Hypermaize : A Hypercard program for recording and analyzing crosses --Brian I. Osborne and Julie L. Mathern We have used the Macintosh program Hypercard to construct a "stack" to help the maize geneticist store and analyze data amassed over generations of crosses. The appearance of the "cards" in this specifically tailored stack, called "Hypermaize", resembles the crossing card normally taken into the field. However, the accessibility of Hypercard's programming language Hypertalk has enabled us to add useful features that are activated by clicking on buttons. These features include: 1) The stack will search for and display all instances a plant is used as a parent, or solely as male or female parent. Clicking on the field containing the results of a search takes you to the appropriate card; 2) The stack will enact case-sensitive genotype searches and display the result of the search. A subsequent option allows the searcher to eliminate "found" plants on the basis of genotype (e.g., in order to find all plants that are Adh/adh but not sh/sh); 3) The stack will print all cards, or a specified subset; 4) Genotypes may be entered by clicking on words in a field, making data entry fast and consistent; 5) Clicking on a button directs the stack to draw a family tree of a plant that extends back as far as 6 generations.

Hypermaize functions on all Macintosh computers tested, from the Mac Plus up. However, all the features of the stack are enabled only on machines with 2 or more Mb.'s of RAM. The stack uses the XCMD's SysEnvirons and Strings (STaK X), PopUpMenu (101 Scripts and Buttons), PrintField and FindInField (Dartmouth XCMD's 3.1) and was made with Hypercard version 1.2.2. The stack comes with a Hypercard tutorial on its use. For a copy send a sturdy, self-addressed, stamped envelope and formatted floppy disk to: Dr. Brian Osborne, Plant Gene Expression Center, 800 Buchanan St., Albany, CA 94710.


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