The Challenges of Born-Digital Fiction: Editions, Translations, and Emulations: The Multimedia Accompaniment to the Print Edition

Comparison of Opening Screens of the 1993 Edition and 2016 Scholar's Edition of Penelope

The differences between the 1993 Macintosh Edition and 2016 Scholar's Edition of Judy Malloy's its name was Penelope are striking. The 1993 Macintosh Edition, built on Eastgate Systems, Inc.'s Storyspace platform, presents a light-gray interface common to the company's early hypertexts that used the software program. The interface makes the episode "Dawn" obvious, and it also offers readers a navigation menu at the bottom of the screen so that they can move through the episode. “Next” makes it possible for readers to evoke the various random lexias for each episode and access the two other main parts of the story, “Sea” and “Song.” This means after accessing the start of the story with “Dawn,” readers can either continue down that path by clicking “Next,” or go to one of the other two main parts of the story. “Next” remains the method for moving down a path for any of the three main parts. That said, while “Sea” and “Song” are always accessible, the only way to return to “Dawn” is to go to the top menu item “Penelope,” and choose “Return to Dawn.” The latter, emulated with DOSBox, introduces the episode with a black interface that omits the navigation menu. To move through the work, readers press the return key. The lexias unfold at random as it does in the earlier edition. But to access "Sea" or "Song," readers must type "sea" at the prompt. From there they can access the four other files, or can type "Song" to reach the exit file. 

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