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title: Lab 1.5 | Intermedia
tags: [lab]

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title: Lab 1.5 | Intermedia
tags: lab
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#### [⬅️ Return to course website](http://cs.brown.edu/courses/csci1951-v/#assignments-box)


# <span style="font-size: 50px;">**Lab 1.5: Intermedia**</span>
:::info
**Released: September 22nd** 
**Due: September 28th 11:59pm ET**
To get checked off for Lab 1.5, fill out the form at the bottom of the handout after completing both parts of the lab (Dash and Intermedia).
:::

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**Released: September 8th, 6:00pm ET** 
**Due: September 15th, 11:59pm ET** 
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<!-- These are a list of shortcuts available. -->
*[HTML]: Hyper Text Markup Language
*[W3C]:  World Wide Web Consortium
*[NPM]: Node Package Manager
*[IDE]: Integrated Development Environment
*[MERN]: MongoDB, Express, React, NodeJS
*[Yarn]: Yet Another Resource Negotiator
*[RA]: Research Assistant


# **Introduction**

In this part of that lab you will travel back in time to 1989 and act as if you were college students in an English or Biology or Geology course using Intermedia, going through the same hands-on tutorials that they used to learn about Intermedia. 

:::info
**Objectives:** The goal of this lab is to get you thinking about how the Intermedia approach and the WWW approach differ, what interesting or valuable features Intermedia had that didn't make into the Web, and why Tim Berners-Lee (TBL) chose not to include these features. 

The idea is to think about tradeoffs:
- Why are software design and architecture decisions made? 
- Are certain designs not chosen because the feature doesn't solve a common user problem? 
- Is it because the problem is too hard to solve intellectually? 
- Is it because it is solvable, but the state-of-technology can not yet support the solution (memory limitations, network performance, etc.)? 
- Is it because it is too complicated a concept for the user? 
- Is it actually a great idea but not implemented because TBL wanted to get something out quickly and then was constrained by that choice from going back and implementing that idea? 

A second objective is to experiment and try to guess what behaviors will happen when you do certain things (see tasks below)

 
Another objective is to have some fun! How many of your friends get to say they are using a computer their parents may have used when they were in elementary school?
:::


:::warning
For this lab you will be split into two groups. Each group will spend 1 hour on Intermedia and 1 hour on Dash. 
:::


## Checklist

- [ ] Use Intermedia
    - [ ] Read and follow the tutorial
    - [ ] Create your own documents and link anchors in various different node types together.
    - [ ] Explore other folders in the system (remember to open the web in each folder)
    - [ ] Add links and relationships

:::info
Norm will lead the session on Intermedia in Thursday's lab and will be on Zoom to answer questions on Friday. If you are fascinated and want to use the machines more than just this lab, reach out to Norm and he will happily help get you access to a machine. 
:::

# Using Intermedia

Unlike Dash, Intermedia doesn't run in a web browser, since web browsers didn't yet exist when Intermedia was implemented! Norm has searched for Macintosh IIci/Motorola 68030 microprocessor emulators, but there are none that are robust enough to run the version of Unix (A/UX), a precursor to Linux, that Intermedia needs. So instead, you will have 4 real Macintosh IIci machines to use.

Since there are limited machines, you may want to pair up and do the work together, switching back and forth.

:::success
**Steps**
1. Open the [**Intermedia documentation**](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vpb2FulwFNLm7yuBmrm4ZjC_YCuMiKty/view?usp=sharing) . The Tutorials are at the beginning.
2. Read Section 1 - Introductory Tutorial.
3. Explore. In the New... menu, you will find a Text Editor, a Graphics Editor, a Timeline Editor (InterVal), and an Animation Editor (InterPlay). Templates and Mail are alpha versions, so stay away from them.
4. Guess the behaviors:
- - [ ] Open a text document. Select some text. Choose Start link. Open another text document. select some text. Choose Complete Link. Follow the links bidirectionally.
- - [ ]  Now add some text at the beginning of the destination document (ignore the privelege diologue), go back to the original document, and follow the original link. What do you think will happen?
Now add some text at the beginning of the destination document, go back to the original document, and follow the original link. What do you think will happen?
- - [ ] Now type some text in the middle of the destination anchor, then follow into that anchor from the source document. What do you think will happen?
- - [ ] Now at that same destination anchor, cut a few characters off the end of the anchor. Go back to the source and follow the link. What should happen to the anchor?
- - [ ] In the source document, copy a selection of text that includes the anchor but has regular text before and after. Now paste it further down in the ssame document. What happens? Are the links copied? Go to the destination and follow the link back to the source document. What do you think will happen? What happens?
- - [ ] If the app window isn't up go to the File menu, bring it up, and click on Draw (graphics document). Use the primitives to draw whatever you'd like. (Note, unlike today's editors, the system stays in primitive mode rather than go back to arrow mode, so you will have to go back to arrow mode manually). Now select a couple of graphics primitives, and do a Start Link. Then create a new text document, write some text, select it, and do a Complete Link. Now follow the link from the text document to the graphics document. What do you think will happen?
- - [ ] Now, move some of your graphics primitives around and then follow the link into the graphics document from your previous text document. What happens? Move the link marker closer to the anchor. Why didn't it move automatically?
5. Just have fun.
:::

:::info
If you are confused about anything, you can check Intermedia's documentation, which begins after the Tutorial section. You can also feel free to ask Norm or a TA! 
:::

# Checkoff

After completing both the Dash and Intermedia parts of the lab, fill out this [Google Form](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfrAW20egosz0zCCQdpIoanJw3uYJRfH4WedumCq-TSKO-ziA/viewform?usp=sf_link) to get checked off!

<div style="text-align:left; margin-bottom: 20px"><img style="border-radius:10px; width:300px" src="https://i.imgur.com/cg6eofM.png" /></div>














