
The Hypercard Legacy - CapitalistCartr
https://medium.com/@blprnt/the-hypercard-legacy-e5b9eb273b6a
======
mmastrac
"This type of plain-language programming makes sense, particularly in an
application that was designed specifically for non-programmers."

Sweet merciful crap, no. I loved Hypercard as a kid but I could never get my
head around the English-but-not-quite programming style of the script. Any
time I've tried to do anything with Applescript over the years, I just end up
giving up and doing it some other way.

A DSL would be better than this approach, or a language that has a decently
smooth learning curve.

~~~
taybin
I completely agree. Natural Language style programming with AppleScript is
incredibly difficult. I don't think hypertalk was that much better.

~~~
StackLord
As a web developer and someone who programs in a superset of HyperCard
(LiveCode) - I must say it was moderately difficult to grasp in the beginning.
Strangely enough things that are required for your day job tend to have a way
of getting learned. The hardest part for me was not the syntax, but the fact
the IDE and the language are so inter-connected.

It's actually a fairly quick way of prototyping mobile apps for iOS/Android -
which is one of the main things I use it for at work. Though, I am probably
incredibly biased.

They recently(2012) open sourced the IDE,
[http://LiveCode.com](http://LiveCode.com)

------
wtbob
Yup. I have many happy memories of working in HyperCard as a child—it's what
got me into programming. I don't know what a kid nowadays would start on;
JavaScript really is too much for a beginner IMHO.

~~~
typedweb
The combination of HTML+Javascript+CSS+SQL+Python/Ruby/etc as required for a
basic web app these days is getting to be too much for the beginner. I
remember writing my first game in Hypercard in Grade 6 with no experience on
the computer at all. Load up some art, make some buttons and build a 'choose
your own adventure'. Easy stuff and lots of fun.

~~~
corry
I had the exact same experience (e.g. creating simple point-and-click 'games'
that were really just stories with multiple branches).

What's cool is that as I made these games I kept wanting to add more to them
(interactivity, sounds, etc) so I ended up doing some scripting as well.

As a 12-year-old, this was amazing - my first introduction to "programming"
but I didn't know that at the time.

~~~
thruflo
When I was 12 I made a stop motion animated dizzy egg style adventure game in
HyperCard. When I was 25 I remembered and thought, hmm maybe I should try and
learn how to code. I'm now a professional developer.

As an aside, I sold it to my school mates for 50p a copy. When they asked why
they couldn't just copy it themselves I told them I'd installed DRM on the
floppy disks.

They believed me.

------
joezydeco
_This piece originally appeared on Medium, and has been reprinted with
permission._

The original article is much nicer to read:

[https://medium.com/@blprnt/the-hypercard-
legacy-e5b9eb273b6a](https://medium.com/@blprnt/the-hypercard-
legacy-e5b9eb273b6a)

~~~
dang
Yes. Url changed from [http://www.buzzcarl.com/its-time-to-revive-
hypercard](http://www.buzzcarl.com/its-time-to-revive-hypercard).

------
StackLord
LiveCode is a vast superset of the former HyperCard, and I work with it
everyday. It's extremely utilitarian, and it's not half bad when prototyping
mobile apps.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiveCode](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiveCode)
[http://LiveCode.com](http://LiveCode.com)

~~~
jtth
LiveCode is fantastic.

~~~
RunRevKev
HyperCard was ground breaking in its day for sure. I'm the CEO of LiveCode.
We're an open source, modernized platform that lets you build apps for all
popular platforms and devices. We still retain the best ideas from the
original HyperCard. We have a vibrant active community with many successful
apps developed. We also created one of the top100 Kickstarter campaigns of all
time last year, to build a next generation version of the platform! Check us
out at livecode.com.

~~~
glomek
LiveCode looks very attractive, but I have trouble comprehending your
interpretation of the GPL.

At [http://livecode.com/support/ask-a-question/at-what-point-
do-...](http://livecode.com/support/ask-a-question/at-what-point-do-i-have-to-
share-the-source-code-for-the-applications-i-write/) you say: "The FAQ on the
FSF website states that the GPL does not apply to code simply “executed with
an interpreter”. LiveCode is far more than a simple language interpreter and
each language call utilizes internal libraries within the platform. These
libraries provide the platform’s entire functionality and rich feature set."

However, _every_ interpreter works by making calls to "internal libraries
within the platform" which "provide the platform's entire functionality and
rich feature set." If an interpreter did not contain the code to do the things
that the interpreted language can do, then it wouldn't do anything at all and
it wouldn't be an interpreter.

While I find LiveCode attractive, this license weirdness makes me
uncomfortable enough that I haven't explored it even for my Open Source
projects. It's not often that I find license interpretations that make Richard
Stallman look moderate.

------
rrggrr
How many computer users need automation but haven't the time or aptitude to
program? The answer is far more than will ever buy the Apple Watch. But
universal access to programming/automation doesn't appear to be on Apple's
radar as OSX Automator languishes while Zapier, IFTT, MIT Android Development
Kit, and Google Apps Script sort of and inadequately fill the gap. Apple has
everything in place for a cloud reimplementation and refresh of Hypercard,
apart from apparent interest.

Once a programmer, I appreciate the efficiency of automation. But today I'm
old-ish, run a business, have kids and although my need to automate is greater
than ever, there is simply no time to do so using, say, Python.

Hypercard... I miss you.

~~~
eric_bullington
>my need to automate is greater than ever, there is simply no time to do so
using, say, Python

What kind of tasks do you need to automate? Zapier and IFTTT are both pretty
powerful tools (and I say that as a programmer who uses Python to automate
most quick, mundane tasks).

------
chaostheory
How does HyperCard compare to Scratch?

[http://scratch.mit.edu/](http://scratch.mit.edu/)

It's on iPad: [http://www.scratchjr.org/](http://www.scratchjr.org/)

It also integrates with hardware: [http://education.lego.com/en-us/preschool-
and-school/lower-p...](http://education.lego.com/en-us/preschool-and-
school/lower-primary/7plus-education-wedo)

Do we still need to revive HyperCard?

~~~
mmastrac
I love the idea behind scratch, but I've found the implementation to be a bit
lacking at times. It's buggy in ways, the support for variables is quite basic
and difficult to use, and there's just a lot of rough edges around stuff that
should work like copy/paste and shared functions.

Perhaps we just need to focus some open-source energy on it.

~~~
chaostheory
Yeah it could use help. Scratch is really just a heavily modified version of
Disney's flavor of Smalltalk. I think it was called Squeek.

To continue the conversation it's important to remember the environment that
Hypercard was born in: there was no Python, Ruby, or Javascript. The major
alternatives were just C or C++ (right?). That is no longer the case.
Consequently I'm not really sure it needs to be reborn.

Speaking of Javascript:

[http://codecombat.com/](http://codecombat.com/)

[http://www.kuatostudios.com/games/hakitzu-
elite/](http://www.kuatostudios.com/games/hakitzu-elite/)

~~~
fractallyte
Wait, what??

Squeak is a modern, full-featured Smalltalk. It is closely related to Pharo, a
cleaner, leaner fork. (Both of these put mainstream languages like Java to
shame.)

Scratch is simply a kid-friendly DSL built in Squeak. Big difference!

~~~
twombly
Apparently up until the release last year it actually was based on a Squeak
virtual machine:
[http://wiki.scratch.mit.edu/wiki/Squeak_Tutorial](http://wiki.scratch.mit.edu/wiki/Squeak_Tutorial)

------
ggchappell
This is great. I would love to see both Hypercard and Hypercard-ish stuff
become more common and supported.

But statements like the following suggest to me that there are some
misunderstandings here.

> With the developer restrictions and extreme proprietism of the iPhone App
> Store, it’s hard to remember the Apple of the 80s. Steve Jobs, Bill Atkinson
> and their team had a vision to not only bring computers to the people, but
> also to bring computer programming to the public – to make makers out of the
> masses. At Apple, this philosophy, along with HyperCard seems to have mostly
> been lost.

Making makers out of the masses is an idea that is still there. Think about
software like GarageBand and iMovie. These have the added advantage that you
can make things without doing programming.

Also, I was very much involved with the Apple of the 80s. And I can assure you
all that the "proprietism" was just as strong as it is today.

While it's exciting to see Hypercard and similar ideas coming alive again, I'm
certainly glad that Hypercard died when it did. A Hypercard-based web would
have been Apple formats distributed from Apple servers via Apple protocols to
Apple clients. And lawsuits for everyone! We're fortunate to have dodged that
particular scenario.

------
smasuch
I've seen a lot of big-hearted attempts to bring Hypercard back. I haven't
seen a convincing (to me) analysis of why it sputtered out in the first place.
Without that knowledge, I don't think any resuscitations can succeed.

~~~
blprnt
I've had the chance to talk a bit with Bill Atkinson about this. I think there
are a few things at play here.

First, HC was built before the popularization of the internet, and as such a
distribution model for stacks didn't really exist. I can literally remember
mailing stacks on floppy disks. So, people could make things, but not easily
share them.

Second, there was a fundamental shift in which software became a commodity. I
really think in the beginning it was about selling computers; it took a while
for people to realize that software was not a 'value add' for the machine but
a place to make much, much more money.

So when HC was conceived, it seemed natural to provide a tool to let people
author their own software. As the business model changed, this idea lost out.
Software should be something that people _bought_ , not something people
_made_

------
VPrime
We're working on it for iPad.
[http:///www.hyperpad.com](http:///www.hyperpad.com) Still fairly early, and
not where we want it. But it's coming along...

~~~
jdhawk
You're focusing on books at the moment? looks like a neat little platform.
Kudos, going to pass this along to some animator friends

~~~
VPrime
Yes, but we're thinking of changing to mobile games (what we originally
started with).

------
russellbeattie
In my opinion, it's not that we need a new HyperCard, we need a HyperCard for
handhelds, like tablets and smartphones. On-device programming, accessible by
the layman. Microsoft Research's TouchDevelop is definitely doing some cool
work there: [http://www.touchdevelop.com](http://www.touchdevelop.com)

~~~
discohead
ScriptKit for iPad is another really cool effort in this arena:
[http://scriptk.it](http://scriptk.it)

------
organsnyder
I have fond memories of HyperCard from school growing up. Our school computers
had a locked down shell to restrict us to certain applications. However, it
was trivial to write a script in HyperCard to close the shell application,
exposing the Finder underneath.

Does anyone else remember HyperStudio? It was like HyperCard, but more
multimedia features. Despite the name and function similarities, I'm not sure
if there is any formal connection between the two.

~~~
Hortinstein
was the shell At Ease?
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_Ease](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_Ease)

Haha memories, that may be the first time I ever tried to exploit a system

~~~
organsnyder
Haha - it was, indeed. I received at least one temporary ban from the computer
lab for my endeavors.

------
huskyr
I think something that would:

* Take the original idea of Hypercard and take it into the 21st century.

* Be completely open source.

* Export to HTML/CSS/JS and perhaps native for performance sensitive things.

* Would run as well on desktop as on mobile browsers.

* Maybe have a (subset) of Javascript, Lua or Python as a scripting language.

* Be as fun, easy and playful as the original.

Would definitely be something i'd support on a platform like Kickstarter.

~~~
zyxley
It's not exactly a Hypercard-alike, but have you take a look at Twine?
[http://twinery.org](http://twinery.org)

The 2.0 version is a choose-your-own adventure generator that can go from
simple (create 'pages', make one-way links between them) to complex (use CSS +
Javascript to create multiple panes, keep track of variables, write graphics,
etc), and it exports as a Tiddlywiki-based self-contained HTML file.

------
benbreen
I had no idea before reading this article that HyperCard dated back to 1987.
It was still being used in my fifth grade classroom in 1996 (I remember it
vividly because that was the year I won my county fair's "multimedia"
competition with a HyperCard stack!).

As a kid, everyone I knew who liked computers loved HyperCard. It was an
amazing learning tool and I still find myself reminiscing about it like the
author of the article.

------
josephcohen
We're building on this spirit at Universe

[http://un1verse.co](http://un1verse.co)

And we're looking for talented souls to help make it real

Computing as a tool for individual empowerment... who'd have thought?

------
tolmasky
_> I have been teaching programming to designers and artists for nearly a
decade, and I find the largest concern for learners to be not with the
conceptual hurdles involved in writing a program, but with obscure and
confusing syntax requirements._

Confusing syntax is certainly a problem, don't get me wrong, but I have found
that the above is not entirely true (in my limited experience). A lot of times
once you want to commit an idea you have to a program, you discover that the
idea in your head is actually quite ambiguous and difficult to describe,
regardless the language.

When I think about the difficulties of programming, I separate the problems
into "real" and "fake". Understanding truthy values in Javascript falls
decidedly in the "fake" category. On the other hand, "find all the birds in
this picture" is legitimately hard. I believe that _a lot_ of the things
"normal people" would want to do would require some genuine patience,
thinking, and time to figure out (which I think is the real hurdle of
programming). This is why we see a lot more success in programming systems
that tackle incredibly specific problems, and why these systems are often even
more appealing to programmers:

1\. Arithmetic and equation solvers (Calculator.app).

2\. Drawing programs that just describe and manage a non destructive image-
processing pipeline (Photoshop.app/Illustrator).

3\. Sound mixing applications (Garage Band)

In each of these examples, the system has given up a _lot_ of flexibility in
order to make that specific task so much easier. As a trivial example, most
calculators are nicer to use, and _look_ nicer, than typing math in a language
console.

Perhaps all of these tasks _could_ theoretically be possible in some "perfect"
language, but I find it very suspect that they'd be better at it. It's just
hard to make a tool thats good for everything also be better at everything.
Its certainly the case that I'd rather use PaintCode or PhotoShop to take an
existing image and mutate it today, and _I 'm a programmer_: we haven't even
solved making our core audience prefer programming in a lot of cases.

Separately, I'm not entirely convinced that the world is perfectly split into
"typing programmers" and "connect the noodles" quartz-composer programmers. I
think many of the visual systems we've developed end up having just as many
quirks as the language ones. Certainly _different_ quirks, but if in a
parallel universe HyperCard and QuartzComposer-style programming had won, we'd
maybe have just as many programmers as today and those guys would be wondering
"how do we get people who think in terms of text to program?".

~~~
TelmoMenezes
Ok, but there is no reason per se why Photoshop.app or Garage Band could not
be easily connectable to other stuff through programming. We could have the
best of both worlds if it were not for social/business issues.

The disgusting thing is that we seem to be moving in the opposite direction --
more walled gardens, more dumbing down of the interfaces for its own sake,
more incidental complexity on the development tools side for its own sake.

~~~
tolmasky
I absolutely agree with this point. I think there might be incredible
potential in just getting the different existing tools playing nicer together.
When I was working in gaming I was blown away that the native formats the game
engines used were the same as the 3d graphics tools. It was great, a modeler
would make nodes and animations in his world, and I'd have access to them in
mine -- we were speaking the same language but each of us interoperating with
our specific piece the way we wanted to. Compare this to "2D" programming
where there is often incredible friction going from PhotoShop to what we use.
Exporting to the right format, slicing, (dealing with different resolutions).
Everyone wants to somehow magically take the PSD file and just use it as their
UI (and many companies have been trying to do this admittedly), its the dream.

------
davelnewton
Preferably with a better language, but yes.

------
throw7
"Which, of course, begs the question: What happened to HyperCard?" That's not
begging the question. You are bringing up the question.

------
ChrisArchitect
It's time to revive Hyperwocky

------
DonHopkins
In 1989, Arthur van Hoff was quite the celebrity in the NeWS community (Sun's
PostScript based window system written by James Gosling, who later went on to
make Java with Arthur).

At the Turing Institute in Glasgow, Arthur and his colleagues created a
groundbreaking HyperCard-like PostScript-based networked user interface
creation tool called GoodNeWS, later renamed HyperNeWS and then HyperLook,
which was the most amazing thing anyone ever did with NeWS.

I moved to Glasgow in 1992 to work at the Turing Institute with Arthur, making
HyperLook into a product and porting SimCity to the Sun, and we released
HyperLook and SimCity for HyperLook simultaneously!

HyperLook was so far ahead of its time in 1989, that there still isn't
anything quite like it for modern technology. Since we developed HyperLook and
SimCity at the same time, that forced us to eat our own dog food, and ensure
that HyperLook supported everything you needed to develop real world
applications. (Not to imply that SimCity is a real world! ;)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_van_Hoff](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_van_Hoff)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_Institute](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_Institute)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeWS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeWS)

[http://www.art.net/~hopkins/Don/hyperlook](http://www.art.net/~hopkins/Don/hyperlook)
[http://www.art.net/~hopkins/Don/hyperlook/HyperLook.README](http://www.art.net/~hopkins/Don/hyperlook/HyperLook.README)

[http://donhopkins.com/home/movies/HyperLookDemo.mov](http://donhopkins.com/home/movies/HyperLookDemo.mov)
[http://www.art.net/~hopkins/Don/simcity/hyperlook-
demo.html](http://www.art.net/~hopkins/Don/simcity/hyperlook-demo.html)

[http://www.art.net/~hopkins/Don/hyperlook/SimCity.README](http://www.art.net/~hopkins/Don/hyperlook/SimCity.README)
[http://art.net/~hopkins/Don/hyperlook/HyperLook-
SimCity.gif](http://art.net/~hopkins/Don/hyperlook/HyperLook-SimCity.gif)
[https://www.scribd.com/doc/77164708/HyperLook-SimCity-
Manual](https://www.scribd.com/doc/77164708/HyperLook-SimCity-Manual)

[https://www.scribd.com/doc/77192848/HyperNeWS-
Brochure](https://www.scribd.com/doc/77192848/HyperNeWS-Brochure)
[https://www.scribd.com/doc/77192884/HyperLook-Product-
Info](https://www.scribd.com/doc/77192884/HyperLook-Product-Info)
[https://www.scribd.com/doc/77199792/HyperLook-Manual-
Part-1-...](https://www.scribd.com/doc/77199792/HyperLook-Manual-Part-1-of-6)
[https://www.scribd.com/doc/77194415/HyperLook-Manual-
Part-2-...](https://www.scribd.com/doc/77194415/HyperLook-Manual-Part-2-of-6)
[https://www.scribd.com/doc/77199691/HyperLook-Manual-
Part-3-...](https://www.scribd.com/doc/77199691/HyperLook-Manual-Part-3-of-6)
[https://www.scribd.com/doc/77194936/HyperLook-Manual-
Part-4-...](https://www.scribd.com/doc/77194936/HyperLook-Manual-Part-4-of-6)
[https://www.scribd.com/doc/77195777/HyperLook-Manual-
Part-5-...](https://www.scribd.com/doc/77195777/HyperLook-Manual-Part-5-of-6)
[https://www.scribd.com/doc/77193909/HyperLook-Manual-
Part-6-...](https://www.scribd.com/doc/77193909/HyperLook-Manual-Part-6-of-6)

------
angggry
published the article twice in five years but never got around to proofreading
or spell checking it?

~~~
blprnt
Wow! This is so fateful! I happen to be looking for a proofreader & spell-
checker. Are you available? How much do you charge? What are your thoughts on
the Oxford comma?

