[HN Gopher] IntelligentPad (1989): a component-based drag-and-dr...
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IntelligentPad (1989): a component-based drag-and-drop software
creator
Author : msephton
Score : 57 points
Date : 2023-05-17 21:53 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.gingerbeardman.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.gingerbeardman.com)
| __void wrote:
| never heard of it but this vaguely reminds me of labview (still
| widely used in factory infrastructure and R&D)
|
| another similar environment that 20 years ago I thought would
| become the new desktop/programming metaphor is vvvv[0]
|
| [0] https://vvvv.org/
| msephton wrote:
| Increasing that LabVIEW was created around the same time. I can
| see some similarities in the visual programming. The 80s were
| such a fertile time!
|
| vvvv looks cool, it's just a shame they promote the output
| (views of exhibitions etc) rather than the tool itself. I tried
| to find information and screenshots of it, but failed and gave
| up.
| __void wrote:
| yes, [in vvvv] they've changed the site many times (it's an
| early 2000s project) and in the current iteration it's more
| commercial than technical...
|
| however there used to be screenshots[0]! always praise be to
| the wayback machine
|
| ah and there is also a javascript version[1]!
|
| apparently they've also changed the colours of the
| environment, it used to be in light shades of grey now it
| looks all dark mode (which I personally detest and find
| illegible)
|
| [0]http://web.archive.org/web/20170111184727/https://vvvv.org
| /s...
|
| [1]http://www.vvvvjs.com/start
| winrid wrote:
| The linked page reminds me, I love the style of Japanese
| websites. :)
|
| https://ipad.live7.jp/
| msephton wrote:
| A real assault on the senses!
| msephton wrote:
| I found IntelligentPad on an old Macintosh magazine cover CD, was
| intrigued enough to run it, do some digging, do a screen
| recording and put it all in this blog post.
|
| I'd never heard of it before but you can easily see the things it
| has in common with Interface Builder (which was new at the time),
| Hypercard (ditto) and even things that followed it like Fujitsu's
| TownsGEAR, Microsoft's Visual Basic, Borland's Delphi and Apple
| Research Lab's Squeak.
| thethingo wrote:
| Just crazy how most things considered innovative are built upon
| years of other people's work. Technology is beautiful.
| msephton wrote:
| I know what you mean. A lot of this stuff stays in research
| labs. If it's lucky it might break out. I'm thinking of
| WIMP/GUI (Xerox PARC), Interface Builder (Inria).
| IntelligentPad seems to have not managed to have broken out
| quite so successfully, or at least not had the staying power.
|
| I also find it somewhat frightening how quickly good ideas are
| jettisoned in the name of "progress" when the new thing is
| provably worse than the thing it replaces. Apple have done this
| so many times recently with things in macOS and perhaps even
| with Swift.
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(page generated 2023-05-18 23:02 UTC)