“To the surprise of few, Apple’s Hypercard passed away quietly this week, after life support was finally withdrawn by the company. It had a run of over 16 years – though the last were in circumstances of at best benign neglect. Not a bad duration for a software product, but it still hurts to see it go, since I had some part in its gestation.” Read the interesting atricle at PacificAVC.
A Eulogy for HyperCard
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
I remember that program from way back in my 5-8th grade computer classes. A powerful piece of software, and easy to grasp.
Is there something similar on x86? I’ve never found anything quite like it.
I was going to say that Hypercard was my first experience in programming, except that I just remembered using Logo in elementary school. Hypercard was great though, and easily accessible to 12 year olds as I could personally attest.
Wasn’t Myst created with Hypercard? I always thought of Hypercard as a kind of multimedia app, and never thought much of the other things it was capable of. Anyways, the article is right though, people never understood exactly what to do with it (I know I didn’t). The same with “OpenDoc”.
What is the closest contemporary equivalent to Hypercard? Visual Basic, perhaps? Hm, perhaps there is an opportunity for a new product to fill that space. In any case, as far as “all strings languages” go, the author didn’t have to reach all the way back to SNOBOL — who could forget Rexx? (in particular, I’m think of ARexx on the Amiga)
supercard ran on windows… and featured a hypercard import/convert…
I think REAL Basic is probably our last hope at an easy language to program in for non-programmers on MAC
Check out runrev Revolution: http://www.runrev.com/
This is what a modern hypercard could have looked like.
It runs on Mac, Windows and various Unix’es.
“What is the closest contemporary equivalent to Hypercard? ”
HTML
SuperCard is still alive and the Mac OS X version was released last year. It has almost all features of HyperCard, can import HyperCard stacks and has a lot of features HyperCard never had (like great support for multiple windows, all Appearance Manager controls etc.) You can download a trial version for Mac OS 9 or Mac OS X here:
http://www.supercard.us
If you know HyperCard and it was good enough for you, you will love SupoerCard. There’s no reason to switch to RealBasic. However, SuperCard has never been available for Linux or Windows. The best cross-plattform HyperCard clone is certainly Revolution from
http://www.runrev.com
For someone who knows HyperCard, Revolution is not quite as easy to use as SuperCard, but can produce applications for Windows 3.1, Windows 95-XP, Mac OS 9, Mac OS X and many flavours of UNIX (including FreeBSD, Solaris, Linux, AIX, HP-UX, IRIX and more).
…but apparently unavoidable. I was a big fan of HyperCard back in the day, as it was my way in to the world of development. AppleScript Studio is a poor replacement.
I now do work (apps for personal & internal use, mainly) using REALbasic, but I can honestly say it’s not quite as much fun. Oh well.
since a tool like Revolution offers a super-set of Hypercard’s features, and is available for cross-platform development and deliver of applications:
http://www.runrev.com/Revolution1/keyfeatures1.html
Of course it is not as powerful as C++, but it is also a great deal simpler to use. Code hardly needs documentiing, since the programming language is literally English-like. If there’s someone you know who wants to learn to program but most tools are an impediment to them, then direct them to Runrev. I’m amazed that the only screenshot they have on their site of the language is a bad one – showing how to use the XML library. My guess is that the majority of people (even non-coders) could look at a page of transcript and have a pretty good idea of what it is doing without even knowing the language at all – I don’t know of any other language like that (not even Python).
Here’s a pic of how one would choose which platforms to ‘compile’ one’s program for:
http://www.runrev.com/Revolution1/revonosx.html
I have often complained about Runrev mainly targetting Mac users – they seem to think that those users are the market that is ripe for the tool. But I can see many Linux and Win32 users would find it has many advantages too.
The technology behind Revolution has been used as a cross-platform Hypercard for some 10-15 years, so this is no fly -by-night operation. I’ve been using Revolutoin myself for almost two years. For me the really interesting use of it is as a Rich Internet Client (a la Mozilla, Flex, XAML) – we are going to be seeing a lot of this concept in the next few years. Incidentally, They guy who invented Supercard, has also gone on to produce a Rich Internet Client called Dream Factory – it is also a pretty cool technology (although they don’t like to give out a price list….) :
http://www.dreamfactory.com
Wasn’t Myst created with Hypercard? I always thought of Hypercard as a kind of multimedia app, and never thought much of the other things it was capable of. Anyways, the article is right though, people never understood exactly what to do with it (I know I didn’t). The same with “OpenDoc”.
Yes, the original Myst was created with HyperCard. Those game developers proved what HC is capable of. I remember playing it on my father’s 80Mhz PowerMac 8100 – my 66Mhz 6100 felt a bit too slow.
I think Apple promoted HyperCard as database software, because they thought the target audience would be scared off if they said it was a programming tool. It was truly a great and beloved piece of software. May it rest in peace
-bogomipz
[quote]Is there something similar on x86? I’ve never found anything quite like it.[/quote]
You could take a look at PythonCard
http://pythoncard.sourceforge.net/
PythonCard isn’t really as straightforward as HyperCard was.
By the descriptions of HyperCard that I saw it was all integrated with GUI designer, scripting language, database (transparent persistence), high performance. The amazing quotes were from people that started programming with it. You see, some of us started programming in Basic and others had a totally different first exposure to programming with HyperCard. It was an amazing technology.
People say that WebObjects is really cool. Some try to map the WebObjects features in other platforms, but the original may be still the greatest. Dunno… WebObjects is an Apple technology as well, for those that don’t know it.
HyperCard could have become a PowerPoint killer if it wasn’t discontinued.
It seems like Appleworks will be the next program to get cut. it has not been upgraded since they moved it to carbon…they need to update it to use more of the OS X APIs…the interface is fugly, the text stinks….it just feels weird to use.
Since many open source projects reimplement functionality available in commercial packages, one would think a modernized open source version of Hypercard would be of value. After all this time, there’s still a devoted following, and certainly the end user cost would be right for educators. Does anyone here have thoughts as to why such a project hasn’t spontaneously arisen already?
Im waiting for iWorks, i read a rumor about.
Does anyone here have thoughts as to why such a project hasn’t spontaneously arisen already?
As an outsider to the Mac world, I may not have an accurate view, but I have heard of hypercard as a programming language only in relation to Myst, that it is supposed to be amazing and that Apple created it.
Can it be it is just too unknown to be picked up by the Open Source community? Lately I have read more complaints about Open Source lagging behind in its Apple endeavours.
To be honest, when I think Open Source, I do not think Apple (even if I know of Darwin and the KHTML based Safari).
http://www.metacard.com
on the Oreilly’s book “linux multimedia guide” by Jeff Tranter, metacard is shown as an hypercard clone for unix.
On their site you can see that runrev has acquired their engine for their product revolution, so we can claim than runrev is hypercard for linux..
But none of you has talked about director apps, it’as also a kind of hypercard, isn’t it ?
HyperCard enabled me to build a rather down-n-dirty genealogical database program and receive my first “official” copyright.
I say “official” because I gathered all my source code, screenshots, etc. and actually applied, with all the correct forms, for a U.S. Copyright.
You never forget your first…
Bob
The Amiga. It was called CanDo! It could be used to create serious standalone applications
as well as demo programs ( with animations, sounds, system calls, buttons, menus etc).
The company that made CanDo! went out of business several years ago (like so many other great
Amiga ideas, sigh).
It’s just evolved into AppleScript Studio. While not a direct HyperCard derivative, AppleScript studio does offer all the features and then some of the beloved Hypercard.
<< HyperCard could have become a PowerPoint killer if it wasn’t discontinued.>>
I totally agree. I create Hypercard like “applications” in powerpoint.
A pity Apple has never recognized HC’s value.
That’s a good point, r_a_trip. OTOH, there are 2185 projects listed on SourceForge today for OS X, and a further 477 for OS 9. Of course, I have no idea how active these projects are, on average.
What about Squeak? I realize that it’s not in the same vein as Hypercard and its derivatives, but I get the same anxiety-free thrill using Squeak as I did back when I started with Hypercard. Fun fun fun.
Just curious, any mTropolis users out there?
Wouldn’t it be great if Hypercard’s source code were released so that interested hobyists could develop the product further?
Kramii
Hypercard… I let go of it in 98. I had fifteen educational products developed in it. It was smooth as far as it went but pushing its boundaries the way I did was bumpy. The “real geeks” laughed at it. But not the people who used my software. I just wonder what if Atkinson had worked for Gates. My guess is they would have aborted Hypercard before it ever even reached the embryo stage.