HyperCard IIGS: Specifications

Article Created: 31 May 1991

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TOPIC

This article describes HyperCard IIGS.

DISCUSSION

Overview

HyperCard for the Apple IIGS personal computer lets users create a custom environment for exploring and managing information. Because of its flexibility, HyperCard IIGS can be used in an almost unlimited number of ways, for example:

• to manage personal information,
• to create interactive multimedia presentations and tutorials, and
• to build interfaces to on-line information services.

Like HyperCard for the Macintosh, HyperCard IIGS is based on a universal tool for storing information: the index card. But in HyperCard IIGS, index cards can contain information not only in text form, but as photographs, graphics, video, and sound as well.

HyperCard "buttons" (active areas on a card) give you the freedom to work with information at your own pace and in the order you prefer. When you point to a button and click with the mouse, the computer carries out a specific task. For example, it will move to another card so you can explore a related subject, define a term you don't understand, control a video from a laser videodisc player, prompt you for further information, or run another computer program.

HyperCard IIGS can work for beginners right away. HyperCard IIGS comes with ready-to-use stacks for storing personal information, creating stories, and more. You can also use HyperCard IIGS to run commercially available stacks, including stacks originally created for Macintosh computers that have been converted for Apple IIGS use.

HyperCard IIGS also offers easy ways to create your own stacks. You can create and edit buttons and fields, create artwork with the full-color Paint Tools, and create advanced HyperCard programs using HyperTalk (HyperCard's powerful English-like scripting language).

As an expansion of the HyperCard line of software for Macintosh computers, HyperCard for the Apple IIGS is the ideal tool for all who want to work with information more effectively, and those with special knowledge, talents, or experience that they want to share with others.

User Levels

HyperCard IIGS provides five distinct user levels: Browsing, Typing, Painting, Authoring, and Scripting. Each user level includes all the features of the level before it.

• Browsing
  • Use stacks (but not alter stacks)
• Typing
  • Enter and edit text in fields
  • Create and delete cards
• Painting
  • Draw transparent or opaque graphics
  • Draw shapes
  • Draw with different brushes
  • Magnify image 8 times for "fat bits" editing
  • Rotate, Flip, or Stretch images
  • Select the last object drawn
  • Choose ColorSet for Card, background, and stack
  • Import ColorSet for card and background
  • Import and export graphics from and to other files
• Authoring
  • Create, delete, and change styles of fields and buttons
  • Create links to other cards and stacks
• Scripting (HyperTalk scripting language)
  • Object-oriented message passing
  • Any button, field, card, background, or stack can have a script.
  • Each script can have any number of "handlers" for messages generated by the system or the user.
  • Edit any script
  • Search or print a script
  • Full-screen script editor with automatic formatting
  • Maximum script length: 30,000 characters

System Requirements

To use HyperCard IIGS, you need the following:

• an Apple IIGS computer with a minimum of 1.5MB of RAM (2MB is recommended)
• an 800K floppy disk drive, plus either a hard disk or a network environment
• System software version 5.0.4 or later

To convert stacks that have been created using Macintosh HyperCard 1.2.2 or 1.2.5 for use with HyperCard IIGS, you need access to a Macintosh personal computer and the HyperMover program.

Technical Specifications

• Number of cards per stack: limited only by available disk or file-server storage.
• Maximum stack size: up to 512MB, depending on available disk or file-server storage
• Card Size: 640 horizontal pixels by 200 vertical lines (the size of an Apple IIGS screen)
• Graphics: color bitmaps with opaque and transparent areas
• Number of text fields per card: limited only by available memory and disk space
• Maximum amount of text per field: 30,000 characters
• Number of buttons and links per card: limited only by available memory and disk space
• Number of active variables: limited only by available memory
• Control structures
  • Repeat until condition
  • Repeat with loop counter
  • If/then/else conditionals
  • Exit loop or procedure
  • Pass message/send message
• Data types
  • Conversion to SANE numerics (9-place accuracy)
  • Conversion to date and time
• Variables
  • Contents of any field
  • Dynamically created local variables
  • Global variables

Copyright 1991 Apple Computer, Inc.

Keywords: SPECSHT

ArticleID: TECHINFO-0007893

19960724 15:55:27.00

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