Hypercard to ACL

[Peter Gaston <mck-csc!pete@EDDIE.MIT.EDU>]

> Problem: How to perform bidirectional `message passing` between
>          Allegro-Common-Lisp (ACL) and HyperCard?
>          i.e. How to realize an ACL-Interface to HyperCcard and
>               a HyperCcard-Interface to ACL?


One traditional way to solve this problem is by building
your own 'mailbox' driver.  An application, say ACL, can put
some data into the mailbox, e.g., "Show card foo".  Hypercard
can, from idle processing, retrieve messages, execute them,
and potentially put it's own messages back into the mailbox for
ACL to retrieve.

Process switches can be coerced via 'OpenDeskAcc'.  (If you
want to use the clipboard to swap information you have to be
careful, this may not force ACL to put it's clipboard out.  I 
remember having to use SystemEdit for some reason...)

I don't have code at the present.  It's a straightforward 
piece of Mac system programming.  

In the future, hopefully, AppleEvents and the next HyperCard
(2.1?) should make this a cleaner process.

Peter Gaston
Cambridge Systems Center
McKinsey & Co.