This is a 2022 re-recording of my lost 2014 NSConference blitz talk of the same name that gives a short rundown of what HyperCard was and why it was so amazing.
I was using Hypercard in the late 80s and yeah, it was amazing. I wrote a stack that would access other stacks on the internet. It was a "web" before HTTP and the WWW. It really was that good. It could be stupidly simple to actually be useful, and it was super intriguing and subtle for an experienced programmer.
I spent months worth of hours using this to make pseudo games on a Macintosh Plus then LCII when I was a child. This is the reason why I'm a programmer today, 30 years later. Great video, great memories, great respect.
Nice _Secret of Monkey Island_ reference. I got to work with HyperCard in High School in '90/'91 instead of taking the usual required computers class (which was all Apple 2 stuff I already knew and could have taught.) I made a little bit of a "Choose Your Own Adventure" style thing with HyperCard... it was fun.
I wish Hypercard-esque software (including the scripting language being like english) would be married to a ReMarkable/SuperNote-like form factor and use handwriting recognition for script writing for a 'lively notebook' as well as support what both those machines do, which is freehand drawing in scaleable vector graphics. To me, that's the ultimate computing/thought machine...natural writing coupled with paper-type display with active programming and linking of pages in it. Someone who stumbles across this post with the capabilities of prototyping this idea for investment, take this idea and run with it. :)
SuperCard added vector graphics to HyperCard, so that definitely worked well. I suppose a modern HyperCard could integrate with system-provided pen support to at least get you halfway there. But yeah, there's some potential there. Same reason why being able to just draw into the HyperCard window and having a built-in icon editor was so useful. You don't need a drawing app to create art assets, you can just focus on whatever your program needs right now and do it.
Bill's original idea for Hypercard was a tablet-style OS. Apple wasn't interested in his tablet idea, so he made Hypercard to realize his idea. Also, Bill got the idea for an interlinked information system from an acid trip. They were a bunch of hippies back then.
And there was NewtCard, a Hypercard clone for the Apple MessagePad. It was made by NS Basic Corporation in the late 90s. NewtCard created stacks on the Newton device and used a slate pad UI and tools. It was scripted in a Basic clone made by the same company. It wasn't as powerful as HC. But it produced DBs and simple programs.
I like how you mentioned SmallTalk because Hypercard's GUI was like that but more ... fantastic. Sometimes nostr (eg. its protocol of "notes") seems to have the potential for a globally distributed, encrypted, plug and play set of "card" based applications. But Hypercard's scripting was so cool it made you geel like a programmer ... 😍
And MacPaint had Mac Draw in the same file. You could rasterize pixel drawings. God I miss the Apple I used to know. And HyperCard was awesome. Scripts and graphics multimedia, etc. layers, templates, no ppt no complex apps. you know what happened. Tech went to the dark side. Everything is internet sales. All my stupid browsers do the same thing… sell you stuff.
1:18 correction: the data actually IS out of order in the file. You just don't notice because there's a master table (two, actually) in the format that points to the offsets of each block.
Oh yeah, I'm not talking about the file format (I'm aware, I wrote stackimport), I'm talking about the user interface. Most programming languages require you to write code to remember state, so most developers forget a lot of "secondary" state when a document is closed. It feels like someone is constantly re-shuffling your files and icons when compared to the real world, where statefulness is the default and work is required for stuff to move.
Because Apple was going out of business and Steve Jobs shut down every project that wasn't needed to release the iMac and save the company from dying, I guess 😢
