What strategies can be employed to describe a problem and converge on an appropriate hypertext representation? This 1987 paper explored such representation issues with NoteCards, the hypermedia system written in Interlisp.
https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/317426.317445
Every now and then I think about NoteCards, an early hypertext application developed at Xerox PARC, and dream about having something similar. But today, it dawned on me that GNU Emacs with Denote is already quite close to what I would probably do with NoteCards.
By the way: did you know it was written in Lisp? And its source code is available on GitHub!
What helped me deliver my RetroChallgence 2024 project on time? Prior experience with the Interlisp API of NoteCards and the nature of Lisp and Lisp systems.
https://journal.paoloamoroso.com/how-lisp-helped-my-retrochallenge-2024-project
#RC2024 #RetroChallenge #retrocomputing #interlisp #NoteCards
RetroChallenge announced the results of RC2024/10 and I'm honored to be among the winners. I entered with the WebCard project written in Interlisp, a NoteCards extension for visiting websites.
Thanks to the organizers, voters, and judges and congrats to all the entrants, especially @psychotimmy who won the Grand Prize.
https://www.retrochallenge.org/2025/10/rc202410-resultsless-than-year-late.html
https://github.com/pamoroso/webcard
https://journal.paoloamoroso.com/tag:WebCard
#RC2024 #RetroChallenge #retrocomputing #interlisp #NoteCards
We retrieved from an old archive "NoteCards User’s Guide" V2.0 and added it to the source tree. Published in 1991, this manual better matches the NoteCards code that comes with Medley Interlisp but some of the information the document provides is now only of historical value.
https://files.interlisp.org/medley/notecards/docs/user-guide-v2.0
In NoteCards a "tabletop card" is an arrangement of cards (hypertext nodes) on the screen, such as the 3 cards at the center.
A "guided tour" is a graph whose nodes are tabletop cards (table icons) and whose edges are links connecting the cards. You traverse a guided tour with the control panel at right and the result is a "slide show" of tabletops.
For more on tabletop cards and guided tours see:
A NoteCards "browser" is a type of card that shows a hypertext network as a graph structure, i.e. a graph view like in this example. The thumbnail at the top left corner lets you pan and scroll the graph.
Although NoteCards predated the WWW, in the early days of the web the hypermedia system developed with Interlisp-D was also used for research on the design, analysis, and documentation of web sites such as the projects described in these papers.
https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/268820.268861
At ACM #Hypertext @ht: Mark Anderson talking about spatial hypertext and its origins, also referring to Frank Halasz's #NoteCards. See his full paper “W(h)ither Spatial Hypertext?” at http://doi.org/10.1145/3720553.3746683
@hist_HT @interlisp @amoroso
@interlisp ☝️ The NoteCards logo still looks cool. This is a frame from one of the above introductory videos on NoteCards, the hypermedia system developed in Interlisp at Xerox PARC.
A comprehensive introduction to the NoteCards hypermedia system developed in Interlisp at Xerox PARC. This 1985 videotape covers and demonstrates tha basic system, the programmer's interface, and research issues.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZCitxFlnqQ
Had both new and old #NoteCards with me at a #Craft Show last Saturday. Can you tell which were which?
Also, I really love my card scoring tool.
#kelpie #frog #mushroom #fae #umbrella #notecard #raven #owl #barnowl #winter
More at https://www.etsy.com/shop/StudioMetasilk?section_id=25109125 (where I am still adding & editing items between other work and householding)
I put together a demo hypertext for WebCard with various Web cards and links to play with.
https://journal.paoloamoroso.com/a-demo-notefile-for-webcard
I'm working on a WebCard demo notefile with examples of web links filed into various types of cards.
WebCard is not a large system but I documented it anyway, explaining the few things it adds to or differs from NoteCards.
I needed to find or design an icon for WebCard. How hard could it be?
https://journal.paoloamoroso.com/designing-a-webcard-bitmap-the-hard-way
A sneak peek at the bitmap I designed for WebCard cards of type Web, here open in the Medley Interlisp bitmap editor. The bitmap at the actual size is near the top left corner whereas the magnified view takes up most of the window.
The bitmap represents a card at the center of which is a globe with meridians and parallels.
I did a bit of review and charted the next steps for wrapping up WebCard, my RetroChallenge 2024 project.
https://journal.paoloamoroso.com/planning-the-next-steps-for-webcard
