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To those who are disappointed that Shaping San Francisco is not Mac-compatible:
Let me start by saying that I can't stand this pseudo "debate" about
the different platforms... and I would never dream of referring to either
the Wintel or Mac platforms as "superior" to one another, since as far
as I'm concerned they're equally quirky and unfriendly, each having
certain advantages and disadvantages vis-a-vis each other... In any
case, there is not a shred of morality to the decision of which platform
one ends up using. With either choice the developer spends an incredible
chunk of her/his life pulling out hair and hating the choice made....
Computers! can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em!!
I and my two associates spent the better part of Sept. 1993-Oct. 1994
trying to figure out the concept we were working on, whether or not
it would be a game, an encyclopedia, or what. By late 1994 we could
no longer delay our choice of hardware and software, but until then
we had been trying to avoid committing to anything, hoping something
really killer would appear in the market, and that we could afford it.
In late 1994, MacIntosh computers routinely cost 50%+ more than comparable
speed, memory and power on the PC side. That was bad enough, but we
may have chosen the Mac if the software to produce this project were
available. At that time, the market leader was Macromedia Director (as
it is today), which had just introduced a Windows version of its software,
and had begun advertising its cross-platform capabilities. The asking
price then? A whopping $2,000 to buy the software, and the real kicker,
run-time royalties! (This means we would have had to pay them a fee
for every unit shipped, once we actually had a product.) Worse still,
Director had no capability of speaking to a database program, which
we considered essential. (Now, years later, a 3rd party has produced
a plug-in database tool for Director projects.) It was also famously
bad at handling typographic needs. This has also been improved over
the years, but at the time, we couldn't choose to spend all that extra
money on new hardware (money we didn't have, since we have no investors,
nor do we even believe in the model of "investors" and "product" and
"sales") AND $2K on Director PLUS run-time royalties! What did we do?
We built on the lame 386 we had, bought a spanking new 486 with a whopping
16 MB RAM and a HUGE 500 MB hard drive (quaint now, it seemed awfully
expensive and luxurious at the time), and chose a software package called
Multimedia Toolbook from a company called Asymetrix (owned privately
by Gates' other half, Paul Allen, who went on to acquire the Well, the
Portland Trailblazers, and recently the Seattle Seahawks, aaagh!). It
cost $600 and didn't require paying royalties, it worked within the
hardware configuration we already knew, and it promised to do everything
we wanted it to do, esp. speaking to Paradox databases. Unfortunately
it did not have the ability to create cross platform releases, which
was a disappointment, but given the rapidly shrinking market share of
Macs, it didn't seem that important. Based on the results regarding
the demand for Shaping San Francisco, I admit to being surprised
to find that a good third to a half of interested folks demur when they
learn that it won't run on a Mac, so you are certainly not alone in
your disappointment.
Shaping San Francisco eventually will find its way onto Macs
by way of the Internet. The software we use, Toolbook II, has evolved
away from being a CD-ROM authoring system towards being a provider of
classroom and instructional tools for classes over the Internet. With
a bit of financing and redesign, we should be able to produce a version
for easy distribution over the Web, esp. in light of what must soon
be a much faster Internet. For now, the existing web cannot handle the
large graphics and overlapping objects on which we've built a good deal
of our presentation. The other possible scenario is one in which Apple
finally gets it together and adds an Intel board to the Mac, so users
can switch back and forth between different applications, and everything
finally does converge. I really don't find the two systems much different.
--Chris Carlsson
Version 2 of Shaping San Francisco is authored under Asymetrix Instructor 6.5 and is officially compatible with Windows 3.1, Win95, Win98, and Windows NT 4.0 We have not received any reports of problems with running under Windows 2000, but it wouldn't be surprising if there were, since we've routinely experienced Windows as being poor at staying compatible with our program.
In general a modern PC running Windows, 100 mHz or better, minimum of 2 GB hard drive, 16 MB RAM, sound card, color monitor and video card with true color makes for a good setup for our program.
This is the information regarding the authoring of our CD-ROM:
AUTHORED in Asymetrix Toolbook II Instructor (a.k.a. Multimedia Toolbook 6.5). Many thanks to the toolbook list run by John Hall at the University of Arizona!
FONTS: Donated, courtesy Bitstream Inc., Cambridge, MA
ANIMATION: Microsoft Agent
LOADER: The small program that shows a splash screen as our program loads was created by Carl Steinhilber. It's available from his website http://www.SpiritOne.com/~servo/index.html) or email him at SERVO@SpiritOne.com
IMAGES: Photoshop 5.0, Coreldraw 5.0, Scanned on H-P Scanjet 4C
DATABASE: Paradox for Windows 4.5
MOVIES: Captured with Miró DC-30 board and edited in Adobe Premiere 5.0
SOUND:
Soundblaster AWE 32HARDWARE: 486-66Mhz minimum with 16 MB RAM up to
Pentium II 450Mhz with 64 MB RAM. Numerous hard drives, zip disks, LANs
and tape backups. NT4, Win98, Win95, Win3.1