Toolbook? Richmond? Anybody?

A place to discuss any and all xTalk implementations, not just LC LCC Forks, but HyperCard, SuperCard, MetaCard, Gain Momentum, Oracle MediaTalk, OpenXION, etc.
Forum rules
Please limit any bashing/harping on any commercial interests to a minimum, thanks!
Post Reply
User avatar
OpenXTalkPaul
Posts: 1485
Joined: Sat Sep 11, 2021 4:19 pm
Contact:

Toolbook? Richmond? Anybody?

Post by OpenXTalkPaul »

I think Toolbook was a Windows only xTalk implementation and so I would NEVER have bothered with it even if I had know about it!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ToolBook
User avatar
richmond62
Posts: 2619
Joined: Sun Sep 12, 2021 11:03 am
Location: Bulgaria
Contact:

Re: Toolbook? Richmond? Anybody?

Post by richmond62 »

Toolbook? Richmond? Anybody?
If that is meant to be a joke . . . Ho, Hum . . .

For my sins I slaved with Toolbook 5 when I worked at the UAE University in Al Ain in 1998
because, on coming in one day to check on my HyperCard standalones running on about 100 machines running MacOS 8.5
I discovered they were not there because the Sheikh (i.e. man with no education, 4 wives, the mind of a desert rat and
oil pumping out of the ground in his backgarden) had, over-night decreed that all the Macs should be chucked out and replaced with
machines running Windows NT, so they were, literally overnight . . .

Had to recreate all my HyperCard things in Toolbook; a bit like what my father said was his favourite leisure activity:

banging his head on the wall

why?

because it feels great when it stops. 8-)

ToolBook 5 was certainly NOT "colourised HyperCard for Windows", it was an uphill struggle, most unintuitive, and I would not
have touched it with a 10 foot pole if it had not been part of my job description.
https://richmondmathewson.owlstown.net/
User avatar
OpenXTalkPaul
Posts: 1485
Joined: Sat Sep 11, 2021 4:19 pm
Contact:

Re: Toolbook? Richmond? Anybody?

Post by OpenXTalkPaul »

Ah sorry to hear that... I would've gone dumpster diving for those macs :lol:
I've threaten to quit when IT types have suggested to do prepress graphics work on Windows 9.x back then.
User avatar
richmond62
Posts: 2619
Joined: Sun Sep 12, 2021 11:03 am
Location: Bulgaria
Contact:

Re: Toolbook? Richmond? Anybody?

Post by richmond62 »

SShot 2021-09-18 at 12.08.59.png
SShot 2021-09-18 at 12.08.59.png (104.44 KiB) Viewed 6498 times
-
https://www.sumtotalsystems.com/toolbook
https://richmondmathewson.owlstown.net/
User avatar
richmond62
Posts: 2619
Joined: Sun Sep 12, 2021 11:03 am
Location: Bulgaria
Contact:

Re: Toolbook? Richmond? Anybody?

Post by richmond62 »

When I worked with ToolBook 5 in 1998-9 it was similar to HyperCard insofar
as it could be coded with its embedded OpenScript language with about 1,000 commands.

It seems that later in ToolBook moved further away from that paradigm towards
a drag-n-drop sort of thing, so should not have been considered as a RAD IDE with embedded
language, but more of a "Powerpoint on steroids" sort of thing.

This is probably why the thing is being dropped as there are almost as many
"Powerpoint-on-steroids" things out 'there' as there are pebbles on the beach.
https://richmondmathewson.owlstown.net/
User avatar
OpenXTalkPaul
Posts: 1485
Joined: Sat Sep 11, 2021 4:19 pm
Contact:

Re: Toolbook? Richmond? Anybody?

Post by OpenXTalkPaul »

richmond62 wrote: Sat Sep 18, 2021 9:16 am This is probably why the thing is being dropped as there are almost as many
"Powerpoint-on-steroids" things out 'there' as there are pebbles on the beach.
Yeah I think that's been a problem, some people have always seen Hyper xTalk things as nothing more than a slide-show multi-media tool for people who can't handle "real" (unnecessarily difficult and ugly) programing languages.
FourthWorld
Posts: 280
Joined: Sat Sep 11, 2021 4:37 pm
Contact:

Re: Toolbook? Richmond? Anybody?

Post by FourthWorld »

Toolbook was awesome when I was hired to build simulations and training systems back in v6.

It had web put way back then, and foreign function interface was built right into the core language by just using optional type declarations.
User avatar
richmond62
Posts: 2619
Joined: Sun Sep 12, 2021 11:03 am
Location: Bulgaria
Contact:

Re: Toolbook? Richmond? Anybody?

Post by richmond62 »

I worked with Toolbook v5 and that was just before people realised that web-delivered things
were a good thing, and while v6, from what Richard says, was obviously a jump up, something
subsequently went wrong as it ended up as a non-code, drop-yer-pictures arrangement.
https://richmondmathewson.owlstown.net/
Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest