HyperCard is a
software application
Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work.
At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...
and
development kit
A software development kit (SDK) is a collection of software development tools in one installable package. They facilitate the creation of applications by having a compiler, debugger and sometimes a software framework. They are normally specific to ...
for Apple
Macintosh
The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and software en ...
and
Apple IIGS
The Apple IIGS (styled as II), the fifth and most powerful of the Apple II family, is a 16-bit personal computer produced by Apple Computer. While featuring the Macintosh look and feel, and resolution and color similar to the Amiga and Atari ST ...
computers. It is among the first successful
hypermedia systems predating the
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system enabling documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet.
Documents and downloadable media are made available to the network through web ...
.
HyperCard combines a flat-file
database
In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases s ...
with a graphical, flexible, user-modifiable interface.
HyperCard includes a built-in
programming language
A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Most programming languages are text-based formal languages, but they may also be graphical. They are a kind of computer language.
The description of a programming ...
called
HyperTalk
HyperTalk is a discontinued high-level, procedural programming language created in 1987 by Dan Winkler and used in conjunction with Apple Computer's HyperCard hypermedia program by Bill Atkinson. Because the main target audience of HyperTalk ...
for manipulating data and the user interface.
This combination of features – a database with simple form layout, flexible support for graphics, and ease of programming – suits HyperCard for many different projects such as
rapid application development
Rapid application development (RAD), also called rapid application building (RAB), is both a general term for adaptive software development approaches, and the name for James Martin's method of rapid development. In general, RAD approaches to ...
of applications and databases, interactive applications with no database requirements, command and control systems, and many examples in the
demoscene
The demoscene is an international computer art subculture focused on producing demos: self-contained, sometimes extremely small, computer programs that produce audiovisual presentations. The purpose of a demo is to show off programming, visual ...
.
HyperCard was originally released in 1987 for $49.95 and was included free with all new Macs sold afterwards.
It was withdrawn from sale in March 2004, having received its final update in 1998 upon the return of
Steve Jobs to Apple. HyperCard was not ported to
Mac OS X
macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and la ...
, but can run in the
Classic Environment
This is a list of macOS built-in apps and system components.
Applications
App Store
The Mac App Store is macOS's digital distribution platform for macOS apps, created and maintained by Apple Inc. based on the iOS version, the platform was an ...
on versions of Mac OS X that support it.
Overview
Design
![Apple Macintosh SE-30 computer (1989) clear background](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c0/Apple_Macintosh_SE-30_computer_%281989%29_clear_background.png)
HyperCard is based on the concept of a "stack" of virtual "cards".
[ Cards hold data, just as they would in a ]Rolodex
A Rolodex is a rotating card file device used to store business contact information. Its name, a portmanteau of the words ''rolling'' and ''index'', has become somewhat genericized (usually as ''rolodex'') for any personal organizer performing th ...
card-filing device. Each card contains a set of interactive objects, including text fields, check boxes, buttons, and similar common graphical user interface
The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inst ...
(GUI) elements. Users browse the stack by navigating from card to card, using built-in navigation features, a powerful search mechanism, or through user-created scripts.
Users build or modify stacks by adding new cards. They place GUI objects on the cards using an interactive layout engine based on a simple drag-and-drop interface.[ Also, HyperCard includes prototype or template cards called backgrounds; when new cards are created they can refer to one of these background cards, which causes all of the objects on the background to be copied onto the new card. This way, a stack of cards with a common layout and functionality can be created. The layout engine is similar in concept to a form as used in most ]rapid application development
Rapid application development (RAD), also called rapid application building (RAB), is both a general term for adaptive software development approaches, and the name for James Martin's method of rapid development. In general, RAD approaches to ...
(RAD) environments such as Borland Delphi
Delphi is a general-purpose programming language and a software product that uses the Delphi dialect of the Object Pascal programming language and provides an integrated development environment (IDE) for rapid application development of desktop, ...
, and Microsoft Visual Basic Visual Basic is a name for a family of programming languages from Microsoft. It may refer to:
* Visual Basic .NET (now simply referred to as "Visual Basic"), the current version of Visual Basic launched in 2002 which runs on .NET
* Visual Basic ( ...
and Visual Studio
Visual Studio is an integrated development environment (IDE) from Microsoft. It is used to develop computer programs including websites, web apps, web services and mobile apps. Visual Studio uses Microsoft software development platforms such ...
.
The database features of the HyperCard system are based on the storage of the state of all of the objects on the cards in the physical file representing the stack. The database does not exist as a separate system within the HyperCard stack; no database engine
A database engine (or storage engine) is the underlying software component that a database management system (DBMS) uses to create, read, update and delete (CRUD) data from a database. Most database management systems include their own applicatio ...
or similar construct exists. Instead, the state of any object in the system is considered to be live and editable at any time. From the HyperCard runtime's perspective, there is no difference between moving a text field on the card and typing into it, both operations simply change the state of the target object within the stack. Such changes are immediately saved when complete, so typing into a field causes that text to be stored to the stack's physical file. The system operates in a largely stateless fashion, with no need to save during operation. This is in common with many database-oriented systems, although somewhat different from document-based applications.
The final key element in HyperCard is the script, a single code-carrying element of every object within the stack. The script is a text field whose contents are interpreted in the HyperTalk language.[ Like any other property, the script of any object can be edited at any time and changes are saved as soon as they were complete. When the user invokes actions in the GUI, like clicking on a button or typing into a field, these actions are translated into events by the HyperCard runtime. The runtime then examines the script of the object that is the target of the event, like a button, to see if its script object contains the event's code, called a handler. If it does, the HyperTalk engine runs the handler; if it does not, the runtime examines other objects in the visual hierarchy.
These concepts make up the majority of the HyperCard system; stacks, backgrounds and cards provide a form-like GUI system, the stack file provides ]object persistence
An object database or object-oriented database is a database management system in which information is represented in the form of objects as used in object-oriented programming. Object databases are different from relational databases which are ...
and database-like functionality, and HyperTalk allows handlers to be written for GUI events. Unlike the majority of RAD or database systems of the era, however, HyperCard combines all of these features, both user-facing and developer-facing, in a single application. This allows rapid turnaround and immediate prototyping, possibly without any coding, allowing users to author custom solutions to problems with their own personalized interface. "Empowerment" became a catchword as this possibility was embraced by the Macintosh community, as was the phrase "programming for the rest of us", that is, anyone, not just professional programmers.
It is this combination of features that also makes HyperCard a powerful hypermedia system. Users can build backgrounds to suit the needs of some system, say a rolodex
A Rolodex is a rotating card file device used to store business contact information. Its name, a portmanteau of the words ''rolling'' and ''index'', has become somewhat genericized (usually as ''rolodex'') for any personal organizer performing th ...
, and use simple HyperTalk commands to provide buttons to move from place to place within the stack, or provide the same navigation system within the data elements of the UI, like text fields. Using these features, it is easy to build linked systems similar to hypertext links on the Web.[ Unlike the Web, programming, placement, and browsing are all the same tool. Similar systems have been created for HTML, but traditional Web services are considerably more heavyweight.
]
HyperTalk
HyperCard contains an object oriented
Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a programming paradigm based on the concept of " objects", which can contain data and code. The data is in the form of fields (often known as attributes or ''properties''), and the code is in the form of p ...
scripting language
A scripting language or script language is a programming language that is used to manipulate, customize, and automate the facilities of an existing system. Scripting languages are usually interpreted at runtime rather than compiled.
A scripting ...
called HyperTalk
HyperTalk is a discontinued high-level, procedural programming language created in 1987 by Dan Winkler and used in conjunction with Apple Computer's HyperCard hypermedia program by Bill Atkinson. Because the main target audience of HyperTalk ...
, which was noted for having a syntax resembling casual English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
language. HyperTalk language features were predetermined by the HyperCard environment, although they could be extended by the use of externals functions (XFCN) and commands (XCMD), written in a compiled language. The weakly typed HyperTalk supports most standard programming structures such as "if-then" and "repeat". HyperTalk is verbose, hence its ease of use and readability. HyperTalk code segments are referred to as "scripts", a term that is considered less daunting to beginning programmers.
Externals
HyperCard can be extended significantly through the use of ''external command'' (XCMD) and ''external function'' (XFCN) modules. These are code libraries packaged in a resource fork The resource fork is a fork or section of a file on Apple's classic Mac OS operating system, which was also carried over to the modern macOS for compatibility, used to store structured data along with the unstructured data stored within the data f ...
that integrate into either the system generally or the HyperTalk language specifically; this is an early example of the plug-in concept. Unlike conventional plug-ins, these do not require separate installation before they are available for use; they can be included in a stack, where they are directly available to scripts in that stack.
During HyperCard's peak popularity in the late 1980s, a whole ecosystem of vendors offered thousands of these externals such as HyperTalk compilers, graphing systems, database access, Internet connectivity, and animation. Oracle offered an XCMD that allows HyperCard to directly query Oracle databases on any platform, superseded by Oracle Card
{{Infobox Software
, name = Oracle Media Objects (OMO)
, screenshot = Oracle media objects.png
, screenshot size = 250px
, caption = OMO Screenshot
, developer = Oracle
, latest_release_version = 1.1.2
, latest_release_date = 1998 (last da ...
. BeeHive Technologies offered a hardware interface that allows the computer to control external devices. Connected via the Apple Desktop Bus
Apple Desktop Bus (ADB) is a proprietary bit-serial peripheral bus connecting low-speed devices to computers. It was introduced on the Apple IIGS in 1986 as a way to support low-cost devices like keyboards and mice, allowing them to be connecte ...
(ADB), this instrument can read the state of connected external switches or write digital outputs to a multitude of devices.
Externals allow access to the Macintosh Toolbox, which contains many lower-level commands and functions not native to HyperTalk, such as control of the serial and ADB ports.
History
Development
HyperCard was created by Bill Atkinson
Bill Atkinson (born March 17, 1951) is an American computer engineer and photographer. Atkinson worked at Apple Computer from 1978 to 1990.
Atkinson was the principal designer and developer of the graphical user interface (GUI) of the Apple ...
following an LSD
Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), also known colloquially as acid, is a potent psychedelic drug. Effects typically include intensified thoughts, emotions, and sensory perception. At sufficiently high dosages LSD manifests primarily mental, vi ...
trip.
link
Work for it began in March 1985 under the name of WildCard (hence its creator code
A creator code is a mechanism introduced in the classic Mac OS to link a data file to the application program which created it. The similar type code held the file type, like "TEXT". Together, the type and creator indicated what application sho ...
of WILD). In 1986, Dan Winkler began work on HyperTalk
HyperTalk is a discontinued high-level, procedural programming language created in 1987 by Dan Winkler and used in conjunction with Apple Computer's HyperCard hypermedia program by Bill Atkinson. Because the main target audience of HyperTalk ...
and the name was changed to HyperCard for trademark
A trademark (also written trade mark or trade-mark) is a type of intellectual property consisting of a recognizable sign, design, or expression that identifies products or services from a particular source and distinguishes them from othe ...
reasons. It was released on 11 August 1987 for the first day of the MacWorld Conference & Expo
Macworld/iWorld was an information technology trade show with conference tracks dedicated to the Apple Macintosh platform. It was held annually in the United States during January. Originally ''Macworld Expo'' and then ''Macworld Conference & Expos ...
in Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
, with the understanding that Atkinson would give HyperCard to Apple only if the company promised to release it for free on all Macs. Apple timed its release to coincide with the MacWorld Conference & Expo
Macworld/iWorld was an information technology trade show with conference tracks dedicated to the Apple Macintosh platform. It was held annually in the United States during January. Originally ''Macworld Expo'' and then ''Macworld Conference & Expos ...
in Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
, Massachusetts
Massachusetts (Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="nowiki/> məhswatʃəwiːsət.html" ;"title="Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət">Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət'' En ...
to guarantee maximum publicity.
Launch
HyperCard was successful almost instantly. The Apple Programmer's and Developer's Association (APDA) said, "HyperCard has been an informational feeding frenzy. From August 987, when it was announcedto October our phones never stopped ringing. It was a zoo." Within a few months of release, there were multiple HyperCard books and a 50 disk set of public domain stacks. Apple's project managers found HyperCard was being used by a huge number of people, internally and externally. Bug reports and upgrade suggestions continued to flow in, demonstrating its wide variety of users. Since it was also free, it was difficult to justify dedicating engineering resources to improvements in the software. Apple and its mainstream developers understood that HyperCard's user empowerment could reduce the sales of ordinary shrink-wrapped products. Stewart Alsop II speculated that HyperCard might replace Finder as the shell
Shell may refer to:
Architecture and design
* Shell (structure), a thin structure
** Concrete shell, a thin shell of concrete, usually with no interior columns or exterior buttresses
** Thin-shell structure
Science Biology
* Seashell, a hard o ...
of the Macintosh graphical user interface.
HyperCard 2.0
In late 1989, Kevin Calhoun, then a HyperCard engineer at Apple, led an effort to upgrade the program. This resulted in HyperCard 2.0, released in 1990. The new version included an on-the-fly compiler
In computing, a compiler is a computer program that translates computer code written in one programming language (the ''source'' language) into another language (the ''target'' language). The name "compiler" is primarily used for programs tha ...
that greatly increased performance of computationally intensive code, a new debugger
A debugger or debugging tool is a computer program used to test and debug other programs (the "target" program). The main use of a debugger is to run the target program under controlled conditions that permit the programmer to track its executi ...
and many improvements to the underlying HyperTalk language.
At the same time HyperCard 2.0 was being developed, a separate group within Apple developed and in 1991 released HyperCard IIGS, a version of HyperCard for the Apple IIGS
The Apple IIGS (styled as II), the fifth and most powerful of the Apple II family, is a 16-bit personal computer produced by Apple Computer. While featuring the Macintosh look and feel, and resolution and color similar to the Amiga and Atari ST ...
system. Aimed mainly at the education market, HyperCard IIGS has roughly the same feature set as the 1.x versions of Macintosh HyperCard, while adding support for the color graphics abilities of the IIGS. Although ''stacks'' (HyperCard program documents) are not binary-compatible, a translator program (another HyperCard stack) allows them to be moved from one platform to the other.
Then, Apple decided that most of its application software packages, including HyperCard, would be the property of a wholly owned subsidiary called Claris
Claris International Inc., formerly FileMaker Inc., is a computer software development company formed as a subsidiary company of Apple Inc., Apple Computer (now Apple Inc.) in 1987. It was given the source code and copyrights to several program ...
. Many of the HyperCard developers chose to stay at Apple rather than move to Claris, causing the development team to be split. Claris attempted to create a business model where HyperCard could also generate revenues. At first the freely-distributed versions of HyperCard shipped with authoring disabled. Early versions of Claris HyperCard contain an Easter Egg
Easter eggs, also called Paschal eggs, are eggs that are decorated for the Christian feast of Easter, which celebrates the resurrection of Jesus. As such, Easter eggs are common during the season of Eastertide (Easter season). The oldest tr ...
: typing "magic" into the message box converts the player into a full HyperCard authoring environment. When this trick became nearly universal, they wrote a new version, HyperCard Player, which Apple distributed with the Macintosh operating system
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs.
Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also i ...
, while Claris sold the full version commercially. Many users were upset that they had to pay to use software that had traditionally been supplied free and which many considered a basic part of the Mac.
Even after HyperCard was generating revenue, Claris did little to market it. Development continued with minor upgrades, and the first failed attempt to create a third generation of HyperCard. During this period, HyperCard began losing market share. Without several important, basic features, HyperCard authors began moving to systems such as SuperCard
In sports, a card lists the matches taking place in a title match combat-sport event. Cards include a main event match and the undercard listing the rest of the matches. The undercard may be divided into a midcard and a lower card, according to ...
and Macromedia Authorware
Adobe Authorware (previously Macromedia Authorware, originally Authorware) was an elearning authoring tool with its own interpreted, flowchart-based, graphical programming language. Authorware was used for creating interactive elearning programs ...
. Nonetheless, HyperCard continued to be popular and used for a widening range of applications, from the game ''The Manhole
''The Manhole'' is an adventure video game in which the player opens a manhole and reveals a gigantic beanstalk, leading to fantastic worlds.
Summary
The game was first released on floppy disks in 1988 by Cyan, Inc. (now ''Cyan Worlds'') and d ...
'', an earlier effort by the creators of ''Myst
''Myst'' is a graphic adventure/puzzle video game designed by the Miller brothers, Robyn and Rand. It was developed by Cyan, Inc., published by Broderbund, and initially released for the Macintosh in 1993. In the game, the player's charact ...
'', to corporate information services.
Apple eventually folded Claris back into the parent company, returning HyperCard to Apple's core engineering group. In 1992, Apple released the eagerly anticipated upgrade of HyperCard 2.2 and included licensed versions of Color Tools and Addmotion II, adding support for color pictures and animations. However, these tools are limited and often cumbersome to use because HyperCard 2.0 lacks true, internal color support.
HyperCard 3.0
Several attempts were made to restart HyperCard development once it returned to Apple. Because of the product's widespread use as a multimedia-authoring tool it was rolled into the QuickTime group. A new effort to allow HyperCard to create QuickTime interactive (QTi) movies started, once again under the direction of Kevin Calhoun. QTi extended QuickTime's core multimedia playback features to provide true interactive facilities and a low-level programming language based on 68000 assembly language. The resulting HyperCard 3.0 was first presented in 1996 when an alpha-quality version was shown to developers at Apple's annual Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). Under the leadership of Dan Crow development continued through the late 1990s, with public demos showing many popular features such as color support, Internet connectivity, and the ability to play HyperCard stacks (which were now special QuickTime movies) in a web browser
A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used o ...
. Development upon HyperCard 3.0 stalled when the QuickTime team was focused away from developing QuickTime interactive to the streaming features of QuickTime 4.0. in 1998 Steve Jobs disliked the software because Atkinson had chosen to stay at Apple to finish it instead of joining Jobs at NeXT
Next may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Film
* ''Next'' (1990 film), an animated short about William Shakespeare
* ''Next'' (2007 film), a sci-fi film starring Nicolas Cage
* '' Next: A Primer on Urban Painting'', a 2005 documentary film
Lit ...
, and (according to Atkinson) "it had Sculley's stink all over it". In 2000, the HyperCard engineering team was reassigned to other tasks after Jobs decided to abandon the product. Calhoun and Crow both left Apple shortly after, in 2001.
Its final release was in 1998, and it was totally discontinued in March 2004.
HyperCard runs natively only in the classic Mac OS, but it can still be used in Mac OS X
macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and la ...
's Classic
A classic is an outstanding example of a particular style; something of lasting worth or with a timeless quality; of the first or highest quality, class, or rank – something that exemplifies its class. The word can be an adjective (a ''c ...
mode on PowerPC based machines (G5 and earlier). The last functional native HyperCard authoring environment is Classic mode in Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) on PowerPC-based machines.
Applications
HyperCard has been used for a range of hypertext and artistic purposes. Before the advent of PowerPoint
Microsoft PowerPoint is a presentation program, created by Robert Gaskins and Dennis Austin at a software company named Forethought, Inc. It was released on April 20, 1987, initially for Macintosh computers only. Microsoft acquired PowerPo ...
, HyperCard was often used as a general-purpose presentation program. Examples of HyperCard applications include simple databases, "choose your own adventure
''Choose Your Own Adventure'' is a series of children's gamebooks where each story is written from a second-person point of view, with the reader assuming the role of the protagonist and making choices that determine the main character's actio ...
"-type games, and educational teaching aids.
Due to its rapid application design facilities, HyperCard was also often used for prototyping applications and sometimes even for version 1.0 implementations. Inside Apple, the QuickTime team was one of HyperCard's biggest customers.
HyperCard has lower hardware requirements than Macromedia Director
Adobe Director (formerly Macromedia Director, MacroMind Director, and MacroMind VideoWorks) was a multimedia application authoring platform created by Macromedia and managed by Adobe Systems until its discontinuation.
Director was the primary edi ...
. Several commercial software products were created in HyperCard, most notably the original version of the graphic adventure game ''Myst
''Myst'' is a graphic adventure/puzzle video game designed by the Miller brothers, Robyn and Rand. It was developed by Cyan, Inc., published by Broderbund, and initially released for the Macintosh in 1993. In the game, the player's charact ...
'', the Voyager Company
The Voyager Company was a pioneer in CD-ROM production in the 1980s and early 1990s. In partnership with Janus Films, the company published The Criterion Collection, a pioneering home video collection of classic and important contemporary films on ...
's Expanded Books The Expanded Books Project was a project by The Voyager Company during 1991, that investigated how a book could be presented on a computer screen in a way that would be both familiar and useful to regular book readers. The project focused on perfec ...
, multimedia CD-ROMs of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony CD-ROM
''Beethoven's Ninth Symphony'' CD-ROM was one of the first titles to couple a computer compact disc with an audio CD. This title, a companion to Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, was developed in 1989 by the Voyager Company in Apple Computer's HyperCa ...
, '' A Hard Day's Night'' by the Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the most influential band of all time and were integral to the developmen ...
, and the Voyager '' MacBeth''. An early electronic edition of the ''Whole Earth Catalog
The ''Whole Earth Catalog'' (WEC) was an American counterculture magazine and product catalog published by Stewart Brand several times a year between 1968 and 1972, and occasionally thereafter, until 1998. The magazine featured essays and articl ...
'' was implemented in HyperCard.
HyperCard Mania!
'. Computer Chronicles
''(The) Computer Chronicles'' is an American half-hour television series, which was broadcast from 1983 to 2002 on Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) public television and which documented various issues from the rise of the personal computer from ...
, 1987. Stewart Cheifet
Stewart Cheifet (; born September 24, 1938) is an American television presenter, best known for his work presenting and producing ''Computer Chronicles'' and '' Net Cafe''. He has also worked in other reporting positions for PBS and ABC, and ot ...
Productions (archive.org) and stored on CD-ROM.
The prototype and demo of the popular game '' You Don't Know Jack'' was written in HyperCard. The French auto manufacturer Renault
Groupe Renault ( , , , also known as the Renault Group in English; legally Renault S.A.) is a French multinational automobile manufacturer established in 1899. The company produces a range of cars and vans, and in the past has manufacture ...
used it to control their inventory system.
In Quebec, Canada, HyperCard was used to control a robot arm used to insert and retrieve video disks at the National Film Board
The National Film Board of Canada (NFB; french: Office national du film du Canada (ONF)) is Canada's public film and digital media producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary fi ...
CinéRobothèque.
In 1989, Hypercard was used to control the BBC Radiophonic Workshop Studio Network, using a single Macintosh.
HyperCard was used to prototype a fully functional prototype of SIDOCI (one of the first experiments in the world to develop an integrated electronic patient record
An electronic health record (EHR) is the systematized collection of patient and population electronically stored health information in a digital format. These records can be shared across different health care settings. Records are shared throu ...
system) and was heavily used by Montréal Consulting firm DMR to demonstrate how "a typical day in the life of a patient about to get surgery" would look like in a paperless age.
Activision
Activision Publishing, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in Santa Monica, California. It serves as the publishing business for its parent company, Activision Blizzard, and consists of several subsidiary studios. Activision is one ...
, which was until then mainly a game company, saw HyperCard as an entry point into the business market. Changing its name to Mediagenic, it published several major HyperCard-based applications, most notably Danny Goodman
Danny Goodman is a computer programmer, technology consultant, and an author of over three dozen books and hundreds of magazine articles on computer-related topics. He is best known as the author of ''The Complete HyperCard Handbook'' (1987, Ban ...
's Focal Point, a personal information manager, and Reports For HyperCard, a program by Nine To Five Software that allows users to treat HyperCard as a full database system with robust information viewing and printing features.
The HyperCard-inspired SuperCard
In sports, a card lists the matches taking place in a title match combat-sport event. Cards include a main event match and the undercard listing the rest of the matches. The undercard may be divided into a midcard and a lower card, according to ...
for a while included the ''Roadster'' plug-in that allowed stacks to be placed inside web pages and viewed by web browser
A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used o ...
s with an appropriate browser plug-in. There was even a Windows version of this plug-in allowing computers other than Macintoshes to use the plug-in.
Exploits
The first HyperCard virus was discovered in Belgium and the Netherlands in April 1991.
Because HyperCard executed scripts in stacks immediately on opening, it was also one of the first applications susceptible to macro viruses. The Merryxmas virus was discovered in early 1993 by Ken Dunham, two years before the ''Concept'' virus. Very few viruses were based on HyperCard, and their overall impact was minimal.
Reception
''Compute!'s Apple Applications'' in 1987 stated that HyperCard "may make Macintosh the personal computer of choice". While noting that its large memory requirement made it best suited for computers with 2 MB of memory and hard drives, the magazine predicted that "the smallest programming shop should be able to turn out stackware", especially for using CD-ROMs. ''Compute!'' predicted in 1988 that most future Mac software would be developed using HyperCard, if only because using it was so addictive that developers "won't be able to tear themselves away from it long enough to create anything else". ''Byte
The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable uni ...
'' in 1989 listed it as among the "Excellence" winners of the Byte Awards. While stating that "like any first entry, it has some flaws", the magazine wrote that "HyperCard opened up a new category of software", and praised Apple for bundling it with every Mac. In 2001 Steve Wozniak called HyperCard "the best program ever written".
Legacy
HyperCard is one of the first products that made use of and popularized the hypertext concept to a large popular base of users.
Jakob Nielsen Jacob or Jakob Nielsen may refer to:
* Jacob Nielsen, Count of Halland (died c. 1309), great grandson of Valdemar II of Denmark
* , Norway (1768-1822)
* Jakob Nielsen (mathematician) (1890–1959), Danish mathematician known for work on automorphi ...
has pointed out that HyperCard was really only a hypermedia program since its links started from regions on a card, not text objects; actual HTML
The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaSc ...
-style text hyperlinks were possible in later versions, but were awkward to implement and seldom used. Deena Larsen
Deena Larsen (born 1964) is a new media and hypertext fiction author involved in the creative electronic writing community since the 1980s. Her work has been published in online journals such as the ''Iowa Review Web'', ''Cauldron and Net'', ''fr ...
programmed links into HyperCard for Marble Springs. Bill Atkinson later lamented that if he had only realized the power of network-oriented stacks, instead of focusing on local stacks on a single machine, HyperCard could have become the first Web browser.
HyperCard saw a loss in popularity with the growth of the World Wide Web, since the Web could handle and deliver data in much the same way as HyperCard without being limited to files on a local hard disk. HyperCard had a significant impact on the web as it inspired the creation of both HTTP
The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application layer protocol in the Internet protocol suite model for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. HTTP is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide We ...
(through its influence on Tim Berners-Lee's colleague Robert Cailliau
Robert Cailliau (, born 26 January 1947) is a Belgian informatics engineer, computer scientist and author who proposed the first (pre-www) hypertext system for CERN in 1987 and collaborated with Tim Berners-Lee on the World Wide Web (jointly wi ...
), and JavaScript
JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language that is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. As of 2022, 98% of websites use JavaScript on the client side for webpage behavior, of ...
(whose creator, Brendan Eich
Brendan Eich (; born July 4, 1961) is an American computer programmer and technology executive. He created the JavaScript programming language and co-founded the Mozilla project, the Mozilla Foundation, and the Mozilla Corporation. He served ...
, was inspired by HyperTalk
HyperTalk is a discontinued high-level, procedural programming language created in 1987 by Dan Winkler and used in conjunction with Apple Computer's HyperCard hypermedia program by Bill Atkinson. Because the main target audience of HyperTalk ...
). It was also a key inspiration for ViolaWWW
ViolaWWW is a discontinued browser, the first to support scripting and stylesheets for the World Wide Web (WWW). It was first released in 1991/1992 for Unix and acted as the recommended browser at CERN, where the WWW was invented, but eventually ...
, an early web browser.
The pointing-finger cursor
Cursor may refer to:
* Cursor (user interface), an indicator used to show the current position for user interaction on a computer monitor or other display device
* Cursor (databases), a control structure that enables traversal over the records in ...
used for navigating stacks was later used in the first web browsers, as the hyperlink cursor.
The ''Myst
''Myst'' is a graphic adventure/puzzle video game designed by the Miller brothers, Robyn and Rand. It was developed by Cyan, Inc., published by Broderbund, and initially released for the Macintosh in 1993. In the game, the player's charact ...
'' computer game franchise, initially released as a HyperCard stack and included bundled with some Macs (for example the Performa
The Macintosh Performa is a family of personal computers designed, manufactured and sold by Apple Inc., Apple Computer, Inc. from 1992 to 1997. The Performa brand re-used models from Apple's Macintosh Quadra, Quadra, Macintosh Centris, Centri ...
5300), still lives on, making HyperCard a facilitating technology for starting one of the best-selling computer games of all time.
According to Ward Cunningham, the inventor of Wiki
A wiki ( ) is an online hypertext publication collaboratively edited and managed by its own audience, using a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages for the subjects or scope of the project, and could be either open to the pub ...
, the wiki concept can be traced back to a HyperCard stack he wrote in the late 1980s.
In 2017 the Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
established a project to preserve and emulate
Emulate, Inc. (Emulate) is a biotechnology company that commercialized Organs-on-Chips technology—a human cell-based technology that recreates organ-level function to model organs in healthy and diseased states. The technology has applications ...
HyperCard stacks, allowing users to upload their own.
The GUI of the prototype Apple Wizzy Active Lifestyle Telephone was based on HyperCard.
World Wide Web
HyperCard influenced the development of the Web in late 1990 through its influence on Robert Cailliau
Robert Cailliau (, born 26 January 1947) is a Belgian informatics engineer, computer scientist and author who proposed the first (pre-www) hypertext system for CERN in 1987 and collaborated with Tim Berners-Lee on the World Wide Web (jointly wi ...
, who assisted in developing Tim Berners-Lee's first Web browser. Javascript was inspired by HyperTalk.
Although HyperCard stacks do not operate over the Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...
, by 1988, at least 300 stacks were publicly available for download from the commercial CompuServe network (which was not connected to the official Internet yet). The system can link phone numbers on a user's computer together and enable them to dial numbers without a modem, using a less expensive piece of hardware, the Hyperdialer.
In this sense, like the Web, it does form an association-based experience of information browsing via links, though not operating remotely over the TCP/IP protocol then. Like the Web, it also allows for the connections of many different kinds of media.
Similar systems
Other companies have offered their own versions. , four products are available which offer HyperCard-like abilities:
* HyperNext is a software development system that uses many ideas from HyperCard and can create both standalone applications and stacks that run on the freeware
Freeware is software, most often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines ''freeware'' unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for t ...
Hypernext Player. HyperNext is available for Mac OS 9 & X, and Windows XP & Vista.
* HyperStudio, one of the first HyperCard clones, is , developed and published by Software MacKiev.
* LiveCode
LiveCode (formerly Revolution and MetaCard) is a cross-platform rapid application development runtime system inspired by HyperCard. It features the ''LiveCode Script'' (formerly MetaTalk) programming language which belongs to the family of xTalk ...
, published by LiveCode, Ltd., expands greatly on HyperCard's feature set and offers color and a GUI toolkit which can be deployed on many popular platforms (Android, iOS, Classic Macintosh system software, Mac OS X, Windows 98 through 10, and Linux/Unix). LiveCode directly imports extant HyperCard stacks and provides a migration path for stacks still in use.
* SuperCard
In sports, a card lists the matches taking place in a title match combat-sport event. Cards include a main event match and the undercard listing the rest of the matches. The undercard may be divided into a midcard and a lower card, according to ...
, the first HyperCard clone, is similar to HyperCard, but with many added features such as: full color support, pixel and vector graphics, a full GUI toolkit, and support for many modern Mac OS X features. It can create both standalone applications and projects that run on the freeware SuperCard Player. SuperCard can also convert extant HyperCard stacks into SuperCard projects. It runs only on Macs.
Past products include:
* SK8 was a "HyperCard killer" developed within Apple but never released. It extends HyperTalk to allow arbitrary objects which allowed it to build complete Mac-like applications (instead of stacks). The project was never released, although the source code was placed in the public domain.
* Hyper DA by Symmetry was a Desk Accessory for classic single-tasked Mac OS that allows viewing HyperCard 1.x stacks as added windows in any extant application, and is also embedded into many Claris products (like MacDraw II) to display their user documentation.
* HyperPad from Brightbill-Roberts is a clone of HyperCard, written for DOS
DOS is shorthand for the MS-DOS and IBM PC DOS family of operating systems.
DOS may also refer to:
Computing
* Data over signalling (DoS), multiplexing data onto a signalling channel
* Denial-of-service attack (DoS), an attack on a communicat ...
. It makes use of ASCII linedrawing to create the graphics of cards and buttons.
* Plus, later renamed WinPlus WinPlus, originally Plus, was a cross-platform clone of the HyperCard application that enabled users to run HyperCard stacks on Apple Macintosh, Microsoft Windows and OS/2 Presentation Manager.
Originally the application was developed by Format So ...
, is similar to HyperCard, for Windows and Macintosh.
* Oracle purchased Plus and created a cross-platform version as Oracle Card, later renamed Oracle Media Objects
{{Infobox Software
, name = Oracle Media Objects (OMO)
, screenshot = Oracle media objects.png
, screenshot size = 250px
, caption = OMO Screenshot
, developer = Oracle
, latest_release_version = 1.1.2
, latest_release_date = 1998 (last dat ...
, used as a 4GL for database access.
* IBM LinkWay - a mouse-controlled HyperCard-like environment for DOS PCs. It has minimal system requirements, runs in graphics CGA and VGA. It even supported video disc control.
* Asymetrix's Windows application ToolBook
ToolBook was a Microsoft Windows based e-learning content authoring application, initially released in 1990 by Asymetrix Corporation, now SumTotal Systems. ToolBook uses a book metaphor — a project file is thought of as a ''book'' containing ' ...
resembles HyperCard, and later included an external converter to read HyperCard stacks (the first was a third-party product from Heizer software).
* TileStack is an attempt to create a web based version of HyperCard that is compatible with the original HyperCard files. The site closed down January 24, 2011.
In addition, many of the basic concepts of the original system were later re-used in other forms. Apple built its system-wide scripting engine AppleScript
AppleScript is a scripting language created by Apple Inc. that facilitates automated control over scriptable Mac applications. First introduced in System 7, it is currently included in all versions of macOS as part of a package of system aut ...
on a language similar to HyperTalk; it is often used for desktop publishing
Desktop publishing (DTP) is the creation of documents using page layout software on a personal ("desktop") computer. It was first used almost exclusively for print publications, but now it also assists in the creation of various forms of online ...
(DTP) workflow automation
A workflow consists of an orchestrated and repeatable pattern of activity, enabled by the systematic organization of resources into processes that transform materials, provide services, or process information. It can be depicted as a sequence o ...
needs. In the 1990s FaceSpan
Late Night Software Ltd., is a privately held Canada, Canadian software company that has produced several application software, applications, utilities, and developer's tools for the Macintosh computer platform. The company was established in 1 ...
provided a third-party graphical interface. AppleScript also has a native graphical programming front-end called Automator, released with Mac OS X Tiger
Mac OS X Tiger (version 10.4) is the 5th major release of macOS, Apple's desktop and server operating system for Mac computers. Tiger was released to the public on April 29, 2005 for US$129.95 as the successor to Mac OS X 10.3 Panther. Some ...
in April 2005. One of HyperCard's strengths was its handling of multimedia
Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms such as text, audio, images, animations, or video into a single interactive presentation, in contrast to tradit ...
, and many multimedia systems like Macromedia Authorware
Adobe Authorware (previously Macromedia Authorware, originally Authorware) was an elearning authoring tool with its own interpreted, flowchart-based, graphical programming language. Authorware was used for creating interactive elearning programs ...
and Macromedia Director
Adobe Director (formerly Macromedia Director, MacroMind Director, and MacroMind VideoWorks) was a multimedia application authoring platform created by Macromedia and managed by Adobe Systems until its discontinuation.
Director was the primary edi ...
are based on concepts originating in HyperCard.
AppWare AppWare was a rapid application development system for Microsoft Windows and the classic Mac OS based on a simple graphical programming language. Applications were constructed by connecting together icons representing objects in the program and th ...
, originally named Serius Developer, is sometimes seen to be similar to HyperCard, as both are rapid application development
Rapid application development (RAD), also called rapid application building (RAB), is both a general term for adaptive software development approaches, and the name for James Martin's method of rapid development. In general, RAD approaches to ...
(RAD) systems. AppWare was sold in the early 90s and worked on both Mac and Windows systems.
Zoomracks Zoomracks was a shareware database management system for the Atari ST and IBM PC that used a card-file metaphor for displaying and manipulating data. Its main claim to fame was an early and somewhat contentious software patent lawsuit filed agai ...
, a DOS application with a similar "stack" database metaphor, predates HyperCard by 4 years, which led to a contentious lawsuit against Apple.
See also
* Apple Media Tool
The Apple Media Tool was a multimedia authoring tool and associated programming environment sold by Apple Computer, Apple in the late 1990s. It was primarily aimed at producing multimedia presentations for distribution on CD-ROM and was aimed at g ...
* MetaCard MetaCard is a discontinued cross-platform, commercial HyperCard clone. MetaCard included an IDE, a GUI toolkit and had its own language, MetaTalk. From the MetaCard Corporation website: "The MetaTalk language has all the features common to third-ge ...
, LiveCode
LiveCode (formerly Revolution and MetaCard) is a cross-platform rapid application development runtime system inspired by HyperCard. It features the ''LiveCode Script'' (formerly MetaTalk) programming language which belongs to the family of xTalk ...
* Morphic (software) Morphic is an interface construction environment which uses graphical objects called "Morphs" for simplified GUI-building which allow for flexibility and dynamism. It was originally created for Self, but later, was ported to other programming langua ...
* mTropolis
mTropolis (pronounced "metropolis") was an open-architecture multimedia programming application aimed at enabling rapid development of multimedia titles. It was developed by mFactory (pronounced "em-factory") and introduced in 1995. It introduced o ...
* NoteCards
NoteCards was a hypertext-based personal knowledge base system developed at Xerox PARC by Randall Trigg, Frank Halasz and Thomas Moran in 1984. NoteCards was developed after Trigg's pioneering 1983 Ph.D. thesis on hypertext while at the Universi ...
* Stagecast Creator
References
Bibliography
*
*
External links
*
Collection of emulated HyperCard stacks
via the Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
*
*
*
*
* ; HyperCard conversion utility
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hypercard
1987 software
Domain-specific programming languages
Hypertext
HyperCard products
Classic Mac OS-only software made by Apple Inc.
Classic Mac OS programming tools