<text><span class="style2">ypertext is not new. Computer–based hypertext has existed, as a vision, since the earliest days of digital computers. In fact, most key features of modern hypertext can be seen in Isaac Asimov’s 1953 description of the Second Foundation’s “Prime Radiant” in the last book of the </span><span class="style11"><a href="#" class="group">Foundation</a></span><span class="style2"> Trilogy.Asimov, like many science fiction writers, deals with perfect technology. His hypertext software runs flawlessly for 400 years without a single upgrade. Asimov nevertheless postulates that the “Seldon Plan” hypertext is bound to be both imperfect and incomplete. He does not explain this, but perhaps there is no need. Perfection and completeness do not usefully apply to a developing body of knowledge, even when the accumulated knowledge is perfectly recorded.</span></text>
<text>Computer–supported hypertext is, by the simplest definition, a document set where each document is displayed with several buttons, each button calling up a different document.The term “button” usually applies to a word or group of words highlighted by a distinctive typographical style within the text of the document itself. It is then called “active text”. You click with the mouse on a text, and the corresponding document appears on the screen.This proposition is simple enough. However, one expects text on the screen to be editable. This means that hypertext cannot be understood as a closed system. One must also be able to edit hypertext buttons.</text>
</content>
<name>Hypertext Grows and Changes</name>
<script></script>
</card>
card_4966.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<!DOCTYPE card PUBLIC "-//Apple, Inc.//DTD card V 2.0//EN" "" >
<text>DOCK hypertext offers four basic services:1° Unlimited stack to stack linking, from any stack to any stack.2° Unlimited card to card linking within any stack3° Unlimited card to card linking, from DOCK cards to any card. The DOCK cards contain their own link databases.4° Any number of “Context” files which provide instant access to individual cards in as many as 1000 stacks at a time. Context functions include overview menus, easy one–step indexing, and link management.</text>
</content>
<name>DOCK Hypertext</name>
<script></script>
</card>
card_3005.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<!DOCTYPE card PUBLIC "-//Apple, Inc.//DTD card V 2.0//EN" "" >
<text>Hypertext almost automatically implies some kind of links database. DOCK hypertext uses databases which remain completely transparent during normal use. You won’t ever see the database unless you go looking for it.The distributed database design adopted for DOCK means that adding more cards automatically adds more capacity to the database, so saturation is impossible.</text>
</content>
<name>Links Databases</name>
<script></script>
</card>
card_5777.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<!DOCTYPE card PUBLIC "-//Apple, Inc.//DTD card V 2.0//EN" "" >
<text>DOCK documents are optimized for text database applications. You may also find the layouts useful as vehicles for general purpose text editing. They are really simple HyperCard stacks which provide three basic services:1° A title field.2° A body of text. This is where you put your actual information. The text usually covers all or most of the screen, but DOCK layout variations also allow room for pictures.3° Basic navigation arrows and a simple card list dialog.</text>
</content>
<name>DOCK Document Layouts</name>
<script></script>
</card>
card_5173.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<!DOCTYPE card PUBLIC "-//Apple, Inc.//DTD card V 2.0//EN" "" >
<text>A hypertext database can do much more than active text links. Here are a few of the utilities provided with the DOCK package:1° Multi–stack printing, text import, and text export facilities.2° An automatic hypertext reader. Makes and runs unattended demos with cards from several stacks, in any order.3° Automatic searches on stack sets with AND/OR search criteria. Cards can also be searched by date created and date modified. You can save topic indexes and export selections.All DOCK utilities work with any HyperCard stack.</text>
</content>
<name>DOCK Utilities</name>
<script></script>
</card>
card_6851.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<!DOCTYPE card PUBLIC "-//Apple, Inc.//DTD card V 2.0//EN" "" >
<text>The distributed design used for the links database makes it easy for several people to work on different portions of the same hypertext at the same time. There is no need for the computers to be connected in any way.This medium may be useful as a teaching tool. Courses can be written with hypertext. Problems can be set and answered. Papers can be written. Any piece of work done by a teacher or a student can be included and referenced. Above all, a hypertext file network doesn’t impose any particular constraint on form.Remark: In connection with teaching, the simplicity of the DOCK system, rather than an endless list of features is what makes it a powerful, all–purpose tool. Hypertext can be handled competently by teachers and students alike.</text>
</content>
<name>Hypertext and Education</name>
<script></script>
</card>
card_6575.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<!DOCTYPE card PUBLIC "-//Apple, Inc.//DTD card V 2.0//EN" "" >
<text><span class="style2">eturning to Asimov’s </span><span class="style11"><a href="#" class="group">PRIME RADIANT</a></span><span class="style2">, I would like to conclude with a comparison.DOCK hypertext doesn’t read minds but it does act as an extension of the mind simply by recording your thought associations in a useful way.DOCK wasn’t designed on a thirty foot screen, but it does support distributed databases as opposed to a single PRIME RADIANT for the whole galaxy. Nevertheless, starting with all documents open in different windows, even this little demo can be tiled to fill a 21" screen.DOCK is otherwise similar to the PRIME RADIANT, at least as far as the philosophical implications are concerned. A most important difference is that DOCK is </span><span class="style20">real</span><span class="style2">, and you can have it </span><span class="style20">now</span><span class="style2">.</span></text>
