PD ROM 1/PD ROM Volume I - Macintosh Software from BMUG (1988).iso/Electronic Messages/Delphi Digests/Delphi Vol. 3/Delphi 3.39

Text File | 1988-04-08 | 22.3 KB | 459 lines | [TEXT/ttxt]

15-Aug-87 10:07:35-PDT,23270;000000000001
Date: Sat 15 Aug 87 12:13:04-GMT
From: Jeff Shulman <SHULMAN@SDR>
Subject: Delphi Mac Digest V3 #39

Delphi Mac Digest     Friday, January 1, 1904        Volume 3 : Issue 39

Today's Topics:
     Re: Re: PopUp menus
     Bill Campbell's Expo Keynote Speech
     Bill Atkinson talks about HyperCard

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From: BRECHER
Subject: Re: Re: PopUp menus
Date: 14-AUG 23:06 MUGS Online

To: [e-mail] (Grado) Subject: Re: Re: PopUp menus

>    Has anybody used the function TrackPopUp from INFO-MAC developed
>  by Steve Brecher? (MPW-TRACKPOPUP-SAMPLECODE.HQX).

Yes.

>    It requires a bunch of Pascal-ish macros he did not include in the
> distribution file and which are "Loaded" from a symbol table called
> SBMacs.d (Steve Brechers Macros I presume).

As originally distributed, the package contains an assembly listing
which shows macro expansions.  Perhaps the listing file did not get to
INFO-MAC from Delphi.

Regardless, note that SBMacs.d is a dump of two macro files: one is very
similar to ProgStructMacs, which is distributed with MPW 2.0; the other
is a small set of convenience macros such as Push and Pop.

------------------------------

From: PEABO
Subject: Bill Campbell's Expo Keynote Speech
Date: 14-AUG 23:55 Business Mac

This is a report on the Thursday keynote speech at the Macworld Expo.
Bill Campbell spoke for about 45 minutes.  This report was prepared by
Peter Olson (PEABO on DELPHI) and any inaccuracies are due to my
transcription of the substance of the speech, which I have done in my
own words to a large extent (I'm not a stenographer!).  If you would
like to post this or reprint it, please do so in its entirety.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Bill Campbell walked up to the podium and introduced himself as the new
President of Claris, the company Apple has formed to take over
application software development:  This is my first public appearance
since Claris was created, and I want to share with you my view of the
industry.  I'm pretty sure all of you are cranked up now by seeing
products such as HyperCard, and we are too, as soon-to-be Apple
developers.

Now, I know you'd all like to hear something about what Claris will be
doing, and I hate to disappoint you but you won't hear any leaks from
the top here today.  What I want to do is clear up any confusion about
what is Claris and what will we be doing.

[In the next few paragraphs, when Bill says "we" he is referring to
Apple Computer, not Claris.]

First of all, let me explain why Claris was formed.  Apple's software
strategy has not been clear the past few years.  We have had five
strategic products: Appleworks, MacWrite, MacPaint, MacProject, and
MacDraw.  A lot of us thought Apple should bring new products to market
in order to push the technology forward.  MacWrite and MacPaint were
very well done as ground-breaking applications.  I myself was not in
favor of aggressive development by Apple, because I thought that
Appleworks, for example, had nearly locked out any competition in word
processing, spreadsheets, and databases for the Apple // line.  But
within Apple we (Jean-Louis Gassee, Mike Spindler, Larry Tesler, and I)
believed very strongly that it was necessary for someone to be
publishing break-through applications.

4th Dimension from ACI was a product we felt Apple should label, and the
product was even being seeded, but Omnis, Helix, and Ashton-Tate were
very concerned that we would be taking away their business.  We decided
that the threat to our third party developers was too great, so we
turned 4D back to ACI [and from there it has been picked up by Guy
Kawasaki's new company Acius].  We decided that Apple should get out of
the software application business, and we prepared a paper for John
Sculley which outlined 3 ways this could be done:

    *  We could sell the products we had individually.
    *  We could sell the products as a group.
    *  We could spin off the products as a kernel for a new company
       we would form.

Al Eisenstadt (Senior V.P. in development) recommended the third choice,
with the addition that we should do it right and make sure the new
company was adequately funded.

[Bill now begins to use "we" to refer to Claris.]

What this means for Apple is that there is now another company with a
very strong focus toward Macintosh software development.  The primary
mission of Claris is to produce innovative software and market it for
the Macintosh, first and best.  And secondarily, we are very interested
in the cottage industry of small developers with bright ideas, who we
feel will be a good source for future Macintosh products.  We will be
developing, publishing and SUPPORTING innovative software for Apple
products.

Early on, after the news of the Apple software spinoff became public
knowledge, Guy Kawasaki was quoted in the San Jose Mercury-News as
saying the new company should be named BCIUS, for "Bill Campbell
Inherits Used Software".  Well, we went back to the Latin and came up
with CLARUS meaning "Campbell-Labelled Apple-Rejected Used Software" but
we decided to change the U to an I for Inspired!

We recognize that just having Appleworks, MacWrite, MacPaint,
MacProject, and MacDraw is not a strategy for success, but that's what
we are starting out with.

The difference is that we are adding support.  This is the first phase
of building Claris.

The second phase is to make key acquisitions of new software products
and to begin development.  It is here that we will be making key
strategic decisions about build or buy.

The third phase is to identify key technologies that we need to bring
in-house. We do not intend to be just a quick-turnaround publishing
company.  We believe that great products start with great ideas.

One of the things that will be different about Claris from Apple is
support.  In the old days, you went to your Apple dealer, bought your
Mac with MacWrite and MacPaint, and that was the end of it.  You were on
your own except for occasional upgrades you got by taking your disk into
your dealer.  We will change that completely.

There are a few more things you should expect to see from us.  One is
innovative marketing.  We are going to have a very clear idea of our
target market segment and how to bring new electronic metaphors to it.
We are going to have a strong international presence from day one.
Localization is an important competitive weapon.

Yet, there will be some tremendous challenges ahead of us.  It is true
that we don't have a base of tremendous new technology (yet).  Our MIS
support, distribution channels, finances, and strategy are not built up
yet.  We need to formulate our acquisition strategy, and we need to be
sure we don't overlook what Apple has taken so much advantage of:
serendipity.

Here are the key questions as I see it:

Why have there been no example of portfolio companies that have made it?
    We think it can be successful if you have hit products.

What is the relationship of Claris to Apple?
    We will be a wholly-owned subsidiary, which Apple will fund
    up to the moment of separation.  John Sculley is committed
    however, to making Claris independent of Apple as quickly as
    possible.  We are going to move out to Mountain View this fall,
    with separate people, payroll, and benefits by October 1, and
    by January 1 we will have separate MIS, distribution, and so on,
    though we will still be owned by Apple.

Dave Winer [of Living Videotex] keeps saying "Claris is Apple, Claris is
Apple" but I disagree.  Don't expect Claris to have any more
relationship to Apple than any other third party.  We are asking you
third parties to trust us in this, John Sculley and myself.  We realize
this is a sensitive situation and our integrity is on the line.

Some people have been asking, why didn't you get 4th Dimension?  4th
Dimension is not related to us.  It was the catalyst that caused the
idea of Claris to become important, but it was already done before
Claris.  What is important to us is the future.  We are going to be a
major player, putting in place a foundation and building blocks.  The
three things I see as being important are consistency, standards, and
communication.

Consistency is for the users.  We will have no need to compromise our
programs in the interest of being compatible with the IBM PC.  We are
committed to the Macintosh world.  We will give users what they need,
such as software which adapts to their needs.  Some of this will emerge
over time as we acquire new products, and some will be created by us.
For example, should a spelling checker be only a part of a word
processor, or should it be available where ever needed?  We think
MultiFinder will pave the way to a much greater consistency between
products.

Standards are reluctantly adopted, but much of todays success is due to
coexistence with standards.  New standards emerge every day (for
instance the TIFF standard developed by Microsoft and Aldus).  We
believe that Claris must get involved in the making of standards.  dBASE
III and 1-2-3 are standards in the IBM world, and obviously there must
be data interchange.  In the Macintosh world, MacWrite and MacPaint are
file standards.

Communication is crucial to the workgroup and host system environments,
for example IBM and DEC.  In tomorrow's environment, communications must
recognize software which is in other environments, so we can have true
workgroup computing.

Claris will not be an overnight success; you will have to judge us over
time. We have the "BCIUS" products today.  The products we are yet to
acquire will define what we will become, and the technologies we bring
on will make us a formidable force in the future.  Forming Claris has
been a major step for Apple; it has high visibility, high expectations,
and it is a different road from what Apple was traveling before.  We are
going to enhance what we have, market well, and distribute world-wide.
We have a good team, fervor, love of our products, and the deep pockets
of our parent company.  Thank you.

-------------------------------------------------------

 Q: Why is Claris not publishing HyperCard?
 A: I think Apple has positioned HyperCard as system software.  This is very
    believable, despite what some people have been saying.  This product is so
    great it will ultimately be good for all developers.

 Q: How do you intend to qualify small software houses for partnerships?
 A: We are going to look for holes in our existing product line, and look for
    innovative technology.  When we first were formed, we were inundated by
    people wanting us to look at their products, but things have settled down a
    bit now.  Write us or call us.  We are very open to good ideas.  What we
    want right now is products which have a broad horizontal application. We're
    interested in business, education, and scientific/engineering products in
    particular.

 Q: Do you see an attack on the problems of support?
 A: YES.  We think support is a key element of the equation.  We want to be the
    Mercedes-Benz of support.  Look for example how well Microsoft has been
    doing with support recently.  What we expect to do is to train the dealers
    for the sales transaction, but offer after-sale support ourselves.

 Q: What about the special relationship with Apple that vendors like Microsoft
    have (seeing new hardware in advance of its release)?
 A: I hope Claris gets every bit as good a deal as Bill Gates.  Most major third
    party developers do have a very close relationship with Apple.  If anything,
    I think the concern has been that Claris would be too close, but again I
    want to emphasize that both Apple and I are committed to being fair and
    trustworthy about this.

 Q: Will there be a stock offering?
 A: We don't know yet how we will become independent.  We may spin off the
    company to the existing Apple shareholders, or may have an initial public
    offering.

 Q: Will you be selling HyperCard stackware?
 A: We don't know yet.  Probably not, because what we need to do is build our
    own core technology.  We want to focus on that, and not stackware.  I could
    see doing something with stackware for the university market.

 Q: In line with your independence from Apple, when will you annouce your first
    product with NeXT, Inc.?
 A: Well, I had breakfast with Steve Jobs recently, but no, we aren't in any
    strategic relationship with his company.

 Q: The products you have are perceived as being entry level, do you plan to
    raise the level?
 A: Yes, we will follow the increased power of Apple hardware.  But, the word
    processing market is naturally tiered.  There is always a place for products
    like MacWrite and WriteNow.  We may be on both tiers for some products,
    maybe only on the high tier for some products.  We will be making our
    products better.  It's a wonderful opportunity.

 Q: It seems that Apple software products have been subsidized by the hardware.
    Will Claris have to raise prices?
 A: We're going to have to have a P&L statement to meet, and we have to look
    good for investment companies.  We need to price our products for growth and
    profitability.  Support is going to cost us money, so the prices will
    probably have to be a bit higher.

------------------------------

From: PEABO
Subject: Bill Atkinson talks about HyperCard
Date: 14-AUG 23:55 Creative Pursuits

This is a report on the Thursday wrap-up session at the Macworld Expo.
Bill Atkinson showed off HyperCard, which John Sculley and Jean-Louis
Gassee have both described as the most exciting thing since the
introduction of the Macintosh.  This report was prepared by Peter Olson
(PEABO on DELPHI) and any inaccuracies are due to my transcription of
the substance of the speech, which I have done in my own words to a
large extent (I'm not a stenographer!). If you would like to post this
or reprint it, please do so in its entirety.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Bill Atkinson's talks during this Expo have drawn such crowds that the
management has routinely opened up more space, and this final talk was
no exception.  Bill brought the rest of the HyperCard team with him
(there were quite a few Apple employees walking around with the
Hypercard "bowling shirts" on -- blue with yellow collars, a name over
the lapel, and on the back the word HYPERCARD at the top, a large black
circle and diagonally rising over it the legend "Acme Dot Co.").

Chris Espinosa, the HyperCard product manager, began by introducing
Danny Goodman, author of "The Complete HyperCard Handbook" published by
Bantam, and also the author of two extensive stackware products from
Activision called "Business Class" and "Focal Point".  Goodman, who was
not and still is not a "programmer", was involved with the HyperCard
development for about 18 months.

Chris then turned the stage over to Bill.  [applause from the audience]

-------------------------------------------------------

The Macintosh Dream is about getting the power of the personal computer
into the hands of individuals.  So far what we have accomplished is
putting the use of applications into people's hands, by using the
graphical interface and metaphors in a consistent way, but this had made
it increasingly difficult to be a creator.  The split between authors
and users keeps increasing.

HyperCard is a software erector set.  It's a box of parts, bolts, and
examples (just like in the erector set brochure).  HyperCard uses the
same technique to teach people how to use it.  You start with an example
you see and try making it yourself.  Then you try changing it a bit, and
eventually you know it well enough to branch off on your own.

[ At this point, they killed the lights and the presentation became
predominantly visual and hence difficult to explain in words in this
report. Bill showed an expanded version of the stackware which is on the
HyperCard release disk.  Some fragments that come to mind are:

   HyperCard organizes data into stacks of cards.  Each card is exactly
the size of the original Mac screen, so you can be guaranteed that
anything you produce on one kind of Macintosh can be viewed on any
other.  Cards in any stack can be linked associatively to cards in any
other stack.

   Each card can have pictures, text, and buttons with any iconic shape
or ordinary legend associated.  It is like a superset of the usual Mac
interface. A variety of text formats is allowed, including scrolling
text.

   Data compression is so efficient that a thousand clip-art screens can
fit in a meg and a half of memory, and on a Mac II the flipping from one
card to another is very fast.  (Even on a Mac Plus it's no slouch.)
Flipping between cards is controlled by a 'visual effect' specification
that allows for fades, wipes, and so on as cues to the kind of linkage
between cards.

   There is a built-in painting system like MacPaint but with a lot of
improvements.  You can still import and export bit-mapped images in
Paint format, and HyperCard is not intended to replace MacPaint at all.
(One of the improvements that sticks in my mind is the ability to pick
up an arbitrary shaped piece of an existing image by painting a mask
over top of it temporarily to define the bits to be picked up, and then
being able to move the picked up image around the screen.)

   An object-oriented language called HyperTalk (developed by Dan
Winkler) is integrated into the system.   There is an inheritance among
objects represented by buttons, screens, background buttons and screens,
stacks, and HyperCard itself.  The English-language-like syntax has
provisions for event and message processing among the objects and is a
modern structured language.

  HyperTalk can read and write TEXT files for importing or exporting
from other database or word processing software.  There are built-in
procedures for sorting cards in a stack according to field values.

  There are various levels of access to stacks, including the low levels
required to use a stack, and higher levels which allow painting,
authoring ( creating structure using links), and scripting (writing in
HyperTalk). Although stacks cannot be copy protected as such, they can
be password protected in order to keep people from getting to the higher
levels of access.

   The system is perfectly adapted to building by example.  Bill said
that HyperCard is like an erector set where you never have to worry
about running out of pieces.  You can copy button definitions from the
examples and "idea stacks" provided with the system and they paste in
complete with the associated scripting so you have a functioning button
right away. You can also copy entire stacks for incorporation into your
own designs, or you can pick out clip art just like you have always been
able to do with MacPaint.

At the end of the presentation, Bill continued talking. ]

We have made 20,000 copies and sent them out the distribution channels
this week.  If you buy a new Mac Plus, Mac SE, or Mac II you get
HyperCard for free. Otherwise, you can buy it for $49 including disks
and a manual.  In about 60 days we expect to begin shipping
international versions.

HyperCard does require 128K ROMs and at least one megabyte of memory.
If you use it with MultiFinder, you will need more than a megabyte.  We
recommend a two-floppy system or a floppy and hard disk.  There is 800K
of built-in help, so you will need the disk space if you use the help.
The four disks you get are a floppy-based HyperCard boot, a setup disk
for installing HyperCard on your hard disk, a disk of examples and
ideas, and the help disk.

[ Chris Espinosa then brought out the rest of the HyperCard development
team, to a standing ovation from the crowd.  He then handed the mike
back to Bill, saying that he thought most of the audience questions
would be for Bill. ]

 Q: Does HyperCard support MIDI?
 A: We couldn't anticipate all possible uses of HyperCard, so we put in hooks so
    you can call any 68000 code you want.  You need to compile the code as
    separate resources of type XCMD or XFCM and install it in your stack.
    That's how you would get MIDI support.

 Q: What is the relative performance of a Mac Plus compared to a Mac II?
 A: Card flipping on the Plus is about half as fast as the II.

 Q: Can you launch applications or documents from inside HyperCard?
 A: Yes, and when the you quit the application, it comes back to the same card
    you launched from.  You can also print the same way.  There is an example
    stack which lets you organize your hard disk and automatically update the
    catalog of documents when you want.

 Q: Where did the HyperCard idea come from?
 A: QuickFile/Rolodex were very early ancestors of the HyperCard.  I have been
    thinking about the problems of authoring software on the Macintosh for a
    long time, and this is what I came up with.

 Q: How would you import or export to another database?
 A: You can read or write text files using HyperTalk, and you could have a card
    with several conversion buttons on it, for SYLK or DIF formats for example.

 Q: How do you access a specific card in the stack?
 A: You can bring up cards by position in the stack (first, last, next,
    previous, or card number in the stack), or by name, or by an internally
    assigned ID number that never changes.

 Q: Can you have a HyperCard stack on AppleShare accessed by several users at
    once?
 A: Not right now.  The stacks are opened read-write for one user only, but I'm
    working on that for a future release.

 Q: Could you design a spreadsheet or database program this way?
 A: No, it would work but it would be too slow.  HyperCard is an organizing tool
    for personal database, not a development tool.

 Q: Is Finder still necessary?
 A: Yes.  Finder is highly tuned for its purpose, manipulating files.  You might
    consider using HyperCard as a very sophisticated MiniFinder replacement
    though!  HyperCard works very well with MultiFinder (though you need more
    than the one meg minimum memory to run it this way).  It's great to be able
    to flip back and forth between your word processing and a HyperCard stack in
    just a second, and not have to break your train of thought waiting 30
    seconds to launch.

 Q: What are the limits to stack size?
 A: We haven't put any arbitrary limits in (that is, you'll run out of disk
    space before you hit the limits in the program).  You can have up to 16
    million cards in a stack, and up to half a gigabyte of data.


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End of Delphi Mac Digest
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