not perfect. And maybe its performance has been exaggerated by the hype. But for now, Hypercard is the best example available to demonstrate how hypermedia can help users of personal computers. For now, that is definitely good enough.