I don't think Applescript and Automator bridge the gap between non-programmer and programmer as slowly and as fluidly as Hypercard did. A non-programmer could start using Hypercard as a simple flat file database without programming. The sample Addressbook etc. Hypercard stacks were perfectly usable and there was a large quantity of freeware and shareware stacks that (inherently) came with complete source code. If someone had just a small wish for how it behaved differently ("I wish the addressbook had a nickname field:) many could be added through the GUI tools without programming. At some point, they may wish for behavior that involved changes in code, if they reached that point, the code had a fairly strong mapping to the concepts they had learned so far (stacks, cards, backgrounds, fields, etc) that they may be able to suss out what the code was doing and figure out simple changes. Once doing a fair amount of modification of the existing code, some may choose to strike out on their own and create something new.

Applescript and Automator seem to be more about simple automation of tasks. Which is a great power to give someone. ("Ugh, I hate doing this same drudgework every day|week|whenever_the_situation_bothers_me") but seems to me still a larger jump from non-programmer to programmer.

It did have network features, if by network you consider Appletalk. The code 'go to stack addressbok on machine "Andrew's Powerbook"' was valid Hypertalk.

Saying "PDP" instruction set makes them sound all the same. C is very similar to the PDP-11 instruction set, Unfortunately, it was produced after C was developed. I strain to find similarities between the PDP-7 instruction set and C. Most of the PDP-11-isms that people see in C are the post-(increment|decrement) instruction variations and the MOV variations that dereference an address register.

I assumed that the Russians wrote Tsar in their Cyrillic alphabet and both Czar and Tsar are transliterations.

This is why back in the day AT&T and IBM (still today) have publications like The Bell System Technical Journal, IBM Systems Journal, etc. It gives them platforms to publish the inventions that they don't wish to patent, but still show prior art.

The way I remember the sequence of events last fall is this:

1. CERN starts the LHC.
2. Lehman Brothers announces that all of their money disappeared.
3. CERN shuts down the LHC because of a malfunction.

Isn't it obvious? All of Lehman Brothers assets got sucked up in a black hole created by the LHC!