CCATP_2026_08_27

Well, it's that time of the week again. It's time for Chitchat across the pond. This is episode number 840 for August 26, 2026. And I'm your host, Allison Sheridan. This week, our guest is Adam Inks of Tidbits, Fame, and Fortune. How you doing today, Adam? >> And here to talk about iOS 26. No, sorry. >> Are you having trouble 26 >> seeing the actual date now? like because they're 26 and 27. I I I pause on the year like uh which one are we? >> Uh I I will admit I've had trouble with ever since we went got to 2020 because of the like with just typing it. It's the 202 like I my hand my hand wants to get I I do a lot of two zeros. >> Um so been troubling me for years. >> 19 was there for a lot of our lives, right? And sooner or later it's going to go away this problem. >> But not in the first 26 years. Sometime after that. >> Yeah. As soon as we're to 2030, I'll be it'll it'll be I'm sure it'll be better. I'm doing fine. Nice to see you, Alison. >> Nice to see you, too. So, uh, while I was gallivanting around the planet on vacation, you published a very interesting thought piece on Tidbits that you titled Decades After Hyperard, AI is democratizing development again. And I found it a really great read in the article. Partway through you started walking us through your programming journey. And I was wondering if we could start there and then bring us up to today's technologies. What made you muse back so far in time and think about this? >> My programming journey, which for the most part wasn't programming. I kept failing miserably. >> That's right. A section is entitled a personal history of failing to become a developer. That's where I want to start. That's that's a great title. >> Well, so I mean I'm sure everyone's I mean like well so so so I have to like start briefly here because we all we've all heard these stories about you know the the kid who finally manages to get a computer and picks it up and becomes this great programmer and everything without ever having been taught anything. I'm not that person. you know, I you know, like I I had a I had an Atari video game. Um you know, you know, a Atari VCS system, you know, Adventure and and Space Invaders and all those kind of games. Um and I kind of loved them. I mean, this was early this was early video games when they were just unimaginably cool and I could never man never just could never really bring myself to deal with the arcades and their quarters. >> Oh. Oh. Just playing at home. I I hate I Yeah, I'm just I'm I'm way too I do not like things that want me to pay like regularly. It just makes me absolutely crazy. Didn't have a lot of money and you know I was like I could not deal with like what but what if I what if I fail, you know, what if I make a mistake early on and my game is over really quickly? I wasted that 25 cents. So, so I really liked the Atari VCS because it let me uh you know, let me play video games without without stress and um and so yeah. That's why I was a kid and I thought, you know, wouldn't it be cool if I could make a video game? I mean, nowadays, you can go to college for this for goodness sake. Uh, but uh, but back then, you know, I mostly daydreamed about it while I was driving driving around fields on our tractor while, you know, doing farm work because that's what I actually did with my my time during the summers. >> That's a nice humble beginning story. >> Yeah. and and uh you know I don't have that tractor, you know, I don't still I mean my don't have that tractor, but uh but I have one that's only slightly newer, you know, probably 1959 or something like that. So we're not talking we're not talking fancy equipment here. We're talking, you know, ancient hardware. >> Okay. >> So you're driving around and you're dreaming about someday you'll make a video game. >> Yeah. Because like I mean I don't maybe people don't rec don't know this, but like when you're doing farm work, you drive very slowly. Like tractors don't go quickly. >> It's like driving a Zamboni or something. >> It's like I mean think about a lawn mower, right? You're you're you know a riding lawn mower. It's about like that. And so and but you're going around a 7 8 15 acre field like it can take you 20 minutes to make a revolution >> and you're and all you have to do is drive in a straight line. I mean or you know make you know turn when appropriate at the at the corners. like this is not something that takes a lot of mental effort is what I'm saying. >> You got a few spare brain brain cells going on. >> A few spare brain cells to work. So yeah. So I was like I mean I I wish I could remember what I actually was you know kind of designing in my head um back then. Um but uh I can't um don't don't don't remember in the slightest but uh but you know it was definitely you know kind of along the lines of you know the kind of things that one could play on an Atari VCS and and I had literally no idea how one made them. I mean keep in mind you had cartridges you you plugged in these kind of eighttrack things into into the Atari to be able to play them. And so it wasn't, you know, there was no concept that you could write anything or do anything yourself. And eventually, you know, we got a we got a computer, got an um in a Franklin A1000 um which was heard of that. >> Yeah, it was a clone that um an Apple 2 Plus clone that Apple sued out of existence eventually. Um, and uh, um, but it was actually, I mean, part of the reason why they suited out of existence is that in in a number of ways it was better than the Apple 2, the Apple 2 Plus, because it was one of those things where they just like copied it and made certain things better. And uh, and I have no idea, you know, I I didn't really know much about the history. They were sold, oh god, where was it? It was it was at a at a video like a video store, like the store, you know, you could go rent videos there. and and the people who who ran the store decided to take on this sideline of selling this particular computer. >> I don't think I ever knew anybody who owned a clone. I I heard of I heard tell of those stories, but >> apparently I am I am the like the the the weird computer person early on. Um because you know the Franklin was great. Um you know I was able to play Apple 2 games and you know like everyone else at the time mostly pirated them. um you'd find someone who would who had one had a had a copy and you'd get a copy. Um, but it also had basic. And so, you know, I immediately thought, oh, I could build something in basic. >> And you know what? >> Not so much. >> That uh that problem with basic for me was, and we've talked about this before, um, that I can't really visualize things in my head. Um, so I need something to be able to see to react to. And so with basic um I had I had a hard time getting it to do much of anything interactively and um that it was much more you know like I could get it to print stuff or calculate stuff or whatever. >> Hello world. >> Oh yep. >> Maybe a do loop to do it more than once. >> Yep. Precisely. Um you know for loops you know if the if then else's you know gotos go >> oh yeah go to 10. I remember go to 10. >> Yeah. Yeah, precisely. And so, so you know, like I could do that and I did, but I couldn't ever come up with anything that was interesting, frankly. And and so so I so I so I you know I I I mean again like I do now I used apps um you know and I was very good at using the apps >> and you know we had ACElk and ACE writer um which were you know word processor and a busyelk clone and used those in high school and you know then my high school got IBM PCs like the original >> IBM PCs not PCATs or XTs or anything like that but like the first ones which were pretty weak, frankly. But uh but and we had a we had a we had a programming class and I thought, "Oh, well, maybe maybe I just need a class." And of course, I went to I went to a small school. There were no there weren't really any choices in the classes you took when you were like me. You you just took the hard classes that were available. Okay. >> Um because there was only one and it was like the next one that was available. And so I was, you know, in this class with all these people that I knew pretty well and a number of them were better at it than I was the programming. >> And this gave a shock to you could um you were a reasonably bright fellow. >> I was validictorian. Okay. >> I had the best grades in CL in the school. Okay. Al although the uh there there there was uh there was one one girl who was who was always quite upset at me because she had taken band or something like that and and it and it hurt GPA slightly. >> Oh no. >> And she was not pleased about the fact that she was saludiatoran because of this. So she claimed um this was back when you know you got your report card you know three weeks after the school school year ended as opposed to now when kids can check it in real time to three digits three digits of precision. So it was a little bit more random what you actually got and how that was going to affect you. >> Right. Right. >> Okay. But uh but so yeah, so like as I said, I you know, it was it was a little sobering, humbling perhaps even if such a thing could be possible for a 16 and 17 year old. Uh that that you know these friends of mine were just better at it than I was. Now I could do it. I got A's in the class. You know, it wasn't like I was no, you know, I was completely incapable, but it was clear there was just something about it that didn't fit with my brain. Okay. So, a a spark or a a a puzzle solving or >> Well, I don't I Yeah, I don't I don't like solving puzzles. >> Ah, >> you know, I I'm I'm capable of it, but you know how, you know, there's always like uh some some magazines will have like the back page puzzle or something and it's, you know, I don't know, various different kind of kinds of puzzles. I never do those because I don't enjoy them. >> Okay. >> You know, crossword puzzles, Sudoku puzzles. Yeah, I can do them. I mean, I'm capable. I'm just not I'm just not interested. And uh and I think it's some of the same kind of thing that it just feels I don't know, like spinning your wheels. You're not going to get anywhere at the end. The puzzle will be done, but it's not like anything's changed in the world. >> So many people today just live and breathe for their Wordle score, and I just don't get it. I I I don't dislike doing it, but it just feels like a waste of time to me. I liked Wordle during the pandemic. >> Yeah. >> For a little while because like >> Right. Precisely. That was like Oh, and and you know, and there were, you know, you know, friends and family, you know, who we were all talking about it like it >> it was about the only thing. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. But as soon as we started to be able to like, you know, the pandemic started to ease up, I was like, "Yeah, fine. Whatever. I got other things to do with even the few minutes of my life that it might take, you know, and then of course you got a hard one or whatever and then then it was like more than a few minutes like I can't believe I wasted 25 minutes on this stupid game. >> Other people see that as time invested and you really enjoy it. I'm not one of them. >> No. Yeah. So, >> so you so these kind of puzzles of figuring out programming wasn't didn't light you up. It it it felt like it was the same kind of thing that that you know the the algorithm was really a puzzle and you know how what was the and particularly when you got into like what was the best way to do something >> you know that that uh you know I guess modern-day coding interviews are like that you know where they walk basically it's a a programming puzzle that you're supposed to solve during the interview. Yeah. um and make people absolutely crazy if you're not good at doing things on demand as opposed to sitting down and working through it on on your own. So >> um so so the next computer I got um was an Atari 1040 ST. As I said, it didn't did not apparently go mainstream for quite a while. And with that one um I was I got that to uh to go to Cornell. >> Wait, what what OS is that? >> Uh something called GEM. and it was its own thing. Okay. >> But it was kind of like a Mac. >> Um it was a 68,000based computer um with a windowing operating system, you know, mouse and everything, but it had full color and and a larger screen and so and it did MIDI really well. The Atari 1040 was actually super popular with musicians because of its MIDI support. >> Oh. So, uh, um, but, uh, you know, again, it was it was sort of like it was a direction where things could have gone, um, you know, instead of the Mac, but Atari was not the company to make that happen. So, you know, they they they tried. Um, and it wasn't a bad computer. Uh, it had its issues, but, you know, no, really no more so than an early Mac. I don't want to offend your your Cornell sensibilities here, but uh I worked with a guy at Hughes Aircraft was uh one year out of school, out of grad school from Cornell. And uh he got offered a job to run the robotics division at Atari. And I looked at him, I said, "Okay, you're a year out of school, sweetie. You're a real real bright kid, though. You're real smart. But who are you going to learn from? You don't know anything about Oh, I'm going to go do and they folded, you know, like six months after they they hired him. I was like, this should have been a red flag that they would hire you for this job. >> Right. Right. Precisely. Just because I mean, well, I mean, to be fair, back in that day, the fact that you'd gone through grad school was more than like most people hadn't even gotten college to do computer stuff. >> Yeah. Well, this was robotics. So, engineering you had been >> engineering maybe, yes, but robotics there were weren't much in the way of robotics programs at that point. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. >> I mean, >> he wasn't gonna be the one to invent them either. >> Apparently not. No. I mean, I I worked I worked with a guy at Cornell who' done his internship at Apple um who I wasn't very impressed with as a um as a as a as a student, shall we say? And um his internship was on the Apple fax modem. >> Oo. >> Yeah. Which I'm like, these things match up pretty well. So, but any event, so I had this 1040 ST and I decided I wanted to um uh my major um I decided on sophomore year was going to be in hypertextual fiction in the college scholar program. >> What does that mean? Well, so college scholarship program was something Cornell did for like if you wanted to do something that wasn't satisfied by any of Cornell's many many many majors and hypertextual fiction is basically you can think of it as fiction on the web nowadays. So where there's a different pa different web page for each chunk of text >> you're using hypertext to move around >> right use hypertext to move around and um in kind of the academic uh aspect of it the story that you end up with is different depending on the text on the links that you have clicked the path you've taken through it >> make your own adventure game >> that was a very primitive approach to the same kind of thing yes >> okay And so so as part of this because I didn't have once you once you're in the college scholar program you have no requirements for classes right because that's the whole point you know the major majors have their requirements because they know what you need to take but you've designed your own major. So and uh and so I didn't have any any any specific requirements. So I thought this is going to be a computer related thing. I mean this has to be on the you know hypertext has to be on a computer. I should probably learn how to, you know, learn how to program because and I'll be it'll work out much better this time because, you know, I'm at Cornell, not at not at North Valley High School. Um, I think it lasted a week. So, the problem was is at the time computer science 100, CS100 was taught um in light speeded Pascal on a Mac because Cornell was an early was one of the one of the very first Mac sites um that Apple had seated. and Lightseed Pascal was an early compiler. And so the way the course uh catalog, and it was a catalog back then, like a phone book like thing, um described the class, it sounded like I could use my, you know, a Pascal compiler on my my Atari. Um I think it was called personal Pascal. And uh and so you know I got personal Pascal and I I went to the class and the first the first assignment was they just gave you some some some code to type into light speeded Pascal to see that you could compile and run it. >> Okay, that makes sense. >> And I typed it in to personal Pascal and it didn't work at all and so I started looking at it and I figured out why it wouldn't work at all. It took me quite a while to get it to compile. Had to rewrite most of the code and this seemed like it was going to be a problem. So, so I went because like if I you know if I had to if I had to like do that much work just to get this type in and you know compile uh project working. So I went to talk to the professor who was completely unsympathetic I may have to say. Oh really? >> And basically said no the class is lighteed Pascal on a Mac and that's what the the the TAs will be grading. >> Oh okay. So, >> so >> not for you >> just can't can't use something else just cuz it's Pascal. It's apparent Pascal is apparently not Pascal in everything the same way everywhere. I don't know. Maybe maybe it was true. Maybe it wasn't. Um was >> didn't true seem to be true to me. >> My first Pascal was well my own actually no there were two of them uh was Mac >> Pascal. >> Wonder if that's later maybe a little later in time. >> I don't know >> what what year would this have been? 85. Oh, no. 86. Fall of 86. >> Okay. >> All right. So, did you buy >> So, clearly I couldn't take this class because I was not willing to go to a public computer room to do all my work. >> Oh, okay. >> I had a computer in my dorm room, which was not that common at the time. >> Yeah. Did you have connectivity in the dorm room? >> A modem? >> Um, uh, yeah, modem phone line. So, um, to talk to the IBM mainframe, for instance. Mhm. >> Uh so yeah, so in any event, this just, you know, it became clear that, you know, programming was really not going to be my thing. And since I didn't have to take it being a college scholar and having setting my own requirements, I dropped it like a hot potato and moved on with my life. Um but but so this is, you know, so I I continued to get obviously more and more into computers and using them and helping people with them and and all of that. And you know I worked in the computer rooms and managed people who worked in the computer rooms. So I became you know extremely expert in you know early Mac stuff and networking and desktop publishing and all that kind of stuff. I could make laser writers do things. Um you know even even figured out how to write a program like a very small program in um >> Postcript. Postcript is a programming language of course right >> and when you printed something on a laser writer it was really writing a little postcript program >> and what most people don't know is that laser writers had passwords and so you actually had to when you the printer driver had the password built into it and so the password was always zero um and so it would know it would just give the password you as part of the print job >> it's a password but it's always zero Yeah. And so someone figured this out and changed the password on one of our laser writers, >> the public ones. >> This was a bad thing because it meant that you couldn't print to it unless you knew the password, which no one knew. And it was a number between one of those u you know number between you know zero and I forget how many bits it was, but it was you know 24 24,000 something one of those kind of numbers. And um and so the problem was that you had to the only way to test this you to write this it's very simple loop to write the program to you know see if a password would work and change it you know and and but it was EROM um that you were writing to that password was stored in this erasable programmable readonly memory and so there were a limited number of writes oh >> which was less than the number of password possibil ities. >> Okay. So, what does that mean? >> So, basically, if you tried said, "Oh, maybe the password's one. Let's write one and see if that works." Nope. Let's write two and let's see if that works. You couldn't query it. You just had to test it. >> And you couldn't test it more as many as there were options >> precisely. And it took 9 seconds per try. And so figuring out like how many times that was going to how long that was going to take, it was going to be, I don't know, weeks if not months um of of testing. So the solution turned out to be def we end up um we we made it clear that someone had basically broken our laser writer and we were going to have to get a new motherboard for it. Um and uh uh some someone's friend said, "Oh, the password is such and such." >> I think they realized they had actually they'd kind of messed up and we were going to be very angry. So >> probably just having fun but because they could. >> Yeah, probably. But I mean we just like laser writers down, you we're going to take it away if we can't use it. So any event, that was my that was my the closest I had to like any kind of programming win, you know, a very very simple loop in Postcript, which someone helped me with. >> So >> So at this point, you're enjoying helping other people use the computers more than than making it sing to do something for yourself. >> Yeah. And I mean because a lot of it I mean there is obviously great joy in being able to make a computer do things >> even if you're within the constraints of what the app allows >> you know so I remember helping helping this grad student keep in mind I was you know I was a junior or something um you know helping this grad student who was impossibly older than me um who >> impossibly older did you say >> yes I mean she was a grown-up Okay. >> And uh and she was converting her thesis from Multimate to Word Perfect on a PC. >> You had to have your your your dissertation in Word Perfect format for the thesis secretary. And um and and this turned out to be a non-trivial conversion. And I was in charge of a computer room for the summer with almost nothing happening. So she would come in and I would go and sit down and help her, you know, like explain to her how to do this stuff because converting files was was a non-trivial process back then and getting all of the code the like the hidden codes right in Word Perfect. That was actually the real problem was the codes were really messed up in Word Perfect and thesis secretaries were dragons. Like if you didn't get your your your thesis completely uh formatted perfectly, they would reject it. >> Okay. >> So yeah. So, so getting the like the hidden codes cleaned up in Word Perfect and all that >> after like six years of of school and you get rejected because it's not formatted properly and >> your margins are wrong. Right. Precisely. So, so, so in any event, um, you know, so doing that kind of thing, you know, like basically kind of going into the underbelly of Word Perfect and trying to figure out, you know, what these codes were doing because you could end up with, you know, numer it was like HTML, right? numerous dested codes and you never quite knew which one was going to take over from which other one and you know cause some formatting change to happen. >> So you you were helping her do the conversion. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Or clean up from the conversion really. >> Okay. >> Um so but the point being that like there were plenty of challenges in using computers. Um they just for me were not programming. So I could work within someone else's world, but I couldn't create my own until Hyperard >> and then Hypercard. So for the children and for those of us who didn't pay much attention beyond playing Mist, uh that was in Hyperard, right? >> Yes, >> I think it was Mist. Uh explain what Hypercard was. So, HyperCard was this amazing system from Bill Atkinson who was one of the, you know, early, you know, the the the founding Mac Apple programmers um who created the Mac. I mean, he wrote QuickDraw, for instance, that allowed us to put stuff on the screen um for the Mac, allowed the Mac to put stuff on the screen. He also wrote Mac Paint um and Mac >> uh Mac Paint. Did you Mac draw? I can't remember. Um but uh but certainly you know like some of the early apps um you know just amazing stuff out of out of him. So he comes up with this idea and this was actually bouncing around a lot of the time right that it was pretty clear that being a programmer was going to be a big deal and so you heard a lot about it in schools and and things like that and and and there was a lot talked about about making it easier. I mean that was the entire point of basic to be you know be frank right was that it was easier than assembler or some of the other languages we had at the time you know forran appl you know these kind of insane languages that did specific things basic was meant to be easier for non-programmers >> which was I mean >> well because you sort of wrote in English >> Englishy I mean right go to10 you could understand GO210 did and uh and if then else you know it was it was it was semi-Englishy but not so much you like for anything more involved um than you know than than than simple stuff. So what HyperCard did is it it it with Bill Atinson what he did is he rethought the concept of development and keep in mind he's working in the Mac paradigm. So everything else was just still kind of really command liney for the most part at this point that you were typing at a I mean you were typing at the command line and you know what you what the response would come back on a screen or I mean there were still computers that us were teletypes. They would actually print on paper what their response was. >> A little freaky, >> right? And so he wanted something where someone could make a real Mac thing. I don't want to call it an app at the moment. Um, and without having to get into the the nitpickiness of the code and so I mean it did need a language and it had a language called HyperTalk which was even more Englishy than than basic by a long shot. But what it did is it said the concept is here is that you have a stack. That was what he called it where it's a it's a bunch of cards just like a stack of playing cards. And each card can have information on it or controls on it. So it could have graphics or it could have a field containing text uh or it could have a button or it could have a checkbox or a radio button, things like that. And then you could on each one of the objects on a card, you could attach a script written in this hyper talk language. And so the script would then do something when you clicked the field or tabbed in if you tabbed into a field or you clicked a button or you selected a checkbox, something would happen. >> So that sounds like hypertext, but it's more than hypertext because it's actually executing a script. Yes. Right. I mean something and and and keep in mind it's I mean it could just jump to another card and certainly plenty of stacks did that. You know you click a button it would you know go to next right? Basically shows you the next page. >> So that was a very simple way to do things but HyperTalk was a fully capable language like you could do a lot of different things um in HyperTalk. And so what this enabled was that people who had significant expertise or desire to communicate something um programmatically could do so. So it became really popular in schools. >> So it was accessible to more people. >> Yes. So you could be a ninth grade science teacher and you know and and whip up a hyperard stack that would I don't know you show how electrons uh or orbit an orbit or orbit the nucleus or something like that >> you know um and basically there were just you know tons and tons of these kind of I want to say necessarily personal because they were often had small audiences but they weren't widely distributed stacks that allowed someone to encapsulate their expertise in some form or fashion >> like where your expertise is on understanding how electrons orbit around the nucleus but >> but it isn't on programming >> right right precisely you have no idea very little idea how to program but you can make a hyperard stack that explains you know basic basic uh atomic structure or um earth science and some, you know, some earth science thing or, you know, and also because of like if you think about the the the cards in the stack, essentially a database. So, it was really easy to make little databases in Hyperart. So, you could make a database that that uh you know had all your record albums in it. >> Oh. >> And with an image of each record album. Okay. >> You know that if you if you could get a picture of it somewhere, you know, that kind of thing. So, so there was the the sky was literally the limit in terms of what you could imagine and do in hyperard. >> So now you became a programmer. >> Yeah, pretty much >> really. >> Um that that in fact I did do quite a lot and that's where Tidbits started >> because Tidbits was a hypercard stack for the first 99 issues. >> Really? Oh wow. So the so cuz so basically Tidbits was you know say we had five articles it was a stack um that every week would come out with five cards and the idea was that um you know you could read you know there and I think there was a I'd have to go back and look. It's been so many years. Um you know I think there was a there was a sidebar that listed them so you could click on one to go to you know go to it. Uh, and then it would load that card and it was a scrolling text field so you could scroll and read the whole article. >> So, how did you distribute this then? So, I'm I'm just somebody who you met >> on the internet. >> On the internet. Yeah. But, so I had to have a Mac and I had to be running HyperCard in order to open it. Right. >> But yes, Hyperard because of Bill Atinson being who he was was bundled with every Mac. >> Right. Okay. And so everyone did have hyperard at this point in time guaranteed and that's why it was a sort of a safe development environment and so yes so so distributing distributing was a whole another ball of wax but basically they were binary files so they and and they had to be com so I wanted to compress them uh because it was very important for very slow connections to have it be as small as possible but then the problem was is that Um, all of the gateways between systems at the time only spoke text, seven- bit ASKY text. And so binary files would be corrupted if they went through. And so they were all stuffed, compressed with stuffit and then binhexed. And binex was another kind of um conversion program that took a binary file and turned it into ASI. >> And so then >> it's a really faint bell bin hex. And then so when you received it, it washqx was bin hex. So you received yourhqx file and you would you would have to debinhex it and then unst it and then you had this stack that you could open in hyperard >> and so you know >> yeah it was super easy. Um and um you know so there were uh there were sites like Infomac um that maintained archives of things and so I sort of learned I knew some of this stuff but I learned you know I learned about you know the net heavies the people who were sort of um more important on the internet because they controlled major machines and uh you know and so you had to get their permission to do certain things. >> This is humans or companies? >> Humans. Oh yeah, humans. >> Huh. >> They were mostly academics. Um because it wasn't actually it wasn't companies at all. It was all academics. Um because the internet at the time was almost entirely there was almost no commercial use at all. All it was all uh um government and military and primarily academic >> h so again we're talking 1990 here. You know this is the National Science Foundation u running stuff. >> Okay. I mean, I was using it in a work environment and in a play environment in the early 80s. >> I'm a little conf >> Well, 1984 was when I got my first Mac, >> right? But there wasn't there wasn't much in the way of um internet at that point. So like Cornell was on Bitnet and Usenet might have started a little bit but ARPANET would have been would have been limited to universities and military sites. >> Okay. >> Um so so I mean specifically from the networking standpoint I see what you're saying. >> Yeah. Yeah. So, so in any event, so I mean yes, there were internal networks certainly um although pretty limited ones still um I actually I know the guy who put the first Apple site on the internet um FTP.apple.com >> was a 2CI running on running under Mark Johnson's desk >> in developer technical support. Uh so um but that was later in the 90s. I was you know the Apple didn't have anything until then but um there were also a lot of commercial services. So CompuServe, Deli, Bix, Genie, um Apple Apple had um oh gosh, Apple link Apple link and then EWorld. >> And so when we were distributing tidbits, we actually had to distribute to all these different sites. It took me quite a while, you know, every week to actually go to the log to each one on my modem and uh >> and then binex the thing and >> and upload the upload the binex file. >> Wow. >> So, it was something else. But uh but any event so so so yeah hyperard hyperard is really cool and the and so sorry the real reason why it had to be in hypercard was the archiving feature because keep in mind my mother was a was an archavist and it was really annoying to not be able to search for anything. There were no search engines and magazines came on paper right you couldn't search anything. And so with Tidbits, every week you got it and you clicked a button and it archived itself into into your your stack containing all the previous issues. >> Oh, that's kind of cool. >> And then it was searchable. >> Okay. >> And not only that, but one of the things I also did was manually, I may add, typed in the reviews in Mac user and Mac World and Mac Week with page numbers. So like, oh, Ramdouler in Mac user July, you know, July 1991, page 22. >> So, >> and so >> wait, so you were referencing these reviews in Mac user and then talking about them. >> We're just saying literally indexing them >> so that if you wanted to look up, you could search on RAM doubler and it would tell you that it was reviewed in that issue of Mac user. So you could go find it in your collection because you had no other way of knowing which issue of Mac user it would be in even if you were a subscriber and had all of them. >> Okay. I thought we were talking about Tidbits. When did we switch to talk about Mac user? >> So this was an article in every issue of Tidbits >> was about >> Tidbits. Tidbits indexed all the paper magazines. >> Oh geez. >> For reviews. >> Okay. >> So yeah. Um um so yeah, so that's that but that's kind of why the archive was so important because it was in fact the only way to search the paper magazines of the time. >> That's crazy. >> Well, you still had to go and like look up the article of course, but uh but it would tell you where to find it. >> At least where to go look. Okay. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Did you enjoy figuring that out? That was Oh, yeah. Writing I mean writing the tibbit sc the tibbits the tidbits uh stack was a whole lot of fun. Um but I made a mistake. Uh >> oh. This is this was kind of one of the big the big problems actually and partly why we moved away from tidbits was that and I can't quite remember the like the technical details but it had something to do with all the different layers in HyperCard where when I when I did the archive I I I brought more layers from each stack that needed to be >> into the into the archive. Um and as a result the archive got too big. >> Oh no. And so after you know 99 issues it was something like 10 megabytes in size. >> That's massive back then >> precisely that's really really big. I mean this was back when like 40 megabyte drives were a thing and and it was starting to slow down and you know all this I mean just so many problems and but because of the way I had architected it not quite anticipate not anticipating this at all not even quite just totally not anticipating it. um it it it it you know became too too big for itself. You know it it it was not a good design and um and so um we our last issue in Hyperard was issue 99 and after that we switched to a structure enhanced text which is sort of a precursor to Markdown. >> I'm going to correct a little um audio typo you did a second ago. You said that's why we moved away from tidbits. I think you meant that's why we moved away from hyperard. >> Oh yes yes yes. Sorry, I moved away from Hyperard >> just in case anybody was worried they were not following this plot correctly. >> Oh yeah, we just stopped Tidbits after issue 99. I don't know what's been going on since then. Um, so yeah. Yeah, we my hyperard it became clear this was not a this was not a long-term solution um because of this problem of of the way it was growing and everything. And keep in mind there's all that stuffing and binexing, right? Wouldn't it be nicer if it was just a text file? >> Sure. >> And so that was the structure enhanced text format allowed us to do that. And then there were apps, something called easy readader in partic or easy view in particular that allowed you to get the same kind of interface of a sidebar and clicking on things and searching and all of that um with the Cext file, the structure enhanced text file. Any event, a lot of history, but the point is is that like building that stuff in HyperCard was really kind of neat. And I did other I did a bunch of other things as well. And you know because like oh here was one you couldn't like let's say you had um 10 button 10 10 check boxes on a on a on a card. There was no way to align them and you could >> hurt your soul. >> Oh you cannot imagine. Um and so and so you know there so like and I think you couldn't select multiple things at once. So what I so I actually remember writing some utilities for myself essentially to allow myself to to to do these like selecting everything and aligning them and that kind of stuff. So you know again it was it was it was it was beyond a simple stack but it was far from becoming like real code. There were god what were they called? X commands. I think they were called X commands. There were ways of writing things that would extend HyperTalk. So you could actually like get more commands. >> Huh. >> And I had no idea how to do that. That was real programming. But anything in HyperTalk I could do. Um I was pretty good at hyper talk. >> And so that was uh that was about but that was the end of it. As soon as you know because like I we moved away from HyperCard with Tidbits in 1992. Um and then by 9394 IPCard was basically gone because Apple stopped bundling it. >> So this is 30 years ago this this fund was taken away from you and in those 30 years did anything >> bitter and twisted. I am I'm telling you bitter and twisted still bitter and twisted. >> But but something has has brought you back after these 30 years. >> Yeah. as as you well know the addictive nature of AI assisted development, >> right? >> Because I mean think about it. So what was H what HyperCard did and what made it special and and nothing has nothing has come even close since is that it provided the combination of the environment and the easy language and frankly the ubiquitous distribution and because everyone had had had on their Mac so that you could you could sort of guarantee that everyone could look at something and everything after that. Well, frankly, they usually tried to make it too hard. You know, that that that the real programmers got involved and they're like, "Oh, well, it would be much more powerful if it did X." Well, yes, it would. But now people can't do it anymore, >> right? >> I mean, even >> but they didn't care because they could do it. >> They didn't care. They could do it, right? I mean, they weren't thinking this, but it was job security, right? Um, but like I mean remember FileMaker used to be people loved FileMaker back in the day and then it got bigger and it went relational and there was FileMaker Server and now it's completely a developer tool. I mean to the extent that it still exists at all which is always a question but uh but but but even you know even when it was even it was big it just kept getting more and bigger and bigger and more and more complicated and you know and you were a FileMaker developer >> right that's that was a whole >> make a database >> right it was a whole job it became you could be a consultant for that you know so like everything moves in that direction and so so with HyperCard you it never I mean even hyperard kind of moved in that direction honestly because Apple sold it for a while and that never succeeded and etc etc. >> But what was neat was that it didn't it gave you a new way of specifying what you want of of like creating what you wanted. It it wasn't about the code. It was as much about the interface as everything else as anything else. >> Okay? because you started from what you could see. >> You put a button down on a card and then you attached a script to the button, >> you know, and and then the button did something like it went plink, you know, because you said you said that you said that the button should play this sound when it's clicked and it did. You're like, "Oo, now I know how to make a sound," you know, and then you'd move on to the next thing. And so you could just kind of work your way up. So fast forward past all this stuff, all this other stuff that sort of done made it easy and then always went and got harder. HTML, right? HTML used to be super easy. Everyone can make a web page. >> Now you have to be a full stack developer. I mean, come on. I mean, it's just like if it's not if it's not, you know, dynamic CSS and who knows what JavaScript, you're not allowed to make a website that anyone will actually use. So, so what AI has done is it's taken away all of the programming and just made it about the creation. How do you convey what you want to the programmer behind the scenes? So just as with HyperCard when you were putting a button that m played a sound on the on the card you were in essence telling the little programmer on inside HyperCard to do this thing. >> Sure. >> And it it wrote all of the it dealt with all of Apple's APIs for playing sounds and all of that kind of stuff. You didn't have to know any of that. It just played a sound when you clicked the button. Now AI, you just tell it what you want and it goes and writes some code for you to do that and you see if it works the way you want. >> So do you feel when you're doing it? Do you feel like you're programming? >> You feel like you're creating though? >> I'm creating but I'm not programming. >> Right. >> I I'm really pretty uninterested in the actual code. Don't really care one bit. >> Don't care what language it's in. don't don't care if there's I mean actually I care if there's bugs from the standpoint of like I want it to work but it's not like I'm looking at it going well you're missing a semicolon there you know that's not >> you could have structured this more efficiently or anything like that >> couldn't care less couldn't care less um you know that languages don't interest me um I I mean some people love them I mean some some programmers are like oo let's check let's let's try or Erlang or you know whatever the rust is the you know the latest hotness in high performance languages so much faster than Python. Couldn't care less. Don't don't don't know, don't care. >> Um I'm finding it interesting there's two identical reactions, but one is in denial. Um and that is people who don't code being very very excited about being able to create a tool that's all that scratches an itch of their own. And that's you and and I'm sort of on the fence between these two camps. And the other is uh real programmers who do this for a living trying to say that they're not vibe coding as they're describing how they vibe coded like um I listen to the accidental tech podcast and and uh listening to Marco Arment just begrudgingly keep admitting that you know how well and then and now he's after listening to him for a while now he's like oh man I had this thing partially written I couldn't get it finished I I sitting there languishing And I just said, "Fable, just go finish it for me. Write it the way I would have written it. Just just go do that for me and write a bunch of tests that I never would have written before." And so now he's head over heels in love with it because he's getting to create again where he was just spending all of his time testing looking for bugs and, you know, messing around with details of the code. And so he's coming to that same point. But you you just hear people going, "No, I didn't vibe code it. I had Claude help me." Yeah, you vibecoded that. Yes. Yes. No, I don't I don't I mean I don't love the term vibe code. I mean I I I I get what it's supposed to mean. Um but what I really come to realize is that and there's a there's an evolution to working with AI programming of course, right? that I mean you start with little bits of data analysis where you ask it something about a spreadsheet but what it's really doing is is writing Python code behind the scenes like you don't know that but it's what it's doing and then you get into like little scripts can you write me an Apple script or a shell script that does this thing >> and you know and then you start getting into apps and you know and the apps can become you know more more complex um as you go and but what I've sort of come to realize is that once you're into the apps It turns out that software as a profession like professional development is done in a certain way for a reason that you know it really is better if you start with a spec and if you if you write those tests and you know and it's not that you have to do these things yourself but you got to but you got to work with the AI to do >> okay >> so you're really much more of of like the highle product manager who says what we need is an app that does X Y and Z for this audience um and we're looking for it to run on these platforms and blah blah blah you know like all that kind of high level I have the vision stuff and then back in the well not so much back in the day but you know and in a large organization my people will go off and do this for me >> right >> you know like report back >> sure >> you know go figure out the details of what language to use and you know how to how to how to how to how to architect it all and things like that and that's all good. Um and so now if you're the product manager of your AI underlings um they're the you still it's still useful to have them do that kind of stuff. >> Sure. >> Because it keeps them keeps them focused shall we say. >> Well >> AI is not known for its focus. I believe that it's probably very much like real life programming in that as a project manager you say I want it to be able to do blah blah blah and blah blah blah way and I want to have it these interfaces and this inputs and this outputs and then the the underlingi assistant comes back and goes here I did it and you go oh that's not what I meant. >> Yep. Yep. Exactly like that >> except the assistant doesn't whine at you. Yeah, but what you said, >> well, so I mean I wrote about this, but I I have I've worked with developers in the in the past, like I've hired developers and to do things for me and >> it's it's it's actually a situation which can be tense because if nothing else, it's going to cost money, time and money to have them do exactly what I want. And so I'm trying to describe as much to the extent that I can exactly what I want, but you know, sometimes you just don't know until you see it, >> you know, and or or you described it really well, but they just didn't understand. Who knows? It can it can go both sides and you see what comes back and then you have to decide how what you're going to ask for in terms of changes given your time and budget. >> Right. Right. Absolutely. And and sometimes the personal relationships involved. You can't say, "Well, that sucks." What were you thinking? That wasn't what anything close to what I said or thought I said. >> No. Are you polite to be nice about it? >> Are you polite to Claude or do you say that? >> Oh, actually I am. >> Yeah, >> I am. >> I mean, only occasionally will I was like, "No, that didn't work at all." You know, >> try again. I I I only get >> usually it's >> I get implied when it does the same mistake it already did before. No, we've been here. Stop that. I think that's where I'm supposed to pay for a better model. >> Right. But that's all right. That's always the hint of like get Opus to do this. Have you Sonic? You You're not smart enough to do it. >> Um but yeah, no, I I I usually am. And and actually usually the things that it has trouble with are visual things where it it just doesn't know what it looks like, right? And so, you know, like I was I was working with a I wanted it to do a little for set shot. I wanted to do a little export mop down menu and it was having the most trouble with the little carrot. >> It wanted to be it wanted it to be blue. And I'm like there no this doesn't make sense to have this thing be blue. Like no one is >> it's not a it's not doesn't need a highlight color. And uh and it took a little while to get it to the point, you know, it's like, okay, so you know, finally it said, I can't do that. I have to do it differently in Swift UI. No problem. And does it and the chevrons on the wrong side. I was like, why'd you put it in the wrong side? And it says, well, I didn't I didn't think I did. And but oh, it's this H stack problem. >> Yeah. I'm always throwing up screenshots going look stupid. This is except I don't say stupid >> precisely. And I and I just kept I kept right. I kept I kept showing it little screenshots of you know what it was doing and so so it wasn't I mean it it it was a little bit of that like I'm doing this but I don't have eyes >> right tell me tell me if tell me if this looks okay and uh and or you know because I'm working with set shot where I where I need to actually like change settings and whatnot there's a I'm acting a lot like it's hand you know where I'll say okay tell me exactly how we're going test this and I will, you know, I'll take the snapshot and I'll go change a setting and I'll take another snapshot because, you know, some of those things it can't it just can't do >> can't see. Yeah. >> And I always feel like I'm valuable when I get to do stuff. >> Well, and you know, and and it is valuable because every time I do, you know, whenever I use, you know, the more I use the app, the more I'm like, well, why is it doing that? That seems a little funny. Um, you know, and you know, anytime it feels a little funny, I say, "This thing feels a little funny. What happened?" And, uh, and oh, so yeah, this happened. I'm fixing it. >> So, do you feel very agreeable? >> You've regained this power that you had with uh with Hyper Talk. >> Oh, and and and more so, partly because I mean, my world has expanded, right? You know, when I was using HyperCard, the internet barely existed. you know, we're talking 9600 baud modems >> and and you know, now I'm living in in this world where we have, you know, you know, complete interconnectivity of everything >> and and and you know, and supercomputers in our pockets. And so, you know, the ability to do all this kind of stuff, like my desires have grown over the years, shall we say? >> I feel like I'm getting greedy now. I can do this. I can do this. I can do this. you know, one of the other apps I've written. So, so the Set Shot app that I I talk about um in a subsequent article mostly, but um but basically it's designed to let you determine what has what what either you or Apple has changed in terms of your Mac OS settings over time. >> Okay. and um and you know and that's um it it's a it's an interesting complex app with lots of lots of interesting in my mind puzzles because you know it's stuff I know about you know where I'm like this is kind of you know but what about on Macs that don't have batteries how will those settings look different you know that I know about that not all Macs have batteries and yet Mac OS has lots of settings that change whether or not you're on battery on power >> right and So there's a lot of that kind of stuff where it does require my um uh require really my expertise to understand how to do this. Not that someone else couldn't do it, but not many people. I mean, you do have to be pretty deeply aware of how the Mac thinks about settings and the the number of them and how users users think about that kind of stuff. Um but but anyways, so where I was going with that was another app that I've done is um uh a timing app which you know takes video of a race finish line and as people cross the line you push a button and it records a picture a time stamp picture and also video and it's actually it even starts and stops the video when no one's in the picture. >> Oh wow. >> Very cool. And someone, you know, I was just barely gotten to this point and, you know, one of my timing friends was saying, "Oh, you know, and could it uh, you know, could it automatically record people?" And I was like, "Yes, it's going to be we're going to have a line on the screen and when they cross the line, it's going to OCR their bib number, you know, and if they if they can see it like >> and you can really now." >> Yes. >> Wow. >> I mean, I said I've gotten everything up to the automatic recording and OCRing and that, you know, that's probably just another half hour with Claude. So, you know, then there's a lot of testing because it's hard to test this stuff not in the real world. >> Sure. Get your friends to just run back and forth wearing bibs. >> Precisely. >> Sometimes upside down to see if they you can mess with people. >> Oh, believe me, runners will make every imaginable mistake possible. Um, >> wearing it as a hat. >> Oh, it it's it's it's it's on their shorts, on the side, it's on their back. the things that people will imagine and you know, oh, it was on my code. I took that off somewhere back there. >> Oh, yeah. >> So, it this is backup timing. This is not meant to be high precision. Okay. >> But, uh, but nonetheless, it is still it's still it's just kind of a neat idea that you could just, you know, point an iPhone at a finish line and get a list of >> mostly everyone who finishes. >> That's amazing. This has been really >> And that's that's like that's doable. Like, how cool is that? Is that like science fiction or what? I I like you're thinking way outside of the box of the kind of stuff I think of. All of my all of my app work is always about time, adding, subtracting. What time is it in New Zealand? You know, I I What time will it be in New Zealand when I'm awake and they're awake? You know, I I it seems to I seem obsessed with time, but uh it does seem that way. Adding it, subtracting it. I' I've seen your app. I've used your app. >> How exciting. >> Yeah. Yeah. No, because in in in the running world sometimes you need to like extract a portion of a run. >> Oh, good. >> So, in Strava in Straa you can you can quote unquote crop it. So, you move your start point, you move your end point, and then you read the times and you put them into your app. >> Oh, very nice. I like it. I was excited what you want. >> Steve used it when filming the eclipse that he was trying what he was trying to calculate was uh how the uh the sun would move diagonally across the frame of his camcorder. and he needed to figure out what time the center of that was going to be, you know, or to get the center at the right spot to know when to start recording and when to stop recording to figure it out. And he ended up using my app. So, there's seems to be a lot of interesting little uses. See, people care about that. >> Time is time is really, really hard to calculate with. >> It really is. It is. Well, this has been a really fun I I like the walk down memory lane because you don't do it in the classic nerd where where you've got to talk about how many megabytes of RAM you had on this and you know into a lot of the nitty-gritty but the the why and how it made you feel and I think that's one of the the big things that you wanted to talk about was the empowerment that you have today >> right and you know and and it really is you know it really is most of what I see people making um is stuff for themsel elves >> you know that say could I do this yes you can and that's that's kind of important that is that we really haven't we haven't had that and you know when I talk about democratization you know someone was like oh not everyone can can think about you know can like specify all the stuff that needs to be like no but anyone who wants to can >> right anyone who wants it badly enough because if nothing else these chat bots are nothing if not conversational, right? >> Yeah, you can try. >> They're happy to talk to you at whatever length you want about your app, >> there >> and so whatever it is that you know that that that you know whatever itch you've got, you know, you're going to be able to scratch in some way, shape, or form. And and I do think it's probably important that like you don't think that, oh, it has to be in the app store or you have to sell it or something like that. No, can be something you run on your machine. That's totally fine. You know, these are >> essentially even the phones, personal computers. Like they should be what what you want them to be, not what Adobe and Apple and all these other companies want them to be because let's face it, our desires are not usually aligned these days. >> Not Not at all. Not at all. Well, I think I want to end us with your your statement there that uh yes, you can is really the theme of everything that you've been talking about today. This is this has been so much fun, Adam, as I expected it to be, as it always is. >> Indeed. Indeed. Good to chat. >> I hope you enjoyed this episode of Chitchat Across the Pond. Did you notice there weren't any ads in the show? That's because this show is not adupported. It's supported by you. 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