Hypertext Abstract Machine

I remember visiting Tektronix in 1987 or thereabouts. They had a HyperText system, called HAMM, which stood for something like Hypertext Access for Multi-Media. As I recall, HAMM was a Smalltalk engine. I don't remember anything more. -- TomStambaugh

MayerSchwartz? and NormDelisle? built a hypertext server that was to be a foundation for research into software development tools. The server's behavior was appropriately abstracted as an ideal Machine, hence the name.

They chose AllenWirfsBrock's recently developed Smalltalk implementation for the MagnoliaWorkstation as their client-side prototyping environment. I can remember reviewing Smalltalk primitives with Norm as we searched for a way to get Smalltalk to talk to that server. It wasn't easy. When I felt his commitment to Smalltalk start to wane, I suggested that he "spike" this problem with the simplest thing that could possibly work: file i/o. This got them in and out of the image to where some other utility could relay their requests to the server.

The CASE division picked up the hypertext ideas behind this project, though, I don't recall if it ever made it to a product. I seem to recall them even installing a Magnolia or two to run the client applications. But the Magnolia was not their world and would never be their world, so they wanted to get away from it as fast as possible.

-- WardCunningham