Of all the microcomputer software being developed today, so much of the most innovative and challenging seems to be written for the Apple Macintosh. Apple’s own HyperCard program is pretty challenging in its own right, but according to Microbytes Daily, Cognition Technologies Inc of Cambridge, Massachusetts has gone one better by developing an artificial intelligence front end for HyperCard. The newswire reports that MacSmarts 3.0 is an upgrade to an expert system tool and is able to use both rule-based and example-based methodologies to derive output. In rule-based mode, tell the program what the outcome of various inputs should be, in example-based mode, teach it by taking it through a session. The output advice can then be displayed graphically within MacSmarts using the standard Mac interface of buttons and dialogues. Output of the MacSmarts 3.0 shell can also call HyperCard stacks so that the output of the program determines which stacks are invoked to explain the proposed course of action or diagnosis further. MacSmarts 3.0 is $195, and no formal knowledge engineering training is needed to use it effectively, Cognition declares.
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