Xref: utzoo comp.sys.mac.hypercard:1335 comp.sys.mac.programmer:3450 Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!unmvax!pprg.unm.edu!hc!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!hoptoad!tim From: tim@hoptoad.uucp (Tim Maroney) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hypercard,comp.sys.mac.programmer Subject: Re: Reaction Time stacks : can I do this? Message-ID: <6015@hoptoad.uucp> Date: 8 Dec 88 00:05:44 GMT References: <6012@mva.cs.liv.ac.uk> <21792@apple.Apple.COM> <294@internal.Apple.COM> <21826@apple.Apple.COM> Reply-To: tim@hoptoad.UUCP (Tim Maroney) Organization: Eclectic Software, San Francisco Lines: 24 These were not particularly helpful replies. It seems one can indeed do such a stack in HyperCard, but it would be more difficult than writing an application to do the same thing. The entire process has to be done within an XCMD. Consider the elements of a reaction time test. First you have to show something meant to cause a reaction; then you have to determine when the reaction was given. You can't do the display portion in a card -- the graphics tools and commands to manipulate them may run at any speed. You can't do the reaction sensing using HyperCard's mouse or keyboard handling -- there's no way to tell when the reaction happened. You can't draw right into a card yourself -- the results are undefined. So the XCMD has to bring up a window, draw the whatever with QuickDraw, and then monitor the mouse and keyboard watching for the reaction. Where does HyperCard come into it? You have a button to give the XCMD and start the test, and the results are written into a field or text file somewhere. These two things are just as easy to accomplish in an application. Applications are easier to write than XCMDs, so all in all it seems you've lost a great deal by using HyperCard for such a thing. -- Tim Maroney, Consultant, Eclectic Software, sun!hoptoad!tim "Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine." -- Patti Smith