All you have to do is double-click on the self-extracting file on this disk called "IF MONKS...1 of 2.sea" and use the dialog box that will pop-up to direct the self-extracting file to the folder where you keep your HyperCard stacks. If you don't have any particular folder for HyperCard "Extract" the files to the main level of your hard disk. Click on the button that says "Extract" and a new folder called "If Monks had Macs..." will soon appear on your hard disk with about half of the monastery library already inside it. Eject the disk from your drive after the extraction is complete and place the "If Monks..2 of2 disk in the drive. This time repeat the process with "IF MONKS...2 of2.sea", but before you press "Extract" remember to use the dialog box that pops up to direct the Extractor into the new folder labeled "If Monks had Macs..." Then wait a few moments and the entire library will be in one spot ready for you to browse. The stack called "Imitatio Chrisiti" is the grand entrance to the library. As the instructions below direct, you will have to place MacinTalk in the System folder if you wish to use it, and you may not be able to play in the pinball arcade.
There is a file called "Extractor" on Disk 2 which you can ignore for now or forever. If at some future date you have thrown part of "If Monks had Macs.." off your hard disk, or ruined one of the stacks or for any reason would like to get just one of one or two of the stacks, and not the whole thing, you can use this utility to do that.
If you do not have, HYPERCARD & HISTORY, the sequel to IF MONKS HAD MACS... see the demo stack called "11/22/63 EXTRA! demo" included on disk two. It explains how to order a copy. HYPERCARD & HISTORY contains our two most popular works, the White Rose, and 11/22/63 EXTRA! They are essential additions to the Monastery library.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
•A Few Quick Tips
•Preview of Coming Attractions
•Introduction to IF MONKS HAD MACS...
•Cracking "Meat and Conversation"—For HyperTalk Programmers Only
A FEW QUICK TIPS
• VERY IMPORTANT WARNING!!! If you are running this with HyperCard 2.0 or later DO NOT USE the file menu command "Convert" to convert "Imitatio Christi", and "Not Passing History," to HyperCard 2.0. HyperCard 2.0 handles fonts differently than previous versions and converting these stacks will mess them up. There is no reason to convert them--they will work under HyperCard 2.0 if they are not "Converted." Until a stack made with an early version of HyperCard is "Converted" you can look at it while using HC 2.0, but you can't alter it in anyway.
The rest of the stacks in this collection either need to be adapt themselves to the individual user and will not be fully functional until they are "Converted" or will not be harmed if they are "Converted". For example, you will not be able to enter the BBS simulation in "Passing Notes" using HyperCard 2.0 until you "Convert" the stack. Although "IF MONKS…" has not been rigorously tested under 2.0 it seems to work reasonably well. Keep your "unconverted" Stuffit files in a safe place. NEVER "CONVERT" TO 2.0 YOUR ONLY SET OF "IF MONKS…"
To "Convert" a stack using HyperCard 2.x first depress the command key (the one with the clover leaf on it) to show the menu bar. Then choose "Convert" from the FILE menu.
• I have not rigorously tested "IF MONKS…" on different Macs with System 7.0, but on my machine it works better than I expected. Under the version of HyperCard (1.2x) it was created with it works flawlessly. Now, under System 7.0, there are a few bugs— the secret code in the journal isn't secret, the fancy search script quits after it finds the first instance of your word, etc. These are things most people won't notice right away. We are building a new journal, and you can search in "IF MONKS…" using the built-in HyperCard find function—"command-F".
• One optional file is on disk 1 and is called "Optional Stuff". It contains a set of Pinball games for the equally fabled Monastery Pinball Arcade. These were added on a lark, and will not work on the Macintosh II series. There is also a file called “For SE/30 fast machines only” and contains Pinball files for the SE/30 and other Macs with greatly increased speed.
•PUT MACINTALK (from Stuffit file “If Monks...2.5.7—3 of 3”) in your SYSTEM FOLDER. HyperCard must be on the same volume (hard disk) as this system folder. We had been warned that MacInTalk will not work with System 7.0 in several Apple Developer Tech notes. However, MacinTalk does work on my Mac II si under System 7.0.
• EVERYTHING ELSE GOES IN THE SAME FOLDER WITH HYPERCARD AND YOUR OTHER STACKS. Make sure the “Pinball Arcade” and all the pinball files are also in this same folder. You must have HyperCard version 1.2 or later. If you have an earlier version, get a free upgrade from your Apple dealer, or get a new dealer.
• “IMITATIO CHRISTI” IS THE GATEWAY. On your first visit to the monastery library enter the library by first opening “Imitatio Christi”; you'll find yourself at a desk before an open window. Click on the book with an arrow on it to browse through the books, or click on the open book to go directly into “Imitatio Christi.”
• REGARDING THE PINBALL GAMES. These games are accessed from the stack, “Not Passing History” (which can be found, along with everything else, on the shelves of the Library stack). The pinball games do not work on a Mac II, or with a large screen. Read the “About…” boxes available from the “Pinball Arcade” menus. General instructions on how to play are in the “About…” box for the game “A Space Warrior.” The games can be examined under multi-finder, but for more enjoyable play turn multi-finder off—except they work great under multi-finder with the SE/30 and the “Slowed down pinball” games.
The next riverTEXT™ project is an educational-entertainment centered around Henry David Thoreau’s WALDEN. It will include an innovative game, a wild uninhibited examination of Thoreau and his world, the complete annotated text (with research features) of WALDEN, and CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE, and an improved journal aimed at helping the reader with his own living, and writing. It will be very reasonably priced.
For more information I can be reached on CompuServe, at #73057,377
IF MONKS HAD MACS... is more a stew than a filing cabinet. A stew such as Huck Finn enjoyed: “In a barrel of odds and ends it is different; things get mixed up, and the juice kind of swaps around, and the things go better.” Our barrel is the cloister of a medieval monastery, and some of the “odds and ends” in the monastery library could have been created there—the adventure game about a monk's trek through the medieval wilderness to the library, a hypertext edition of a best seller by a monk from the Middle Ages, and the journal that is linked to it. The rest of the stacks in the monastery library concern subjects as diverse as evolution and quantum physics, serious drinking and the meaning of history, and a resistance group in Nazi Germany. Still, they all share a common inspiration. The juice in which we stew is a conviction that there is a truth in our Western heritage that demands something more than time-management or information stacks.
In IF MONKS HAD MACS... seven separate stacks crisscross the world of an idea rather than a catalogue of facts and images. Various computer experts talk as if information navigation were knowledge; but, if all the world's information was at our fingertips, would our thoughts be any less scattered?
IF MONKS HAD MACS... is about a time before capitalism, and a freedom beyond free enterprise. It's EveryWare! If you like it enough to keep it for yourself, give it to someone else. This is a free gift to the Macintosh community from riverTEXT™.
•Special thanks to Andrew Stone. Andrew has given us permission to include our enhanced version of his “Haiku Master.”
IF MONKS HAD MACS... was written, designed and edited by Brian Thomas.
It was scripted and enhanced by Philip A. Mohr Jr.
(With one exception, all the scripts in all our stacks are unlocked. We locked up the adventure game, “Meat & Conversation,” to discourage cheating. One of the payoffs for completing the game is that the stack is automatically unlocked when you finish, and you can then explore and perhaps adapt the scripts in the stack, using them to provide the framework for another game. If you don’t want to play the game, but just want to break into “Meat & Conversation,” copy everything below this sentence and paste it into an appropriately labeled button on your home card).
-- This button script has been added to the Read Me! file distributed
-- with the "If Monks Had Macs..." collection. Its purpose is to make
-- the scripts available to those who get frustrated with the game
-- "Meat & Conversation" and don't want to play it out to the end.
-- If you are going to give a copy of the game to someone else,
-- please make sure that it is locked before you pass it on.
-- Be sure to give them a copy of this button, too.
-- (If the cantmodify of "Meat & Conversation" is, because it is on
-- a locked disk or a CD, set to true, the stack will not be changed
-- when you go to it, though. Unlock the disk it is on or move it to
-- an unlocked disk first.)
-- Thanks.
-- Fillmore
-- The next dialog you see will ask if you want to lock or unlock
-- "Meat & Conversation." Click on "Go Ahead" if you want to change the
-- stack's state. Click "Later" if you want to leave it in its current
-- locked or unlocked state.
on mouseUp
global LocBtnTemp
hide msg
hide menuBar
put the userLevel into LTemp
set userLevel to 5
edit script of target
answer "“Unlock” or “lock” “Meat & Conversation” scripts?" with "Go Ahead" or "Later"
if it is "later" then
answer "“Meat & Conversation” is unchanged."
exit mouseUp
end if
set cursor to 4
push cd
lock screen
go first cd of stack "Meat & Conversation"
if the result is "Cancel" or the result is "No Such Card" then
