I have three stories. 1. I wrote a system for a dental practice consultant. It was origially written in Fortran. I saw the value of Hypercard in providing a lot of services that I would have needed to write myself. I did need to do some customization as external commands to speed things up a bit (this was written for an SE back in 1988). Well, the same system has been carried forward with very little adjustment, now running on a G3 machine and speed is no problem. It just surprises me how little I have had to work to keep this system going. The consultant goes years without asking me for any help. The last problem was fixed simply by moving from Hypercard 2.1 to version 2.2. Since I am not in this for making a lot of money, but just for helping this guy out, I haven't missed a great financial opportunity that this could have been if I had written it using some Microsoft product on a WinTel machine. 2. When I need to craft some data for any purpose, Hypercard is my first choice. I needed to convert data from a network accessible UNIX based database (usually accessed by a Windows program), I wrote a HyperCard program to take and extract the data and send out email messages to patrons surveying them about our service. I was able to get HyperCard to keep track of everything and make it easy to send email messages via AppleScript to Eudora and then analyze the responses from the patrons, entering the data into another Hypercard-based database. It also produces a report summarizing those responses. This was written in less than a day with adjustments made very easily when necessary. I also use Hypercard via AppleScript as my CGI processor for my web server (try http://laanjak.cc.utah.edu/doCalendar.html). 3. When I got my Palm Pilot, I needed a good way to keep track of my different address databases, one of which comes from an archaiac DOS system at my church (I would love to convert them to the Mac and Hypercard). I export the data in text form of a printout and process it in Hypercard and create a file that I can then import into my Palm Pilot database. It was quick to write and is slick to use.
Comments to: Joseph F. Buchanan
Create a commercial interactive educational software title designed to teach children about conflict mediation techniques and how to reduce violent behavior. The software program, Conflict Smarts, used QuickTime video and contains exercises, such as facial recognition, that use photos. We even used 3 second Quicktime clips to "animate" topic buttons with video. Taking only 6 months to develop, Hypercard was the key to keeping costs and production time down. We're eagerly awaiting Hypercard 3.0 so we can share this marvelous and important software program with Windows users. Drop by http://www.mindspring.com/~dschan/ConflictSmarts.html and take a peek at what the program has to offer.
Comments to: Dexter Chan
Several years ago on-line banking became available in our area. It uses an automated touch-tone phone mechanism to prompt the caller for actions such as getting account balances and paying bills. I initially used it only with the phone and got tired of the repeated entry of numbers. Having played with HyperCard scripting previously I figured I could program all the sequences and build a push-button interface that my wife could use also. So, after a couple of evenings of HyperTalk programming, we were paying our bills on-line. My wife uses it all the time and just loves it -- no more trips to the bank to pay bills or check the account balances. The program allows us to: pay any of our 14 bills immediately or post-date them (we use this feature all the time to avoid missing payment dates); get account balances; transfer money between accounts; and, scan our payment history. The program connects to the bank and using the modem speaker we can hear all the transactions as they occur. At any point in the process we can cancel the transaction. It is very easy to use and logs all actions when finished. We still use this program even though our bank recently added on-line computer banking. The new service is only for PC users via a custom PC application. Intuit has a form of on-line banking with Quicken, but only for certain banks and not in Canada where I live. They also have extra charges for their use. Using my HyperCard version does not incur additional charges.
Comments to: Brent Goss
I have generated a Hypercard stack containing a set of methods for generating the data needed to estimate the drag of modern jet aircraft. The user selects the various components of the aircraft and a Hypercard card is presented on which the user enters the geometric parameters ( length, width, height, sweep angle, etc) in appropriate slots on the data sheet. The Hypercard stack calculates the needed areas for most components. For few types, the user must enter the area himself. The result is a text file that is read by the drag evaluation program which is written in C. This works like a charm and needs almost no manual since it is so intuitive.
Comments to: Sidney A Powers
I am a multimedia developer that specializes in natural history education exhibits, CD-ROMs, and web sites. One of the main reasons I got into being a multimedia professional is due to Hypercard. In 1988 I began using HyperCard to develop a data base and training system for Humpback whale cooperative feeding behaviors in Southeast Alaska. Hypercard allowed me to rapidly develop both an interactive data base to hold all our research data and also an interactive training course that was integrated into the database to provide training to new research volunteers. The combination of Hypercard and my little old fireplug SE allowed me to easily take my Mac out into the field, shipboard, before the days of laptops! Since then I have used HyperCard to develop interactive kiosks at places like the Saint Louis Zoo where we developed a series of interactive exhibits on Missouri Streams. These exhibits utilize full screen digital video and dual laser disc players, all of which is controlled from HyperCard. I have also used Hypercard to rapidly prototype many exhibits for clients that are strictly PC based. After the prototypes are done, the PC version is built and many times (especially in the early days) the PC version could not deliver the same functionality, speed, and presentation that the HyperCard prototype could! I have also had wonderful experiences using Hypercard for producing CD-ROMs. The first major title I used Hypercard for was the Earth Explorer Environmental Encyclopedia. This $2.7 million National Science Foundation project required a multimedia interface system that could also handle a half a million words of text and over 30,000 data points of data. We used HyperCard to program the Macintosh version and Visual Basic for the PC version. The Mac required only one programmer, while the PC version required 2 programmers for an equivalent length of time. The Mac version also provided and reformatted many of the assets for use in the PC version. Additionally, the Hypercard version required about one half the testing (since the HyperCard program was ahead in the schedule, itŐs testing also included most of the content testing) of the PC version and little or no tech support calls. I have also recently used Hypercard to produce the Macintosh version of a CD-ROM we produced with Jean Michel Cousteau. Cities Under the Sea: Coral Reefs is a fully interactive multimedia CD-ROM with 50 minutes of QuickTime movies, over 700 color pictures, and 70,000 words of text. The Macintosh version was produced for a similar programming budget of the PC, Visual Basic version, but incorporated many extra features into the system and required less testing. Again, Hypercard allowed us to develop much more for the money. Finally, I continue to use Hypercard as my internal project data base engine. For every project I create a data base in Hypercard that contains all the text content, media file references and other detail information for the project. The data base is then used to manage this content during production, then the data is exported in whatever format is required of the final multimedia system for use. This system using Hypercard to manage the content of large projects has saved time and money and allowed us to run projects distributed over consultants living all over the place! Hypercard has really been both my introduction to doing multimedia as a profession and my mainstay as a multimedia production tool. Its flexibility, stability, value, and ease of use are unparalleled!
Comments to: Jeff Reynolds
All contents copyright (C) 1996, HyperActive Software. All rights reserved.
Revised: November 6, 1998
URL: http://www.hyperactivesw.com/HCStories/stories.html