Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!bu-cs!purdue!decwrl!sun!imagen!atari!portal!cup.portal.com!Lou
From: Lou@cup.portal.com (William Joseph Marriott)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hypercard
Subject: Re: Look out Hypercard, its Supercard!
Message-ID: <12322@cup.portal.com>
Date: 8 Dec 88 07:51:22 GMT
References: <16310014@hpsmtc1.HP.COM> <21793@apple.Apple.COM>
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Lines: 44

Additional information on SuperCard, from MacWEEK 6 Dec 88:

Purported features:

- Color Support; Large Screen support
- Reads HyperCard XCMDs, XFCNs, converts HC stacks and scripts
- Enhanced Scripting capability
- Can create stand-alone applications
- Support for real Mac-type windows
- Wholly Customizeable Tools, Menu Bar
- Object oriented and bitmapped graphics, ala SuperPaint
    (including autotrace feauture)
- Any object, including graphics, may have a script

Windows apparently function as their own stack, with one "card" per
stack visible at any one time.


Silicon Beach did speak with MacWEEK. Said SuperCard apps would be 250K
and up in size, but would be stand-alone. Windows could be 34 feet by 
34 feet in size (hmm... who markets a 40-foot monitor?). Said they
were not cloning HyperCard, but extending the standard.

Color: 8-Bit, 256 possible colors, color-cycling for animation effects.

Online SuperTalk reference within scripting mode

Price: less than $200 Availability: 2nd QTR 89

Who knows when this product will become available, or if it will catch on
like SuperPaint. But even SuperPaint let you save your files in MacPaint
and PICT format.

I think it's a wonderful challenge for Apple -- incidently, a related
article reported that Apple was not allowing the HyperCard development
team to see SuperCard prototypes. The article also mentioned a second
HyperCard clone, Plus, which cannot make stand-alone stacks.

An interesting note is that both developers would seem more likey to port 
their products to MS-DOS machines than Apple would.

I still remember when MacPaint came out, and then SuperPaint and 
FullPaint. I still loved the basic feel of MacPaint over every paint
program that was produced afterward, including MacPaint 2.0.