Posts from the Past. The Death of HyperCard. Staff and Volunteer Reactions. And a Magellan Deep Sea Base?! The First Mention of Intolerance. Wow Big Ideas Back in the Day! Imaginarium.

Posts from the Past.  The Death of HyperCard

September 1, 2000. From the Space Center's First blog, the YahooGroup Spaceedventures

Hello Voyagers,
I spoke to Apple Computers today and was given disturbing news about Hypercard. Hypercard as we all knew will no longer be  supported by Apple. It, like so many languages, will soon be dead and forgotten. The new Mac operating system 10 will not be  designed to run Hypercard - even though Hypercard will operate in
system 10 Apple will not promise glitch free operations.  All Macs will ship with system 10 next summer. Over the next several years we will be forced to abandon Hypercard as we upgrade  our computers. This is a sad day indeed.

The Apple rep told me that, in his opinion, the Center should begin full scale training in MacroMedia's Director 7. He said that  Director will do everything Hypercard can do. He also said it can run on any computer Apple and PC. Another advantage is that All computers will run Director programs without needed Director itself. Any computer out of the box will be able to run our  programs. I see great potential in this. All of our bridge programs
can now be burned onto CD and sold in the gift shop or to schools and organization wanting simulators of their own. They can pop our programs into their computers and they will run just fine.

The handwriting is on the wall. We must make a switch. Apple suggests MacroMedia Director. Is there anyone out there in our Egroup that has worked with Director that can shed some more light on this program and can post your opinions? The time for a final decision must come for me. 

THERE WILL BE NO HYPERCARD PROGRAMMING CLASS. WE WILL NOT DESIGN ANY FURTHER SHIPS IN HYPERCARD UNLESS THEY USE OLDER MACS. UNTIL WE SETTLE ON A NEW PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE ALL PROJECTS ARE ON HOLD PENDING FURTHER REVIEW. 

If we settle on Director then we will need a new group of programmers. We will arrange a Director class. We will need Director instructors. 

Your opinions quickly so a decision can be made. We have the Magellan Deep Sea Base waiting...............

P.S. Anyone in this group familiar enough with Director that you feel you could do some sample programs for us? 

Mr. Williamson

Landon Hemsley's Reaction to the Death of Hypercard

September 1, 2000

(Trumpet plays taps)

 

Fellow mourners, we are gathered here today to say farewell to our beloved friend and closest aquaintance at our beloved center,  Hypercard.  All though her sons and daughters will be familiarized for a time at our center, they too will also pass on to the great big Hard Drive in the sky.

 

Hypercard was a good program.  She served for many years.  Until the evil abomination which is a former friend, apple, decided that she was just too "out of date".  We mourn her loss and ours.  She provided for the scares, and joytimes of myself, and more than 100,000 others.  We will all miss her.

 

But let us not stop now, the show MUST go on.  We shall find one which is compatible and use her.  Although she is a novice, we will train her. Although she doesn't know how to be used, we will work her.

 

So I urge you fellow vols, lift up your heads and look to better days.  Amen.

 

(The preacher uncerimoniously drops the disks and manuals in a pit and starts digging.  The crowd mobs the preacher, and a moment of silence is observed.)

 

(Taps ends, lights dim)

 

An eerie silence sets upon the audience, save for a few crying women and children.  The audience quietly filters out of the theater, stunned by the bad news.

 

Landon Hemsley

AKA "Judge" Superhemzz

Soren Seibach Reacts

It is my firm belief that, albeit HyperCard shan't be the CMSEC's programming language, It would be rather drastic to make the complete switch all in one go. Clearly, it would be more effective to slowly make the difficult transition from our friend called HyperCard to whatever
that other one is called. If Riven was made in the other one (from now on I'll refer to it as program X) methinks that it must be a more than slightly complicated language. I'm sure program X has its qualities, but let's drown ourselves a little at a time, rather than just diving in.

-S�ren Siebach

Revolution First Mentioned as an Alternate to Hypercard

Here is yet another email from the group of people that are beta testing Revolution. This is one of the Beta Testers themselves, not a programmer. I have never seen Director, but plan to download the trial of it today and try it. I have to say: That program has pretty hefty system requirements.

Scott Slaugh

Soren Seibach Receives his Blue Supervisor Shirt. Intolerance, The Mission That Never Dies is Introduced for the First Time

September 4, 2000: People Mentioned: Soren Seibach, Allan Stewart, Stephen Porter, Pat Bown. 

Congratulations to Soren,

I happy to report to all staff and members of the Voyager Society that Soren Seibach, a member of the Volunteer Voyager Society has been promoted to staff and will receive his "Blue Shirt". 

Soren started at the Center as a patron coming with his school on missions. Last year the offer to come to our Hypercard programming class was extended to his ALL class at Lakeridge Junior High. Soren accepted the offer and took the class. He excelled 
and was named top future programmer by Allan Stewart, our chief programmer. Soren applied to become a volunteer and was accepted. He completed his first volunteer mission on April 24, 2000. He has accumulated 640.5 points (at the time of this posting) and therefore in first place in the Voyager Society. 

Soren began programming for the Center this summer. His current projects include:

1. A Space Center Database of campers with the assistance of Stephen Porter.
2. A hypercard stack for the new Intolerance mission, this school year's primary mission.
3. The hypercard programming for the Galileo conversion to submarine. 
4. Assistance with the new Chiron simulator in the Granite School District operated by Pat Bown. 

Welcome Soren!


Mr. Williamson

Our Field Trip Staff for Fall 2000.

Hello Voyagers!
I'm finished booking schools for the school year. I'm surprised to find that 90% of the classes coming this year have 30 or more students. This is a 180 degree turn from the direction our groups have been taking over the last several years. Last year our average class size for our daytime field trip was 26. 

This will require hiring another staff for the 2nd semester to come in and help when we have classes of 30 or more. This semester we have Lorraine, Aaron Yeager, Kyle Herring, David Merrell, and Fred Olsen working. David Merrell starts UVSC next semester and will not be able to work 9:45 A.M. to 1:45 P.M. We will need to hire a high school or college student (to take David's place) that can get work release time for the 4 hours of the field trip. Another idea would be to hire 2 students, one to work the morning shift 10:00 A.M. to noon and 1 to work the afternoon shift Noon to 2:00 P.M. 

High schools have work release courses where you can get time off for work and you get credit for it as well. If any of you in the egroup are interested in this see your high school counselor and then talk to me.


All the Best!
Mr. Williamson

Saturday's Imaginarium

Two New Starship Simulators Under Construction at Early Light Academy in South Jordan, Utah. New Logo for Telos Discovery Space Center? Old Post from August 2000 Mentioned are Soren Seibach, Stephen Porter, Bryson Lystrup, Landon Hemsley, Dave Wall, Davide Merrell, Mr. Daymont, and Wayne Sandholtz. Theater Imaginarium

South Jordan's Early Light Academy Building Two Starship Simulators

Early Light Academy. South Jordan, Utah

Early Light Academy is a K-9 public charter school located in South Jordan, Utah.  The school's philosophy is posted on their web site.

"Taking our students from the stone age to the space age..." isn't a catching slogan when you're building two Voyager inspired starship simulators powered by InfiniD.     

A member of Renaissance Academy's Farpoint Voyager Club is a student at Early Light and was kind enough to take a few pictures for The Troubadour detailing the construction already underway.  The two simulators will sit back to back much like the two ships at Canyon Grove and Lakeview Academies.   

As true of most simulators inspired by the original USS Voyager, these two new simulators will have dark room revolving doors as entrances.  The doors came from the closed simulators at Stonegate in Pleasant Grove.  It's good to see them back in use.   

 The ships will be a little larger than the USS Odyssey at the CMSEC; each capable of taking between 12 and 15 students.

Early Light Academy had a large multipurpose classroom reserved for an InfiniD computer / simulator lab.  But after seeing how effective simulator based experiential learning can be using the InfiniD system, the school's board of directors decided to build dedicated simulators instead.  

Nathan King was one of the driving forces behind the decision to build the two ships.  Nathan is the new director of the Lakeview Academy Space Education Center in Saratoga Springs having recently replace Brandon Wright.  

The two simulators will be part of the InfiniD family of learning centers - using InfiniD software and curriculum.  

As of today there are three Voyager inspired simulators under construction as listed in the Voyager Network Directory (click on the directory link at the top of the blog's right sidebar).

•  IKS Niagara . A new Dream Flight Adventures simulator located in the Frazier School District in Perryopolis, PA.  Under Construction.

• Starship I: Early Light Academy, South Jordan, Utah. Under Construction

• Starship II: Early Light Academy, South Jordan, Utah. Under Construction

Telos Discovery Space Center Logo Creation Contest

Telos Discovery Space Center is showcasing new logo submissions from a contest recently held. Here are three. Which one is your favorite?  Give your opinion on their Facebook page.

Blast Posts from the Past. August 2000

Another of The Troubadours reposts from Space Center history. Today's reposts come from August 2000. Mentioned are Soren Seibach, Stephen Porter, Bryson Lystrup, Landon Hemsley, Dave Wall, Davide Merrell, Mr. Daymont, and Wayne Sandholtz.

Hello Voyagers!

Once again a successful overnight missions complete. This mission was composed of a group of Junior High students that are  members of a rocket club and the general public. All the ships were used. I'm happy to report that Soren Seibach was Lord of the  Votes for this mission with Stephen and Bryson coming in closely behind. 

Stephen and Landon were both assigned to this mission. As many of you are aware they have been battling it out in this egroup lately  until I stopped approving their posts. I was concerned the argument would continue once they arrived. I'm happy to say that both  are friends and the battle was never meant to be serious. Both are stubborn and enjoy rattling each other cages. 

Here are some of the comments the students left us on their surveys: 

1. Its real and it is challenging and fun
2. Its realistic and its fun being able to act like I am really in space.
3. The stories were good and complicated.
4. You learn leadership skills and how to make the right choice at a critical moment.
5. Hard, fun, really cool.
6. I like Star Trek
7. I love everything here. It's so cool and fun!
8. You can't do anything to improve it!
9. It's just plain fun.
10. The kids are in charge and there are volunteers to help if you need it. It felt like it was real.
11. I love how you make it seem so real. It's fun to act, plus it makes you think. I had a great time. Loved the uniforms and the air conditioning.
12. Its really cool how the ships seem so reals and you need to figure out problems.

At 2:00 A.M I was woken up by three quick power surges and then the power went out. Thank heavens we weren't running a  mission. The school went black. This place can get really dark. The beeps started from the Voyager's carbon monoxide alarm. I had to track that down and turn it off. The lights came back on at 3:32 A.M. 

Well, the school year starts Monday. Thanks to all for a great summer. Volunteers and staff make sure you get your September requests in.

All the Best My Friends!
Mr. Williamson

DEATH MUSIC.

I like the death music at the space centre. I like how every Flight Director has a different style. Mr. Wall likes to play things from Spock, such as "Doctor! Doctor! Dctor McCoy!" Mr.
Williamson once played "back in the saddle again". I don't know how the death music goes on the Magellan -- from lack of experience. haha. However, when and if I ever work at the Space Centre, I will revolutionise the Odyssey and its death music. You see, Mr. Daymont, David M, and others who run the Odyssey are FAR from equal to Mr. Wall when it comes to style and quality. It's just not the same. The first odyssey mission I work, I'm going to bring an aquabats cd and when the crew dies they will hear the random and spasmodic lines of "Super Rad!" Hey maybe I can make my own ska band! Who wants to be in my ska band? list name, ph#, and the instrument. No Kazoos.

Wayne Sandholtz

Theater Imaginarium
The best gifs of the week edited for a general audience.