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Subject:Hyper/Multi media From:Simon North <north -at- RUNNER -dot- KNOWARE -dot- NL> Date:Tue, 18 Jan 1994 20:59:46 +0000
Maybe it's time we tightened up our terminology... I make so-called
"interactive electronic technical manuals" (a DoD term). These documents
are essentially hypertext but, for prototype purposes, we are including
sound and real-time video. This is not multimedia, this is 'hypermedia'
since the interface is still predominantly text (document) based. Multi-
media is a term I prefer to reserve for CD-I and its' ilk (what I saw
referred to as TV-ROM once to distinguish it from CD-ROM).
I would however like to breathe some life into the discussion. I am
responsible for leading a so-called 'document technology support' group
within my company (defense manufacturer). I am faced with having to
formulate our strategy concerning document technology until th end of the
decade and beyond. We are already doing hypermedia, CD-ROM distribution
and introducing SGML. I intend to drag the company towards text object
databases and publish-on-demand systems (some major cultural changes will
be needed) but I would be interested to know what the 'group' thinks will
be the key technologies/advances that we should address over the next
15 years (that's about the lifetime of one of our products).
