Scot & Siliclone: Chapters: Kubey

Interactive Videodisc Player.
Records far outsold audio cassettes. However, when domestic products moved beyond audio to video, video cassettes far outsold videodiscs (the video analogue of records). What had happened in the interval? People had shifted from being passive consumers to active producers or, at least, to use Alvin Toffler's term, prosumers. They preferred the format which gave them more Button Power. We will soon see the comeback of the videodisc, in an interactive form. It will overtake the videocassette because it will offer even more Button Power. You will not only be able to cycle back and forth over the linear presentation of the VCR, but you will be able to access any of the 54,000 images in any order instantaneously. HyperCard is the prototype of the front end mediating between you and the videodisc which makes this possible.

Desktop Video Production (DTVP) Studio.
The next step is the development of a large storage medium on which one can write as well as read. Such a medium, already available in the CD-ROM, will be the basis for a Desktop Video Production Studio. CD-ROM disks, only a little larger than the 31/2 floppy disks, contain the equivalent of about 300,000 pages of information. Many households already have a VCR, a Camcorder, and a computer. The addition of HyperCard, a scanner, an optical character reader, and various devices to link those elements into an integrated system would provide a domestic DTVP studio. Such a system would complete the process of transforming the domestic consumer into a producer. The revolt of the couch potato will be over.

The author is currently writing a HyperBook based on HyperCard [Gardiner 1994]. This is just a little less silly than making a traditional book. However, it is an intermediate device, for those who do not have a $2,000 computer to read the electronic version. It embodies the principles of HyperCard and thus invites people to learn those principles within the familiar and friendly (books are very user-friendly) context of a book.

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