Filed under: OS, Software, Odds and ends, Internet, Apple, Apple History
Hypercard's history
SiliconUser takes a short look at ye olde Hypercard technology, Apple's precursor to the concepts that eventually became HTML and the World Wide Web. The project was originally created in 1985 as an easier way to create programs on the Macintosh-- it consisted of a "cards and stacks" metaphor, as in you created one card that linked to another card in the stack, and so on. Early Hypercard stacks just worked as organized information databases, but eventually Hypercard ended up doing more and more-- cards could work as applications in themselves, and the links between them served as a precursor to hyperlinks and what we know as the Internet today. Personally, I only used Hypercard very minimally, and it's hard for me to imagine as much functionality coming out of Hypercard as we've got with CSS, HTML, and PHP today. But Hypercard faithful (of which the numbers seem to be not quite known), held onto the application for a long time.Hypercard's downfall came arguably not because it failed to stand up to new concepts, but because Apple, in a blunder, passed the program away to Claris, who tried to sell it rather than include it free in Macs. By the time Apple took it back, in 1993, the momentum was lost, and after a short period with Apple's Quicktime division, Hypercard was discontinued in 2004. Previous to that, Hypercard 3.0 was shown at WWDC 1996 (including the ability to display Hypercard stacks in a web browser, which might have been the key to keeping Hypercard alive), but that release never came. There are a few traces of Hypercard left on Apple's site, but as a technology, it's as dead as dead gets.
Thanks, Thomas!
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
aaron said 5:24PM on 7-24-2007
im 20 now, in grade and middle school i learned to use hypercard and make mini games and powerpoint like (for the time) presentations. i attribute alot of the creative ways of putting together information that i use now in programs like fcp and ableton to how hypercard allowed you to creatively oraginze information. yet another way apples focus on education in the 90's can largely credited to the modern surge of creative mac using young professionals.
Reply
dan workman said 5:31PM on 7-24-2007
It was the relational database for text. I sensed that it was a powerful precursor to something that would be easier to use, but I could never quite wrap my head around it long enough to use it for anything. I remember messing with it for a couple of evenings on my old Mac SE http://myoldmac.net/SELL/MacSE-800k.htm
Reply
Charles Scalfani said 6:00PM on 7-24-2007
There is no modern day equivalent to HyperCard. Sure you can accomplish everything HyperCard could do today with other technology.
But there is nothing as powerful for non-programmers to use today as HyperCard was way back then. Today, you have to be an expert at Database, GUI, OO, etc. to implement simple application that does what HyperCard could do in no time.
It's sad that we've gone backwards when it comes to giving non-programmers tools to create applications they way HyperCard could.
If you're not a programmer, you are limited to only using programs that other people write. If there isn't a large market for an application that you need and no one has developed it, you're out of luck.
Apple made a huge mistake by letting HyperCard go.
BTW, I don't think HyperCard working on the web would have saved it. It would have ruined it. The web is a cacophony of lousy technologies that each evolved out of a simple need and was overextended through a number evolutionary missteps that would have surely tainted HyperCard's elegance.
Reply
Danny Goodman said 6:08PM on 7-24-2007
One minor correction: While development of HyperCard started around 1985 in Bill Atkinson's basement, the finished product was revealed to the world in August, 1987, nearly 20 years ago.
One minor parallel with modern times: The iPhone's Home button. A blast from the past, IMHO.
Reply
Pepe said 6:10PM on 7-24-2007
I loved hypercard!
We did science fair projects and reports on it and one guy even set up a kind of "Super Mario Bros" (you know, the first one for the NES.) I thought it was one of the absolutly best things on computers at the time and still miss it ;-(
BTW, Myst was also done 'with' Hypercard
http://members.aol.com/hcheaven/articles/cyan/cyan.1.html
Reply
dbarse said 6:11PM on 7-24-2007
HyperCard is dead? Where do you think they got the idea for the world wide web?
Reply
Pepe said 6:12PM on 7-24-2007
I share your sentiment, Charles, that iHyperCard would have been a rotten idea ;-b
Reply
lou said 6:24PM on 7-24-2007
In the 90s i used to teach HyperCard to middle school students on Mac SEs. It was for the masses too far ahead of its time. Although it could have been the programming language for the rest of us. I used to buy programs that were based on HyperCard because I could always modify them. You mention a number of external reasons why HyperCard died but don't forget it was pretty buggy and crash prone. With the advent of color monitors we eventually migrated to HyperStudio. Now i mostly teach the students to use PowerPoint.
Reply
Jeff Weitzman said 6:39PM on 7-24-2007
Hypercard isn't dead, it's just *mostly* dead. A product called Supercard, originally released by Silicon Beach Software in 1989, is still alive and kicking, and it's kind of Hypercard on steroids. You can migrate Hypercard stacks to Supercard. It's even a Universal Binary!
I've never used it, but you can get it here: http://www.supercard.us/
Reply
SjG said 7:52PM on 7-24-2007
We used to use Hypercard (and later Supercard) for rapid application prototyping.
We were once developing an app for a Super Secret Government Agency. There was a High Ranking Person (HRP) who hated our organization, so he tried to shut down the demo by explaining that the interface was all wrong and unusable. I went into edit mode, and re-arranged it in real time, and then started the demo over with his new interface. Since the names of the elements were the same, Hypertalk didn't care where they were, so it just ran like before. I have never seen a hostile party turn friendly so quickly. That HRP became a huge advocate for our organization.
Reply
Ben Lawson said 9:34PM on 7-24-2007
HyperCard, HyperCard... It started as a hypertext database and grew into anything you wanted. HyperTalk was (is) an amazingly accessible, powerful and extensible programming language, coupled with a delightfully interactive interface tools. There really has been nothing like it since, which is truly a shame. For me it was the fullest embodiment of Apple's "...for the rest of us" slogan. AppleScript Studio is an approximation, but comes up short in many ways.
In the early 90's I created a HyperCard application that was the core of a national wire service. We consolidated newswire feeds, edited our own copy and transmitted our feed to satellite. When a Canadian federal election was called on short notice I built a variation to collect live poll results and fed automated summaries into our satellite feed.
With HyperCard you could turn on a dime and there was no velvet rope separating users from developers.
Reply
Reg Muffet said 10:55PM on 7-24-2007
Here's some quotes from Brendan Eich, creator of the JavaScript programming language and CTO at Mozilla.
- "HyperCard’s message handlers inspired the onEvent naming convention"
- "the “natural language” syntax of HyperTalk was fresh in my
mind after a friend lent me The Complete HyperCard Handbook by some fellow named Goodman."
- "Danny didn’t know at the time how much inspiration I found in his HyperCard book, but it was on my desk throughout the development of JavaScript in 1995."
(These quotes taken from Brendan Eich's foreword to the 5th edition of the javaScript Bible.)
So...
Every time you write some JavaScript, or use virtually any web page on the internet, there's a little bit of HyperCard inspiration sitting there!
Its spirit lives on.
Reply
Ashley Grayson said 11:02PM on 7-24-2007
I looked at Hypercard during its heyday and was impressed with the underlying creativity. It felt charming and tempting to use, but it deserved to remain a toy. The problem was that there was no single place to look to find the logic and defined behavior of a Hypercard stack. Bits of behavior were hidden across many cards like images on an Advent Calendar. So no meaningful applications could ever be developed and maintenance was impossible. Compared to the simple elegance of Ruby or the scalability of Java, Hypercard must remain a quaint footnote in programming systems.
Reply
Maxwell said 11:23PM on 7-24-2007
HyperTalk was golden. AppleScript is Aramaic in comparison. I wrote a LAN-based corporate bulletin board system using HyperCard in '88, with file locks, in a couple of days of spare time and no ramp-up. Sweet. Nothing like it today in terms of power-to-ease ratio. @lou - Powerpoint? Gimme a break! @Jeff Weitzman - Supercard? "I've never used it" says it all, eh?
Reply
Mike C said 12:40AM on 7-25-2007
Hypercard was superb, as a non programmer armed with Danny Goodmans book I was able to write software with my own interface that did what I wanted. With Sheep Shaver on my Mac Mini It's been interesting getting it running again though with limited capabilities.
Reply
HS said 4:06AM on 7-25-2007
I love HyperCard... I made tons of "games" and databases etc in that application, and I loved it. Only later did I learn "real" programming, but then the knowledge I had from programming in HyperCard came in really handy too.
I want an application like that again... SuperCard is ok, but it's basically HyperCard with color, I need a little more after all this time. When it comes to databases I have turned to FileMaker, but again, I'd prefer HyperCard.
One more thing... HyperCard is back, with a vengeance! *dreaming*
Reply
d said 4:22AM on 7-25-2007
well, there is revolution, http://www.runrev.com/
the next generation hypercard.
Reply
Graham Cox said 4:34AM on 7-25-2007
Hypercard was much better thought out than the mishmash that is CSS, HTML and PHP. If the web had been designed around the Hypercard concept it would be a lot more advanced today than it is.
Also, for those who think there's nothing like Hypercard around today, check out Runtime Revolution. It even uses Hypertalk.
Reply
muso_rah said 7:28AM on 7-25-2007
Programming for the rest of us.
HyperTalk was a scripting language that is related to AppleScript. Objects could do things when clicked on. A field cpuld perform a calculation and set of a chain of if..then events, often if otehr places and bring back the final result.
I believe Bill Atkinson said that it was invented so people could do all the cool stuff they wanted to with their computer, withous learning C or Pascal.
Rick
Reply
Mitch said 8:27AM on 7-25-2007
i loved hypercard! i used to teach classes to my local Mac user group. I wish it was still around. Haven't checked out 'revolution' lately but i guess that’s all we get these days.
Reply