Continuing my work exploring pre-AI generative technologies, I found a copy of Andrew Stone’s Haiku Master, a HyperCard stack for Macintosh that generates haikus, on the archived version of TextWorx Toolshed page, which links to other text generating and manipulating programs for Macintosh and MS-DOS. Haiku Master requires the user to have a copy of Apple’s HyperCard Player installed on the system. I have HyperCard Player 2.4.1 installed on the emulated System 7.5.5 installation on SheepShaver used for these screenshots.
Haiku Master is a lean HyperCard stack at only 32K on disk and 16,704 bytes actually used. It was created on 16 July 1998.
After double clicking on Haiku Master, the stack automatically launches HyperCard Player and the user is presented with this main window. In the center, a haiku is already generated.
vibrant dream cell
breathes quantum fire
hungry sensuous syllables.Instead of a 5-7-5 syllable line arrangement, it seems to generate haiku that are a total of 17 syllables.
Unlike some of the other text generators that I’ve looked at here, Haiku Master has a singular focus to just create haikus of a certain variety. Other text generators from this era seem to do several different types of text generation, perhaps because once one kind of assembly algorithm is made, it might not be too challenging to alter it for a different kind of text generation, or it might be over time those other programs acquired new features with subsequent new versions.
By clicking on the Haiku button in the bottom center, another haiku is generated.
Clicking on Library prompts the user to open a file, perhaps a corpus of words? The documentation built into the stack doesn’t explain what a library is or how it is used, and there is no additional documentation or files included in the downloaded archive.
Clicking on Edit Words opens this screen titled Haiku Master Vocabulary with lists of word lists broken down into 10 sections: 1) intro. words, 2) adjectives, 3) nouns, 4) verbs, 5) adjectives, 6) nouns, 7) 1 syllable end, 8) 2 syllables end, 9) 3 syllables end, and 10) 4 syllables end.
Clicking on the Help/? question mark icon in the lower left opens this screen of text titled “How the HAIKU MASTER Works.” It explains how it pieces together a haiku of 17 syllables using the words from the 10 categories of word lists as needed. The following two images continue the explanation.
Clicking on “See Saved” on the screen above or from the main haiku composition window leads you to a running list of previously generated and saved haikus shown below.
From this screen, you can click on “Save to Text File” to save the haikus in an editable text file, or you can click on “Haiku” on the bottom of this screen to take you back to the main composition window shown below.
Clicking on “Haiku Master” above the haiku composition area leads you to the about screen shown below.
The about screen provides Andrew Stone’s contact information, including his GEnie username. It noes that this copy was “modified & distributed with ‘If Monks had Macs…’ with Andrew’s permission.” The modifications were made by Brian Thomas in 1989. It notes this is Haiku Master version 2.2.
Brian Thomas is the developer who put together If Monks Had Macs . . .. It was distributed by The Voyager Company, a company that innovated early ebooks for Macintosh called Expanded Books and multimedia CD-ROM titles, which I’ve written about previously here, here, here, here, and here.
This reminds me that during my first year in Brooklyn, Bob Stein, co-founder of Voyager Company, co-founder of The Criterion Collection, and co-director of The Institute for the Future of the Book, reached out to me (I think on Twitter–I hadn’t left the platform yet at that time–as I had shared some things about William Gibson’s Sprawl Trilogy Expanded Book published by Voyager) and graciously spoke with me at his home in Williamsburg one snowy afternoon about Voyager Company, Expanded Books, and personal computer pioneers he was friends with.
