Hypercard - why is it still for sale at Apple Store?

tyrihanstyrihans
Posted:
in Mac Software edited January 2014
Just been looking thru Apple's software offerings at their online store, and there, between Appleworks and Quicktime VR, is Hypercard. At $99, this goddess of an ancient paradigm, is by now a very expensive piece of nostalgia.



And it's not like the mother-ship has done anything with it since 1997 or 1998. I'm no oracle, but as I see it, Hypercard 2.4 now outranks all other Apple software for sale by at least five year (untouched that is). Kind of strange. Not the least since contemporary stars like OpenDoc and Homepage are long gone.



I had a lot of fun with this program in the late 80's, but who's buying it today?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 15
    mrmistermrmister Posts: 1,095member
    Probably no one...order a copy and see if they ship it!
  • Reply 2 of 15
    mac os x addictmac os x addict Posts: 322member
    Yeah Tyrihans, order one and see if they ship it. It would be interesting to see if Apple actually does.
  • Reply 3 of 15
    chuckerchucker Posts: 5,089member
    Windows - why is it still for sale at my local store?



    Just been looking thru Atelco's software offerings at their online store, and there, between Norton AntiVirus and SuSE Linux 8.2, is Windows. At $399, this goddess of an ancient paradigm, is by now a very expensive piece of nostalgia.



    And it's not like the mother-ship has done anything with it since 1984 or 1985. I'm no oracle, but as I see it, Windows XP now outranks all other operating systems for sale by at least two decades (untouched that is). Kind of strange. Not the least since contemporary stars like NeXT STEP and the Amiga OS are long gone.



    I had a lot of fun with this program in the late 80's, but who's buying it today?







    On a related note, I'll have lots of fun trying to fix my Windows 2000 Server at the school.
  • Reply 4 of 15
    pesipesi Posts: 424member
    one word: education
  • Reply 5 of 15
    amorphamorph Posts: 7,112member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by pesi

    one word: education



    Much more than education. I was amazed to find out how much of the research arm of the hospital here runs on HyperCard even now.



    Apple should really bring it back. AppleScript Studio is cool, but it's not HyperCard.



    *sigh*
  • Reply 6 of 15
    supergroversupergrover Posts: 53member
    OH MY GOD! HyperCard!



    I was an elementary education major at Purdue University, and we were using HyperCard in a class about using computers in an elementary classroom. This was just 2 years ago...



    Now, 99% of everyone who took this mandatory class was going to become an elementary school teacher. (The other 1% was me, who was preparing for a career in educational media.)

    Ahem... so I wonder how many of my classmates would be using HyperCard with their classes today. I would be surprised if any of them are.



    HyperCard was a big pain in the neck, even in the teacher-prep class. It kept crashing and you had to save constantly or you'd lose all your work. I think it would take too much of a teacher's precious time to create a program for students. I don't know.
  • Reply 7 of 15
    spookyspooky Posts: 504member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by SuperGrover

    OH MY GOD! HyperCard!



    I was an elementary education major at Purdue University, and we were using HyperCard in a class about using computers in an elementary classroom. This was just 2 years ago...



    Now, 99% of everyone who took this mandatory class was going to become an elementary school teacher. (The other 1% was me, who was preparing for a career in educational media.)

    Ahem... so I wonder how many of my classmates would be using HyperCard with their classes today. I would be surprised if any of them are.



    HyperCard was a big pain in the neck, even in the teacher-prep class. It kept crashing and you had to save constantly or you'd lose all your work. I think it would take too much of a teacher's precious time to create a program for students. I don't know.



    Hypercard was and still is awesome. the real deal for those who wanted to do cool things with their macs and not be a geek. I started by authouring products and eventually used it to control external systems for conceptual art, stage shows etc.



    BTW what do you mean by



    Quote:

    HyperCard was a big pain in the neck, even in the teacher-prep class. It kept crashing and you had to save constantly or you'd lose all your work. I think it would take too much of a teacher's precious time to create a program for students. I don't know.



    Hypercard would automatically save as you worked.



    I Can't see apple ever bringing it back which is a shame as I think it is still way ahead of anything else for those who want to do anything with their macs that isn't just fashionable.



    before anyone else in this thread, I'd like to say:



    BRING BACK HYPERCARD !



    OK, I have to lie down now. feel free to tell me what a dork I am.
  • Reply 8 of 15
    chychchych Posts: 860member
    Could use metacard, isn't that like hypercard? Works on many platforms too.
  • Reply 9 of 15
    g-dogg-dog Posts: 171member
    My mom just did a big hypercard project for an Oregon Trail center in Wyoming last year. They actually forced her to use. She was happy to comply.
  • Reply 10 of 15
    applemasterapplemaster Posts: 144member
    Does anyone remember the game Cosmic Osmo? That was done in hypercard. just a bit of nostalgia. Ah the good old days...
  • Reply 11 of 15
    allenallen Posts: 84member
    The original Myst was done in HyperCard. It was/is a great development application. Too bad Apple will not, at least, make it a carbon application to allow it to run under OS X.
  • Reply 12 of 15
    spookyspooky Posts: 504member
    so was peter gabriel's xplorer cd rom. I think david Bowie's Jump CD rom might have been Hypercard also.



    it was just so un formalised and freeform that you could almost literally launch it and play with it like modelling clay. It wasn't as if you had think about how it worked - it just did. its one of the few apps I've ever used where I could always somehow get it to do exactly what I wanted rather than hitting a limitation of the software.
  • Reply 13 of 15
    amoryaamorya Posts: 1,103member
    I wrote a database backed web site in Hypercard. The stack would allow edits, and then automatically work out which files had changed, then export the new info to the web server as HTML files.



    That was before I'd had any formal database training, and when I knew not what a relational database even was. It just seemed a logical thing to do, that would save me from doing all the work by hand.



    Amorya
  • Reply 14 of 15
    kim kap solkim kap sol Posts: 2,987member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by AppleMaster

    Does anyone remember the game Cosmic Osmo? That was done in hypercard. just a bit of nostalgia. Ah the good old days...



    Ahh Cosmic Osmo and Manhole. Great Hypercard games.



    It'd be cool if Apple created an OS X Hypercard...using Quartz as the graphics engine, and tie in QuickTime, Webcore, the Address Book database, and all the other cool OS X things.
  • Reply 15 of 15
    murkmurk Posts: 935member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by kim kap sol

    It'd be cool if Apple created an OS X Hypercard...using Quartz as the graphics engine, and tie in QuickTime, Webcore, the Address Book database, and all the other cool OS X things.



    And it should once again be free and bundled with the OS.
Sign In or Register to comment.