
HyperCard Zine - rbanffy
https://crime.team/~hypercard/
======
cortesoft
Man, HyperCard was my jam. I learned to really program as a 10 year old making
games in HyperCard.

This was before the internet, so my only source of docs and help was my copy
old hand-me-down copy of The HyperCard Bible I got from a family friend.

I had no idea about data structures or anything, so I reinvented so many of
them trying to make my games. I would create a field, make it really tiny, and
then stick it way in the corner behind a button and use that as my data
storage.

~~~
scroot
Same. Aside from some very primitive BASIC, at about 9 or 10 this was my first
experience with programming. And yes, it counts as programming.

Hypercard hints at the kind of elegance that's possible when there isn't such
a strict divide between the computer programmer and the computer user. We live
in a world that went the complete opposite direction from this. So instead of
being able to copy and paste the Bold button from Word and use it anywhere
else in my system, or — gasp! — alt-click on it to change what it does, I have
to learn a full programming stack to add new features to my own computer.

The thinking behind it is due for a comeback

~~~
styfle
React Components can almost do this. There are React dev tools to inspect each
Component on the page (not just html element). You could jump to source and
copy/paste the Component in another app.

~~~
scroot
I work in React daily and, unfortunately, it's nothing like what I'm
describing and what Hypercard hinted at. React is for developers in 2018.
Hypercard-like things are for personal computer users of all variety.

------
scroot
I saw a talk with Bill Atkinson in which a surprising number of members of the
audience claimed to still maintain old hardware just for running Hypercard.
Two of the members said they used it to this day to keep their own financial
records and/or run POS at their businesses. They also said unequivocally that
they weren't programmers.

In a related talk, Atkinson finally came out and said that the idea for
Hypercard came to him during an acid trip on a park bench.

~~~
melloclello
Whoa, do you have a link to that Atkinson talk?

~~~
scroot
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdJKjBHCh18](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdJKjBHCh18)

------
ssewell
The original Myst game was written in Hypercard. With this knowledge, I wrote
a Hunt the Wumpus 3D dungeon crawler in my high school CS class when everyone
else was stuck with plain ol' text versions.

~~~
HyperTalk2
Were you FruitCase on AOL?

~~~
plushpuffin
No, that was actually me. I think I called it Vumpir Slay. It was a 3D wumpus
with something like a 20x20x20 cube and a map editor. I might still have it
somewhere.

~~~
plushpuffin
The only copy I had on my PC was corrupt, but I managed to find a floppy disk
from 1997 and a USB floppy drive that worked. I booted into a Linux VM, passed
the USB floppy through to the VM, used dd to create a disk image, added it to
my BasiliskII configuration, and started a BasiliskII VM inside the Linux VM.
I was able to get a Compact Pro file off of the floppy disk image, extract it,
and get a working copy of the stack from the archive.

At the time that I wrote this, I had never taken any programming courses. I
didn't even have any programming books. I was about 15 and entirely self-
taught from reading the source code to other people's HyperCard stacks, so the
code quality is probably terrible.

It is very strange to find out that someone else remembers a stupid project I
did as a teenager 23 years ago.

[http://www.wwddfd.com/plushpuffin/Vumpir.hqx.zip](http://www.wwddfd.com/plushpuffin/Vumpir.hqx.zip)

~~~
HyperTalk2
Nice work with the file recovery. I wish I could recover my old stuff but it's
all gone.

I remember a few names because I was 12 and wanted to be like the cool kids in
ElectroSoft. My memory of your exact screen name was refreshed when I stumbled
across LightHouse on archive.org a few months ago.

[https://archive.org/search.php?query=fruitcase](https://archive.org/search.php?query=fruitcase)

------
brylie
Is there an open-source hypercard equivalent? It seems that Hypercard made
programming very accessible, so it would be good if an open source
project/community is continuing the ethos.

~~~
leephillips
HTML + javascript. I mean that as a serious answer to your question. I made a
handful of stacks back then, and this is the logical replacement. While still
not as cool in some ways as Hypercard, at least HTML + javascript is not
confined to one company's computers.

~~~
Angostura
Having done quite a lot of hypercard programming back in the day - HTML +
javscript is nothing like a replacement. Hypercard's authoring simplicity was
what made it so great.

~~~
cik
Agreed. It's literally what got me into programming and entrepreneurship.
Wrote and sold my first piece of software in Hypercard (and then SuperCard!).

I desperately wish it were still real, for my kids. I think it'd be far be the
best way to get them coding.

~~~
pasbesoin
It might well not have enough contemporary flare and flash for young kids used
to modern computers, tablets, phones. But there are "classic Mac" emulators. I
imagine they do Hypercard just fine.

------
_Marak_
Have always really liked Hypercard. Would totally be interested in a new
Hypercard style system where users can upload and share cards. Kate Compton's
"Generominos" project looks like a promising start:
[http://www.galaxykate.com/generominos/](http://www.galaxykate.com/generominos/)

Aside from the blatant identity politics of this "crime.team" site, it seems
to be about the site creator trying to sell other people's submitted work for
free.

> By submitting your stack, you are giving me permission to sell your stack as
> part of HyperCard Zine. I ask that, if your stack is published as part of
> HyperCard Zine, please wait at least a year after publication to sell it on
> your own.

Hard pass.

~~~
pavlov
Maybe the alternative is not getting your weird Hypercard stack published at
all? The curator's work is also worth something.

If this were a poetry journal that seeks contributions from young male
writers, I don't think anyone would call it "blatant identity politics".
Somehow women doing creative things on a computer get treated particularly
harshly.

~~~
jandrese
> If this were a poetry journal that seeks contributions from young male
> writers, I don't think anyone would call it "blatant identity politics".

That is exactly identity politics...

If that's the game they want to play then fine, but call a spade a spade here.

~~~
pavlov
Publishing art with a theme is not automatically politics. Nor is it a “game”.

------
MR4D
The website design alone makes this worth the visit! Takes me back a few years
(decades?).

~~~
santa_boy
Exactly my thought when I visited it! I feel the design is still simple and
aesthetic even today! Just wondering ...

------
DonHopkins
I wrote earlier about publishing live HyperCard stacks with WebStar -- I
wonder if that would run in the Mac emulator:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7865263](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7865263)

>The coolest thing somebody did with WebStar was to integrate it with
HyperCard so you could actually publish live INTERACTIVE HyperCard stacks on
the web, that you could see as images you could click on to follow links, and
followed by html form elements corresponding to the text fields, radio
buttons, checkboxes, drop down menus, scrolling lists, etc in the HyperCard
stack that you could use in the browser to interactive with live HyperCard
pages!

>That was the earliest easiest way that non-programmers and even kids could
both not just create graphical web pages, but publish live interactive apps on
the web!

[http://aaa-proteins.uni-graz.at/HyperCGI.html](http://aaa-proteins.uni-
graz.at/HyperCGI.html)

[http://www.drdobbs.com/web-development/cgi-and-
applescript/1...](http://www.drdobbs.com/web-development/cgi-and-
applescript/184409741)

------
jandrese
Am I missing something or are there zero stacks available on that site at the
moment?

~~~
mcphage
This is a request for submissions.

~~~
jandrese
I'd think the person making the request would put a couple of examples up. At
the very least it would show if he's put thought into how this eZine is going
to work once he does have submissions.

~~~
k3d
she

------
kerkeslager
Avoiding the identity politics discussion which will likely ensue here:

HyperCard introduced me to programming, and I'd love to read/edit stacks for
purposes of nostalgia. How do people read/edit stacks these days? Preferably
on modern hardware/OSes--I don't have an old-school Mac any more.

~~~
dangoor
You can do it in your browser:
[https://archive.org/details/HyperCardBootSystem7](https://archive.org/details/HyperCardBootSystem7)

More info here: [https://blog.archive.org/2017/08/11/hypercard-on-the-
archive...](https://blog.archive.org/2017/08/11/hypercard-on-the-archive-
celebrating-30-years-of-hypercard/)

------
ryanlol
Zine contents are veeery different from what one might expect based on the
domain :P

------
chris_st
I remember trying to explain what was so cool about HyperCard when it first
came out to non-nerds... and then having deja vu years later when I was trying
to explain the internet, particularly since a lot of what I was saying about
the net was so similar to what I'd said about HyperCard :-).

Lots of interesting similarities to the two.

------
BerislavLopac
I have an old HC stack which is basically quite a complex application with
calculations, internal state etc. I would like to backward-engineer it and
backport it to a Web and/or mobile app -- does anyone know, is there any way
to extract the original code in order to get to mathematical functions
involved? Thanks!

~~~
spongeb00b
Have you looked into any of the classic Mac emulators like Mini vMac or
Basilisk II? You could run the original stack and get at the code from there.

~~~
BerislavLopac
I have, but they are terribly complicated to get working, especially if you
don't have a Mac so can't use StuffIt. :-/

Edit: Are there any companies I could hire to do that for me?

~~~
spongeb00b
Not aware of any companies, but I do have have several Macs old and new -
would be very happy help if you’re just looking to get the code copied out of
the cards.

------
BugsJustFindMe
First box text layout is broken in Firefox 58.0.2 Linux

[https://imgur.com/a/uMbZD](https://imgur.com/a/uMbZD)

~~~
blackth0rn
Works fine for me on Firefox 58.0b14 on Linux

~~~
BugsJustFindMe
I think it got fixed. Looks good to me now.

------
zeveb
> HyperCard has been used by LGBT and other marginalized people to make
> interactive art representing their experiences.

What an odd thing to say about it. Handwriting, too, has been used by LGBT and
other marginalised people to make art representing their experiences.
HyperCard has no doubt been used by mainstream people to make interactive art
representing _their_ experiences. HyperCard has no doubt been used by
marginalised _and_ mainstream people to make business applications.

HyperCard was really neat technology, regardless of who was using it at the
time. It enabled some neat stacks, with a pretty neat visual æsthetic.

~~~
Cyberdog
If you keep reading, the person who designed this site announces herself as a
lesbian, so I guess it's an identity at the forefront of her mind.

Nonetheless, yes, when she puts a line like that above the fold, one can't
help but assume what she's really going for here is HyperCard stacks
specifically relevant to the LGBT experience (what a weird sentence to type
this morning). A niche audience within a niche audience. But I guess that's
something the internet is great at serving.

~~~
pavlov
_... one can 't help but assume what she's really going for here is HyperCard
stacks specifically relevant to the LGBT experience_

Why assume? It says so right there on the page:

"I'm especially interested in seeing work from LGBT people, POC, and other
marginalized groups, but everyone is welcome to submit a stack!"

I don't really understand why this would upset anyone. Curated compilations
are common in every medium. Of course the curator will prefer to choose
content that has a common theme.

~~~
Cyberdog
I don't think anyone's particularly upset about this. Nonetheless, even
broadening the scope to all "marginalized groups," how many HyperCard stacks
relating to that will she actually end up getting? I think this truly will be
slim pickings.

~~~
tomjakubowski
Zines are tiny on purpose. They're designed to serve a niche of a niche.

If they had wide appeal, they wouldn't be zines!

