NoteCards was a
hypertextHypertext is text, displayed on a computer, with references to other text that the reader can immediately access, usually by a mouse click or keypress sequence. Apart from running text, hypertext may contain tables, images and other presentational devices...
system developed at
Xerox PARCPARC , formerly Xerox PARC, is a research and development company in Palo Alto, California with a distinguished reputation for its contributions to information technology....
by Randall Trigg, Frank Halasz and Thomas Moran in 1984. NoteCards developed after Trigg became the first to write a
Ph.D.Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated PhD , for the Latin , meaning "teacher of philosophy", or alternatively, DPhil, for the equivalent , is an advanced academic degree awarded by universities...
thesis on hypertext while at the
University of Maryland College ParkThe University of Maryland, College Park is a public research university located in the city of College Park in Prince George's County, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C. Founded in 1856, the University of Maryland is the flagship institution of the University System of Maryland...
in 1983. NoteCards is one of the best known hypertext projects in the research world due to its design being well documented.
NoteCards is built on the model of there being four basic kinds of objects: notecards,
linksIn computing, a hyperlink is a reference in a document to an external or internal piece of information. The most common usage is in the Internet to browse through web pages: some text in the current document is highlighted so that when clicked, the browser automatically displays another page or...
, browser card, and a filebox.
NoteCards was a
hypertextHypertext is text, displayed on a computer, with references to other text that the reader can immediately access, usually by a mouse click or keypress sequence. Apart from running text, hypertext may contain tables, images and other presentational devices...
system developed at
Xerox PARCPARC , formerly Xerox PARC, is a research and development company in Palo Alto, California with a distinguished reputation for its contributions to information technology....
by Randall Trigg, Frank Halasz and Thomas Moran in 1984. NoteCards developed after Trigg became the first to write a
Ph.D.Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated PhD , for the Latin , meaning "teacher of philosophy", or alternatively, DPhil, for the equivalent , is an advanced academic degree awarded by universities...
thesis on hypertext while at the
University of Maryland College ParkThe University of Maryland, College Park is a public research university located in the city of College Park in Prince George's County, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C. Founded in 1856, the University of Maryland is the flagship institution of the University System of Maryland...
in 1983. NoteCards is one of the best known hypertext projects in the research world due to its design being well documented.
NoteCards is built on the model of there being four basic kinds of objects: notecards,
linksIn computing, a hyperlink is a reference in a document to an external or internal piece of information. The most common usage is in the Internet to browse through web pages: some text in the current document is highlighted so that when clicked, the browser automatically displays another page or...
, browser card, and a filebox. Each window is an analog of a cue card; window sizes may vary, but contents cannot scroll. As such, the windowing model is not fully supported. Local and global maps are available through browsers. There are over 40 different nodes which support various media.
NoteCards was implemented in
LISPLisp is a family of computer programming languages with a long history and a distinctive, fully parenthesized syntax. Originally specified in 1958, Lisp is the second-oldest high-level programming language in widespread use today; only Fortran is older. Like Fortran, Lisp has changed a great deal...
on
XeroxXerox Corporation is a fortune 500 global document management company which manufactures and sells a range of color and black-and-white printers, multifunction systems, photo copiers, digital production printing presses, and related consulting services and supplies...
D-machine workstations, which used large, high-resolution
displaysA monitor or display is a piece of electrical equipment which displays images generated by devices such as computers, without producing a permanent record. The monitor comprises the display device, circuitry, and an enclosure...
. The NoteCards interface is event-driven. One interesting feature of NoteCards is that authors may use
LISPLisp is a family of computer programming languages with a long history and a distinctive, fully parenthesized syntax. Originally specified in 1958, Lisp is the second-oldest high-level programming language in widespread use today; only Fortran is older. Like Fortran, Lisp has changed a great deal...
commands to customize or create entirely new node types. The powerful programming language allows almost complete customization of the entire NoteCards work environment.
Notecards has been referred to as a "second generation"
hypertextHypertext is text, displayed on a computer, with references to other text that the reader can immediately access, usually by a mouse click or keypress sequence. Apart from running text, hypertext may contain tables, images and other presentational devices...
system.
Availability
NoteCards is available commercially from the
Common LispCommon Lisp, commonly abbreviated CL, is a dialect of the Lisp programming language, published in ANSI standard document ANSI INCITS 226-1994 , . Developed to standardize the divergent variants of Lisp which predated it, it is not an implementation but rather a language specification...
software vendor Venue, and is compiled for Solaris 2.5 and 7 (untested on later versions ) and
LinuxLinux is a generic term referring to Unix-like computer operating systems based on the Linux kernel. Their development is one of the most prominent examples of free and open source software collaboration; typically all the underlying source code can be used, freely modified, and redistributed,...
x86 with the
X Window SystemThe X Window System is a computer software system and network protocol that provides a graphical user interface for networked computers, and was initially developed as part of Project Athena...
. It is unknown how close this version is to earlier versions of NoteCards as there is little information about the product.