Should HyperCard be saved or allowed to pass with dignity? And if it should be saved, how?
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Showing messages 1 through 33 of 33.

• How can I convert my stacks to Excel or Access
  2004-03-10 13:56:20  lexloma [Reply | View]
  
  
  Or can I?

• HyperCard literature
  2003-11-30 13:38:59  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  Eastgate Systems http://www.eastgate.com
  has three important works of literature that depend on hypercard:
  
  Uncle Buddy's Funhouse <http://www.eastgate.com/catalog/Funhouse.html> emulates a writer's computer with hypercard stacks of passwords, reverse worlds, and mysteries.
  
  Marble Springs <http://www.eastgate.com/catalog/MarbleSprings.html> explores a nineteenth century Colorado gold rush town. Graveyards, jails, and churches reveal and conceal the connections in this elaborate history.
  
  Intergrams <http://www.eastgate.com/catalog/q11.html> Complex experimental poetry where every move of the mouse discloses new phrases and combinations.
  
  These still work in OS 10 in hypercard. Can we really lose these works of literature to a dying software?
  
  

• Hypercard lives on!
  2003-07-27 18:34:52  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  For those experienced in Hypercard, all is not lost. There is a modern, cross-platform version that has seen significant growth and development (colour, relational database access, drag and drop, etc).
  
  Have a look at http://www.runrev.com
  
  I never knew Hypercard, but when I discovered Revolution, it was a revelation. And I turned to books on Hypercard and Hypertalk in order to get my grounding with Revolution.
  
  Some of the old authorities on Hypercard are to be found using and writing about Revolution. It offers far more opportunities and power than Hypercard.
  
  http://www.runrev.com/Revolution1/screenshots.html
  
  You can currently get a single platform version e.g. for OS X for $75:
  http://www.runrev.com/Revolution1/licensing1.html
  
  It recently gathered 4.5 out of 5 mice in a magazine review:
  http://www.pcpro.co.uk/?http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/reviews_story.php?id=43972
  
  I hope this is of interest to Hypercard users. Apple might want Hypercard to die, but Hypercard lives on!
  
  I have no connection to Runrev - I am just a highly satisified user (who wishes he had discovered Hypercard 10 years ago)...
  

• Hypercard
  2003-03-24 13:34:40  lynnecowley [Reply | View]
  
  
  Hypercard should survive. I like HC a lot and use it. Apple shoot themselves in the foot every time. They don't advertise their products vigorously enough in the UK. They should ask the users to do that for them and when they have a winner like Hypercard they choose not to allow it to keep pace with developments. Dumb marketing decision or what? So if Apple won't carbonise Hypercard - who will?

• HyperCard Memories
  2002-12-07 23:23:36  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  From time to time in my progession from casual computer user to professional programmer, I am taken back to my junior high school and my first computer class witch was in a lab running Macs and consisted of typing pratice and HyperCard. At the time, it did not seem very odd that the only application we were being taught was HyperCard, but I often wondered why as I got heavier into computers later on. I later switched to PCs, began programming and now I no longer wonder why, but instead how, my teacher, when she picked HyperCard, could possibly have had that kind of vision into what we would need as a base skillset. (This in 88, a year before WWW brought hypertext online) When I have begun to learn every markup or scripting language I have picked up, I am amazed at how much of a start I got back then.
  
  In a fit of nostaglia, I started to search the web in hopes that a version of HC had made it's way to Windows, expecting that the program had canned long ago, but finding it alive, but (seeminly) on the ropes. I know that memories are not enough to keep a program updated and supported, but I hope that Apple will find it in their hearts to do something with HC beside letting it wither and die. If they don't plan on supporting it, take a page from Sun or Netscape and release the source, I sure some geek would love to update for OSX and (hopefully) Windows.

• Rumors of my death greatly exaggerated?
  2001-09-03 18:47:22  connolly@world.std.com [Reply | View]
  
  
  Buying a new G4 with OSX pre-loaded, reading the buzz in the Mac mags about the drive to convert to OSX, and sensing that those who don’t convert will wake up one day to find that subtly but surely the world has passed them by, all led me to ask myself whether my HyperCard stacks (including my crude but devilishly useful Buttons) would work under OSX. So, I surfed around to find Mr. Story’s article, The Death of HyperCard, the iHUG.org site, and related postings strongly suggesting that the answer might be, No. So, on August 29, 2001 I wrote Mr. Jobs a letter, a copy of which is reprinted below. I’m waiting for reply, which it’s too soon to expect.
  
  Then I read a bit more on the Web, and am left with the impression that since Spring, not a lot more has been said on the topic, either by Apple or by the commentators in the know. There seems a pregnant silence. There’s been nothing new posted at www.iHUG.org since a February press release and its booth at MacWorld.
  
  I also read the surprisingly numerous, and at times actually moving, pleas from HyperCard users the world over (physicians, manufacturers, researchers, librarians, teachers, scientists, etc.) whose professional pursuits and businesses seem literally to depend on HyperCard. See http://homepage.mac.com/iHUG/WhyWeUseHC.html.
  
  I set to wondering again, this time whether the silence signals reason for hope. Is Apple, or someone, perhaps considering putting out an OSX-compatible HyperCard?
  
  The users posting these impressive and persuasive entries to "Why We Use HyperCard" must be but a fraction of those similarly affected. By and large these folks don’t seem to be computer-gurus with excess time on their hands to investigate the issue, but rather geologists worrying about mineral veins in rock formations, teachers worrying about their students, and clinicians worrying about their patients. The posted stories probably reflect the tip of an iceberg. The majority of those potentially affected probably don’t even know it.
  
  Are the ramifications of abandoning HypeCard perhaps registering?
  
  All the while, my search for some actual statement by Apple on the question comes up dry. I haven’t found anything that says that, no, Apple will not be supporting HyperCard under OSX. It’s all rumored.
  
  Therefore, might it be that Apple has taken, or is taking, note of the dislocation to befall all these trusting good citizens should rumor become truth? Might the sky not fall after all?
  
  I have but a dim appreciation of the goings-on in things computer. I look at most of the books published by O’Reilly and the stuff at www.slashdot.com with more perplexity and wonderment than understanding. I don’t know Python from Cocoa. I have vague notion that a computer company makes money by staying ahead of the wave, identifying before the next guy new ways to make things ever more interconnected, web-oriented and feature-rich. And, I enjoy the privilege of being able to reach out as a blessed consumer of these amazing things and touch the hem of the cloth.
  
  But I know that a humble little thing called HyperCard, in my case version 2.1 no less, lets me make my computer do just exactly what I want it to do, and then to get on with my life. Nothing else to come down the pike has come close. I cannot imagine abandoning the whole thing.
  
  People say that it’s obsolete, that time has passed it by, let the old dog die in peace, respectably. Let it go. But, to my mind, it would be worth keeping some old Mac in a corner running OS9 in perpetuity, if that’s what it took to preserve the usefulness of HyperCard, without a single advance, new release or improved version, just the way it is. The old dog still barks at intruders, gets my newspaper and meets me at the bus stop. If he gets sick, by all means let him go in peace. But if you move, take him with you. By all means, don’t shoot him. And, if he does die, get another one just like him.
  
  Jack Connolly
  connolly@world.std.com
  
  
  Here’s my letter of 8/29/01 to Mr. Jobs:
  
  
  Mr. Steve Jobs
  Chief Executive Officer
  Apple Computer, Inc.
  1 Infinite Loop
  Cupertino, California 95014
  
  Re: Hypercard and OSX.
  
  Dear Mr. Jobs:
  
  Is it true that we won’t be able to use our Hypercard stacks under OSX?
  
  I hope it’s not so. I realize that I’m just one more voice out there with problems and perspectives limited to mine. But, unless I bring them to your attention, I will feel that, at worst, I won’t have any right to complain and I'll never know whether I could have changed it. At best, maybe one more voice will make a difference.
  
  My entire law practice resides, in one form or another, on Hypercard stacks: contacts, client profiles, individualized forms of captions for pleadings, motions and briefs, timekeeping and billing, etc. What makes the set-up especially valuable is the Hypercard scripts that I’ve written for each stack. These scripts aren’t polished. But they allow me to construct a letter, motion, memo of law, list of search results, etc., with the flick of a button. I can write and print five letters in the time that I guess most members of the bar take to write one. I can do all my monthly bills in about 45 minutes. I’m not computer-literate, particularly. But, I tweak my scripts and write new ones to make the whole system work better, automate new tasks when the idea hits me, or add a feature. To just the extent that I need to be, I guess I’m a programmer. I read up on what I need to know, and then write the script.
  
  So, I can spend my time thinking about my clients’ legal problems, and finding ways to fix them, rather than reading a big manual trying to find out where the professional programmer buried the feature I want to use, if indeed it’s there. And then, a month later … … trying to remember where that built-in feature was, and how to use it!
  
  I don’t know of any other software that gives the freedom and control over what my computer does for me that Hypercard does.
  
  With OSX, will I somehow be able to keep using these stacks and scripts? I really do hope so.
  
  As background, we are a seven-lawyer firm, doing litigation and commercial real estate. We continuously have been all-Apple since our founding in 1986. We had original Mac Classics and Imagewriter printers in those days. Apple really allowed us, refugees from big firms, to strike out on our own. We didn’t need secretaries working overtime, an MIS department, or degrees in computer science, like our IBM PC brethren. We just plugged in our Macs and went to court. I suppose that we have bought 30 or 40 Apple computers over the years. We now have 10 and an Ethernet server. We hung in there not long ago when everyone else said to give up on Apple. We’re glad we did. We are quite compatible with the outside world, and probably are more "computer-literate" than PC users. I think that is because even the most obtuse of us understands his or her machine, to the extent lawyers can. With a little help from David Pogue’s book on OS9, we can make our computers do what we want them to do to get our jobs done.
  
  Hypercard is a humble and quiet, but vital, part of that. And that’s why I’m writing to you now.
  
  I look forward to hearing from you, and thank you very much for your time and consideration of my case.
  
  
  Very truly yours,
  
  
  
  John M. Connolly
  
  
  
  
  

• Save Hypercard
  2001-08-19 05:31:31  fmoyer [Reply | View]
  
  
  I use Hypercard in nearly every aspect of my life! I have done so many wonderful things with Hypercard and I can't imagine life without it. We all have unique tasks that we need to accomplish. Hypercard has always been an incredible tool at my side to help accomplish them. I can't imagine having to be a slave to whatever tasks the commercial software vendors think I might need to accomplish.
  
  Hypercard is the reason I have purchased throughout my life 10 Macintosh computers. So if I represent even a small part of Mac owners, I would think that Apple for their own good would find a way to make Hypercard run on OSX.

• HC Saves Lives and Showcases Apple Technology
  2001-04-20 04:14:18  rnshannon [Reply | View]
  
  
  We've used Macs running HyperCard to manage a medical clinic with over 4000 active patients since 1993. Patients see the secretaries, all the medical assistants, doctors and nurse practitioners using Macs to handle their personal medical information every day. After their office visit, all patients stop by the nursing station to schedule tests and appointments and pick up custom-printed instructions (my handwriting is lousy, but i kan tyPe) and graphs showing lab results etc. Recently replaced the drab PowerBook 1400/166 with a Graphite iBook. Patients comment every day on the flashy new computer, some turning a healthy green (easily diagnosed as iBook envy). More than one noticed the Apple logo on the iBook and realized for the first time we are NOT using Windows. It's been a great promo for Apple and hasn't hurt the perception of our office to have such cool technology.
  
  Since the following letter was written in 1999, we have successfully overcome several obstacles to add G4 machines running OS9.0.4 to our network. We now save digital photos of various rashes and other conditions (taken with an HP Photosmart 618 and stored in jpeg format, which displays nicely using HC2.4.1). So an eye doctor emailed a photo of a retinal hemorrhage, and when the patient came in I showed him exactly where the problem was. The retired college prof was impressed! I can see a rash Monday and my colleague see the patient back Thursday and the photo shows whether the treatment is working or needs to be changed. Unfortunately we cannot upgrade to OS X until HC is carbonized, and we are looking at cross-platform alternatives (but after months of study haven't found anything as useful as HC). The letter was sent by certified mail but otherwise was not acknowledged by Apple.
  
  *******************
  
  
  December 5, 1999
  
  Apple Computer, Inc.
  1 Infinite Loop
  Cupertino, CA 95014
  
  
  To Whom It May Concern:
  
  Enclosed please find two graphs displaying laboratory values for two patients whose lives may have been saved due to Apple technology. (The data are real, but the names were changed). The graphs were generated in a few seconds from data acquired, stored and processed in Apple systems. What's important to notice is that the patients were asymptomatic and their exams did not show any problem; even the laboratory values were "normal." The trend over several years revealed the diagnosis of prostate cancer, and both gentlemen have started treatment with good hope for cure. Note the dramatic drop in the Prostate Specific Antigen level for "Mr. Goodbody," showing his response to treatment. The other man just got started. Most physicians would have filed the "normal" PSA reports and allowed the cancers to progress.
  
  We installed a Mac IIci and a pair of LCII's in 1991-92 in the business office, running MediMac software. In 1993 we put PowerBooks in each exam room (initially 145B's using LocalTalk, later 150's with a 10baseT hub when we needed graphics, currently 1400/166's) for preparing Lab and Xray forms. The MediMac scheduling module was cumbersome, and we replaced that with our own in-house solution which better supports multiple providers and automates patient recalls. In 1995 we stopped filing paper reports, switching to scanning all Xrays, EKG's and correspondence on a ScanJet 3P. We tossed out the laboratory-provided dot-matrix printer and using MicroPhone II software with AppleScript automated the receiving and filing of ASCII files from the hospital. Rather than punching holes and filing, the clerk sits at a workstation (initially a 6100/66, now a beige G3 running ASIP5.0.2) and uses a few mouseclicks to put the documents in patient folders. The records are accessible anywhere using ARA, and with 10 backup sets are far more secure than paper charts. In 1996 we replaced written messages with an office Email system, and implemented a prescription-writing tool that tracks patients' medications, allergies, drug formularies, and possible drug interactions. It ties in with a product from The Medical Letter which is updated every 6 months. Our malpractice carrier was so impressed they lopped over $1000 off the annual premium due to the reduced risk. In 1997 we replaced written referral forms with automated ones that can be faxed using the FaxSTF Network product, with considerable help from QuicKeys and AppleScript. With two years of lab data "on line" we built a graphing tool to analyze patient data, showing trends in blood sugar for diabetics for example, and the patients love it (and our vintage DeskWriters just keep going). We now have over four years of "live" lab data stored on an 18 GB drive in the old G3 and mirrored on a stack of APS 4GB drives. In 1998 to save time in the exam rooms we implemented a point-and-click patient instruction tool that more than makes up for any doctor's handwriting, and also generates the encounter "superbill" for use by the billing office. The provider signs the top half, the patient signs the bottom, and we split the perforated form. This year, to make the HMO folks happy, we showed them tools that analyze patient records to show, for example, all patients over age 50 who have not had a physical. The reviewers couldn't believe we could do this stuff and gave us their highest rating. In September we replaced a tired PowerCenter 150 with a blue G3 350 for our main application server, and we just bought AppleShare IP 6. We are looking forward to faster machines and OS 9 and beyond, so long as it supports our applications.
  
  We had professional help with the Category 5 wiring, and I once hired consultants to switch my "prototype" system into a "real" relational database. They looked at FoxBase, FileMaker, and 4D, and couldn't quite match what I was doing using off-the-shelf software. I have spent $5-10,000 annually for hardware and software upgrades; I have been reading Intelligent Enterprise and DB2 for a couple of years, and realize I could probably duplicate my system with a team of programmers and a million bucks on UNIX or NT or worse. (I make under $100K per year, about average for a small town doctor.)
  
  I ordered ASIP 6.3 from MacWarehouse but had to cancel the order and scrounge to find an older 6.1 version when I learned that OS 9 no longer supports the development tools that keep our office running a year or two ahead of the Wintel based offices. As you probably have guessed, the off-the-shelf software we use is HyperCard. I run one instance of HC 2.1 for our Appointments server and one of HC 2.3 for the Clinical server on the blue G3 (both licensed, of course) and the clients are application stacks. I don't need the special visual effects which I understand may be very slow under OS 9, but use the "answer program" call in setting up the clients, and require reliable file management with the AppleScripts built into the stacks. We desperately ask that you not abandon HyperCard, but continue to update it to allow us to acquire G4 and newer technology.
  
  Please let me know if you want to see the stacks or if you want a demonstration tour of the office. Jonesville is a village about two hours' drive from Detroit. I would be glad to send the current version on disk or by Email (the office Email is rnshannon@voyager.net) if it would help to convince you why we must have functional HyperCard tools. HyperCard is helping us save lives!
  
  
  Sincerely yours,
  
  
  Robert Shannon, M.D.
  
  and office staff
  
• HC Saves Lives and Showcases Apple Technology
  2001-04-20 23:53:20  Derrick Story [Reply | View]
  
  
  Your letter mirrors the stories that I've heard from many others. Since the HyperCard article was posted, I've also been informed of many HyperCard alternatives that will run on Mac OS X. But none of them have been as complete as HyperCard itself.
  
  I think that a possible Mac OS X solution to replace the original HyperCard has to have these three things if it's going to be embraced:
  
  1) People must be albe to port their existing HyperCard stacks to the new application.
  
  2) The new application must be affordable.
  
  3) The new application should be easy to script, and if possible, feel as much like the original HC as possible.
  
  That doesn't mean that the new HyperCard can't be modernized, but not if it means losing its original strengths.

• On MouseUp
  2001-04-06 09:06:14  lor [Reply | View]
  
  
  I love what I'm hearing from folks here.
  
  Apple will not lose money from a boosted HyperCard. Call it HyperCard X. Make it opensource. Hire Bill Atkinson and Scott Kamins and Scott Knaster and Jeanne DeVoto to sift through the improvements and form an appropriate vision of the new product.
  
  File for a new patent based on significant improvements. And there's another 20 years leverage.
  
  Then bundle the core product with every blessed iMac and G4. Let folks discover it, pay for XCMD's and other gotta-have components, or sell third-party add-ons through the Apple Store.
  
  Oh, and Apple should build a PalmOS optimizer for stacks, as suggested here.
  
  This is all a no-brainer.
  
  - Loren
  www.neotrondesign.com
• On MouseUp
  2001-04-09 14:37:08  Derrick Story [Reply | View]
  
  

  I think the bundled approach could be particularly effective with iMacs. Why? Apple is devoting renewed energy to regaining some of the educational market that it has lost.

  
  
  

  HyperCard has been popular in educational circles for many years. Adding an updated version that could read old stacks and putting it on every iMac sold could be very popular among educators.

• Mental Disconnection
  2001-04-02 14:49:35  Derrick Story [Reply | View]
  
  
  I've been receiving a fair amount of mail on this issue. Here's a note from Larry Jones, who gave me permission to publish his thoughts. --DS
  
  "I'm sure others must have noticed a certain mental "disconnection" at Apple regarding Hypercard.
  
  "Ergo: Apple says they are 'deeply committed' to the education market. MANY Hypercard stacks have been created by teachers for school. (Some might call them scholarly "intellectual capital" worth $$?) Will my education vendor help protect the investments made over the years by our school?
  If my school has to start over, why do I need Apple? Why should I care about OS X?"
  
  --Larry Jones
  

• Let it go.
  2001-03-31 13:51:05  scotkamins [Reply | View]
  
  
  God knows HyperCard was good to me. Being a member of the HyperCard Design Team gave me more than my 15 minutes of fame, My HYperTalk: The Book made me a great deal of cash, and I loved using the program.
  
  But it's far behind the times in terms of its feature set.
  
  I think HyperCard needs to be allowed to die. It was a good old dog, but now it's mostly blind and lame, and takes little pleasure even in its food.
  
  I loved it and I love it still, but its glory is past. It needs to be remembered for what it was.
  it'sTime to let it go.
  
• Let it go.
  2001-04-03 02:35:37  idlewid [Reply | View]
  
  
  I keep forgetting I live in a throw-away society, people trash everything, our environment, our relationships, our software.
  
  This is lengthy, and please pardon me for taking an opportunity to sell the idea that HyperCard's current feature set is quite capable, and the software has always been ahead of its time.
  
  I do not doubt your honesty, Scott. Being limited to scripting, I never had the spare cash to buy your book until I saw it at the Goodwill for $5.
  
  <<But it's far behind the times in terms of its feature set.>>
  
  On the contrary, HyperCard allowed me to develop strong tools for creating web pages, saving me hundreds of dollars exploring web page authoring software. I have recenlty heard news of stacks being used to generate/update entire web sites.
  
  Nothing is as friendly for parsing ASCII text.
  
  HyperCard allows me to create interactive multimedia that incorporates QuickTime and links to online resources via AppleScript for 1/10 the cost of other multimedia authoring apps.
  
  HyperCard saved me the headache of living in a world of Quicken, Microsoft Money, MYOB; and saved me a lot of cash there too. I end up with what I want on my computer, and it doesn't take over my entire screen's real estate.
  
  I've created countless custom applications, so have others, that would have costed thousands to contract with a programmer, and had nothing but fun creating them.
  
  HyperCard has kept up with times quite well, there really haven't been a lot of new features to add to a product clearly ahead of its time.
  
  I believe many jumped ship because it never became cross-platform. If OSX is truly successful, there will be a Windows migration to Macs. Will there be a similar experience to life in a Windows world when they do, or will HyperCard be around to make the difference it has always made? It's really enough to let them use Office on a Mac rather than a Windows box for half the investment?
  
  <<I think HyperCard needs to be allowed to die. It was a good old dog, but now it's mostly blind and lame, and takes little pleasure even in its food. >>
  
  Only true if you ignore the dog in it's old age. Give it the same attention as it's younger years, the dog will be healthy, no matter it's age.
  
  In a Windows world, you may be entirely correct. Actually, I believe the Windows world is largely blind and lame because they never experienced HyperCard in their "world". As for no longer taking pleasure in its food, have you used 2.4.1, which works very nicely with QuickTime and AppleScript? Hardly blind and lame, and iHUG has rwo CDs to prove it.
  
  <<I loved it and I love it still, but its glory is past. It needs to be remembered for what it was>>
  
  I agree with Loren, carbonize it, and write the next edition and make another chunk of cash from it.
  
  I know that cash-laden entities can afford to watch HyperCard slowly ignored to death. I'm concerned about the non-profits that depend on it today, mostly educators, but also hobbyists as myself. Their data is important to them, and they may not necessarily have the resources to do a major paradigm shift.
  
  Sure, I know as the next guy, that anyone can export data out of a stack and import it into Excel of Filemaker, even Access... but then it's not fun anymore, is it?
  
  This is more about money than empowerment, utility, friendly, open-up-the-box, an enjoyable computing experience, isn't it?
  
  The most influential man in the past millenium was considered to be Johann Gutenberg: his printing press made information available as never before, and threatened the monks of the day who wrote many of the books that were in circulation at the time.
  
  I will always liken HyperCard to Gutenberg's printing press. It makes information available to many as never before, and threatens the programming priests of our day who write many of the expensive software products that are in circulation today.
  
  This is the real crux of the biscuit, isn't it? Atkinson knew it when the Mac was bundled with version 1.0. I get as disgusted as he may have been about it. Had Apple cooperated, Bill's MagicLink, or even the MagicSlate, could have become a reality, and perhaps Apple would not have endured the dark years they experienced.
  
  Ridiculous? The world's most successful handheld, the Palm Pilot, prototyped with HyperCard. I still look for a PDA that has a Mac OS on ROM, that will allow me to upload stacks to its 256MB of RAM, so I can easily carry around my "stuff".
  
  Why will it never happen? Because people would create their own apps more readily than running off to the software store or the online services? Because we should let go of HyperCard and let it die?
• Let it go.
  2004-03-10 13:58:03  lexloma [Reply | View]
  
  
  You mentioned importing stacks to Excel and Access... how?
• Let it go??
  2001-03-31 21:28:37  lor [Reply | View]
  
  
  Scott K. writes:
  "But it's far behind the times in terms of its feature set.""
  
  This is not a bulletin.
  
  "I loved it and I love it still, but its glory is past. It needs to be remembered for what it was.
  it's Time to let it go."
  
  Excuse me, Scott, I love your book, but that's complete nonsense. It may be too old and feeble for you, but for everybody from 40-year-old Mac users-- that's when I climbed aboard-- down to elementary schoolkids without a clue to programming, it's learning lifeblood. That in addition to the zillions of stacks you and Danny G. and other HC legends helped promulgate-- you don't let legacies like that die, you *leverage* them. That's just good business sense. Let me put it another way: how many companies throw away patented assets?
  
  HyperCard needs and deserves a boot in the ass. It needs real case/switch functions, it needs 16-bit color, stereo sound, full QuickTime integration, and probably a meld with AppleScript as well. But what a head start!!
  
  For many of us, it's as deep into programming as we'll get without going back to school. For me it was the most gratifying computer experience-- and remains very high in pleasure/productivity every tiome I use it under OS 8.6-- since I firts touched a Mac.
  
  There's never been another software construction kit even remotely as well-designed as HyperCard and it needs everybody to tell Steve J. to keep it going on OS 9.1 and X.
  
  Then you cna write the revision, and HC will remain good to you and its glory will shine.
  
  Best,
  - Loren
  www.neotrondesign.com

• HyperSense is a super powerful HyperCard clone for NeXT!
  2001-03-30 19:54:47  lount [Reply | View]
  
  
  If you love HyperCard then try HyperSense!
  http://www.thoughtful.com/hypersense/index.html
• HyperSense is a super powerful HyperCard clone - Real soon NOW - for MacOSX!!
  2001-03-30 20:00:38  lount [Reply | View]
  
  
  http://www.thoughtful.com/news/MacOSX.html
• HyperSense is a super powerful HyperCard clone - Real soon NOW - for MacOSX!!
  2001-04-03 01:17:58  idlewid [Reply | View]
  
  
  The news is more than one year old, dated March 1999. Of course, would like to see some news from Thoughful, and hopefully not as expensive as MetaCard.
  
  Still, HyperCard is a hard act to follow in terms of value and utility for its price.

• Keep HyperCard
  2001-03-30 15:20:00  HeritageLady [Reply | View]
  
  
  The non-profit society for which I volunteer has all our archival records in HyperCard stacks. We used it because it was easy to program and we thought this program would last for ever.
  
  I have no idea how to tranfer 10,000 multi-level records to any database system. I don't have the expertise to design a multi-level database and we certainly don't have the money to hire someone to do it.
  
  Please don't take our HyperCard away.

• HC runs Malaysian Concert Hall
  2001-03-30 14:34:43  dunbarx [Reply | View]
  
  
  The signature lighting in the Petronas Towers, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, is operated entirely with Hypercard running on a Performa. This is in the "Carnegie Hall" of Malysia, astride the worlds tallest buildings. The computer controls all aspects of the concert hall fiber optic lighting system, using Hypercard interactively both to output switching commands and to read and display the current state of the system in real time.
  
  Try that with a Compaq. Of course HC should be saved, because it still sets the Macintosh apart. What is amazing is that Apple does not appreciate the vast numbers of both casual and serious HC users, and what a valuable resource that is.
• HC runs Malaysian Concert Hall
  2001-04-06 08:59:44  lor [Reply | View]
  
  
  "The signature lighting in the Petronas Towers, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, is operated entirely with Hypercard running on a Performa."
  
  Holy Cow.
• HC runs Malaysian Concert Hall
  2001-05-16 10:35:47  verne [Reply | View]
  
  
  Holy Cow....my feelings exactly!
  
  Never thought that it ever ran on Macs at all...
  
  Verne

• At least Carbonize HyperCard
  2001-03-30 10:59:05  idlewid [Reply | View]
  
  
  The most recent version of HyperCard, 2.4.1, was released in July 1998. As it was allowed to languish so badly, few have seen what HyperCard can do with QuickTime and AppleScript technologies.
  
  Both iHUG CDs, distributed non-profitably, especially the HyperCard Mail List CD released in January 1999, make extensive use of HyperCard with QuickTime and AppleScript and are probably the best representations of what HyperCard can do. They go beyond displaying movies on the card, they are part of the interface to the content on the CD.
  
  Consequently, when the content on these CDs was shown at MacworldSF, many saw a HyperCard they never knew existed.
  
  No sense asking Apple to let HyperCard go, they should keep HyperCard in-house, and reap the profit from a Carbon upgrade. Stockholders have a twelve year investment in the software.
  
  At the January MacworldSF, we were informed it would take one, maybe two, engineers about six months to carbonize HyperCard. I believe it now, more than ever, after seeing what Lemke did with GraphicConverter.
  
  Lemke carbonized his $30 shareware; it opens and performs in either OS 9.1 or OSX, it's not Classic, it opens native in OSX. If a shareware can be carbonized that cleanly, Apple can certainly carbonize HyperCard.
  
  Apple can inspire a lot of developers to carbonize their applications, if they took the time to carbonize their own. Write the new Worldwide Developer Relations VP and ask him what good reason to leave HyperCard behind while bringing the others to date. Write Cheryl Vedoe about the education angle, Fred Anderson about the value to shareholders and Steve Jobs about keeping computing fun. Project and Interface builders have their place, but they're not fun.
  
  It is obvious to me, given all the news, all the users that still work with HyperCard in education, businesses (Northwest Airlines, Nabisco, Renault, Kagi, for starters) and homes... that any stockholder would consider the value of their shares maximized if HyperCard were brought native to OSX. The idea is to lower risk, not increase it by ignoring previous technologies the company has invested corporate resources for more than a decade.
  
  Just another 2¢

• Salvation of HyperCard
  2001-03-30 05:45:19  robindimi [Reply | View]
  
  
  
  HyperCard should be saved, as well as given a technology boost.
  
  I've noticed that Apple now have a Help Center application, as well as numerous online documents and tutorials to help novice users.
  
  Could HyperCard not get a large technology boost by making it act more as a Web client with active scripting content. Adding more commonly used technologies to it (HTML/DHTML, JavaScript, Applets) could they not then create a lightweight Cardplayer application/client that could be used to play interactive presentations, or be used when providing online help?
  
  If this client became as ubiquitous as e.g. Acrobat Reader/Quicktime Player then HyperCard could sell a lot authoring tools and allow the client to be downloaded for free.
  
  If Apple incorporated the need for the HyperCard client in the OS - e.g to read online help then it would be a product with a future for sure.
  
  The fundamental ideas that drove the creation of an application like HyperCard still hold true today, companies like MacroMedia make a good living off of them too. MacOS is one of the most media orientated platforms around and it would be a shame to see one of the groundbreaking apps to go the way the dodo just because it may not be seen as 'core business' in the current climate.

• Educators can save HC
  2001-03-29 19:26:00  brittb [Reply | View]
  
  
  If enough educators petition Cheryl Vedoe, Apple's rehired Education Chief, they can make it happen. Apple's really listening to th eeducation channel right now.
  
  Suggest a practical way to open-source it. Does O'Reilly want to play a role here?
• Educators can save HC
  2001-03-30 08:54:58  Derrick Story [Reply | View]
  
  
  From what I've heard, going the educational route is a good idea. I'll drop a note to Steve over at iHUG to make sure he's in on this thread. Also, as for the open source approach, I think that's really cool. I'll ask around. If any readers have leads, please post them. --DS

• HC should be saved! n/t
  2001-03-29 17:05:05  elgallorojo [Reply | View]
  
  
  HC should be saved!

• Does Apple Have to Be the One to Carbonize?
  2001-03-29 11:43:45  Derrick Story [Reply | View]
  
  
  It seems to me that someone else could carbonize it with Apple's approval. Does anyone know more about how that could happen?
• Open-source HC
  2001-03-29 17:47:26  Corvus [Reply | View]
  
  
  So long as HyperCard is closed-source Apple is the only one that can carbonize it. If Apple doesn't want to support it they should open-source it.
• Open-source HC
  2001-03-30 08:56:18  Derrick Story [Reply | View]
  
  
  I agree, but the trick is to find the right person at Apple to have this discussion with. -- DS