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FIGURE 2: A TYPICAL 'TEXT' CARD IN A HYPERBOOK

      When I used my computer to desktop publish a book (Gardiner, 1987), I was obviously guilty of 'looking through the rear-view mirror' - that is, using a fourth-generation process to create a second-generation product. The fact that I used a landscape screen to produce a portrait book is a clear indication that I was looking through the rear-view mirror. To do so I had to scroll, which takes us way back in technology. In writing this hyperbook, I could he accused once again of rearview mirror thinking - or, perhaps, of side-view mirror thinking. However, at least the hyperbook is 'landscape' shape whereas the book tends to be 'portrait' shape: that is, it is the shape of the screen rather than of the page, since each card, of which it is composed is a screenful of information.

      The rationale last time was that it was a demonstration of desktop publishing; the rationale this time is that it is an invitation into the fourth generation for those who have only the tools (physical and conceptual) of the second generation.

      At a mundane level, one could think of this hyperbook as an advertisement for hypermedia. The target population is those who do not yet have computers, so there is no point in presenting it on a disc. The clients do not have the means of reading it until they are sold the means. People do not advertise a CD-ROM player on a CD-ROM disc! This is why one returns from a typical multimedia conference (presenting all the latest technology of the fourth generation of media) loaded down with a pile of second-generation paper!

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