Ask HN: How to Port a HyperCard Stack?

[BerislavLopac]

There is an ancient HyperCard stack [0] I've used long time ago, and I for several reasons I would like to have a modern - ideally open-source - software with the same functionality. I can (in theory) run the stack on various HC emulators (e.g. [1]), but a) it's a bit cumbersome and b) I would love to be able to modify it as I see fit.

The stack seems to have plenty of algorithms and other internal functionalities which can't be easily reconstructed from just using the UI, so I would love to be able to have access to the source code and extract them to another language.

Does anyone have a suggestion how to approach this problem? I've looked into LiveCode [2] but wasn't able to get it to run (and it's apparently not fully compatible with HC anyway). Any suggestions would be more than welcome.

[0] http://lopac.net/weather.html

[1] https://archive.org/details/hypercard_weather_2

[2] https://livecode.org/

[gregjor]

Buy an old Mac and the HyperCard software on eBay. You can get an SE/30 for around $150, and lots of people selling Hypercard diskettes and manuals.

[BerislavLopac → gregjor]

Yes, I guess that's an option, but I'm still hoping to find a fully software-oriented solution.

That said - do you have any idea what would be the most modern Mac that could still come with and run HyperCard? Maybe an iBook?

Edit: Ah, just found this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_9#Compatibility

[brudgers → BerislavLopac]

hoping to find a fully software-oriented solution.

Sometimes hardware is a useful abstraction. In this case it would solve a lot of issues (known and unknown) at once.

[sfgweilr4f]

I'd suggest Basilisk II and emulate the mac in that. This would also let you use modern hardware. Especially useful when copying / porting to something more modern.