5.   A few questions:

How do I start a new Story?

It depends.  If you wish to start an entirely new story then you can simply start a new story from your“*ideas” page.  You have a choice between a Public or Private story.  If it is Private then anyone else can browse through it (they cannot add or change it in any way) , so long as it resides in the proper folder.  To permanently delete a story, you simply take it off the disk.  If it is Public, then it is open to public browsing, additions, and modifications. Either way,   This will start with only one blank page.  You should leave all the rest of the LINK2 system ON the original hard disk.  This ensures that all the previous work in the databases is available for further use in this new story.  

How long can a story be?

Well, as long as your hard disk holds out.  Typically each page of the story takes up about 8 K worth of disk space.  This would mean approximately 100 pages per story.  This assumes 100 pages of text and graphics with about  10 buttons per page.  (As an example I have a story with 22 pages, 127 buttons, total size is 247 K.  But the empty shell takes 92K to start with, so it is approximately 155K in total for 22 pages = 7K per page.  This would permit approximately 80 to100 pages to  fit on a standard 800K disk. A 1.4 Meg disk can obviously hold about double this number.

How is this possible?

When you create a Sound button, you do not introduce the sound into the story.  You create a series of instructions to play a sound that is really  in a sounds database located elsewhere on the hard disk.  These instructions take almost no space, as compared with digitised sound which takes much space.  Through modifications in the instructions it is possible to make one digitised sound function for many purposes, thus shrinking actual space requirements.  Tools for variations in tempo, octave, notes, repeats, note duration are available in the Sounds Lab.  A keyboard (on screen) is also available, and makes it easier to actually write song instructions.

What makes this Story-builder unique?

This is the only true “Hypertext” story-builder available. It is the first game-oriented story-building model which has been built with specific educational objectives in mind.  It is also among the few models which incorporates user-modifiable databases in an integrated manner.  It is the only open-ended multi-user environment  which does not require extensive hardware support, and is usable by elementary school  children (grades 4-6).  It is one of the few “multi-media” tools which does not invite the user to pay attention to technical wizardry, but rather slows the pace and extends interest through TIME.  It also allows for individual taste and predilection. A child, for example may be more drawn to drawings, another to story-writing, and another to working with sounds.  Each here can concentrate on their predilection, all the while leaving work that others can use and build on in another arena.  Inevitably they are drawn out of their forte´ and begin to participate in other areas.