HyperCard - Largely fit to Haiku philosophy, what a pity, it needs emulation today

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Ahoy Haikunauts !

I just watched this video about HyperCard software (added below), that supported to create multimedia content without programming skills, and was shipped free with MacIntosh Classic, and could be run on Apple machines till not moved to Intel processors via compatibility solution that enabled run Classic software to run on them …

Now the contents those created with HyperCard - and called ‘stacks’ - can be run in an emulator that an Internet Archive project secures since 2017-- on 30th anniversary of HyperCard. On a volunteering site they try to collect such remaining stacks created by anyone, and built a MacIntosh machine, and made this machine available via browser to be able to watch those content there.

It needs emulation, as for stacks not possible to write a file converter, as those not just data, but a program that contains the content on cards, and the events between cards, that triggered by clicks to move between cards, and events were written in verbose instructions - that close plain English. This way needed the whole MacIntosh machine emulation instead a converter.

This multimedia relation and that is not needed programming skills to use, just base algorithmic thinking to structure a content, make me think it should have been on BeOS, and a pity the creator this software, who is well known as creator of many famous Apple programs centered its creation to Apple only … I think this Hypercard or equivalent should have been available for BeOS and now for Haiku -
This what makes masses to use an OS if it is available for free and not neeeded to know any sophisticated programming language, but this programming tool’s instructions that close to their spoken language.

I recommend to pay attention that part when HyperCard was compared to (early) web, and what inspirations caused to be created some such software solutions which ones used right now by many user in the world.

Apple Gave Away The Program That Built Myst, Then Deleted It (<-- the same video, as link)

I was not an Apple guy, however in the 1990s years the Apple became available Hungary, but then it was a nieche product, as for its prices and availability as well. In every town/city were a PC shop, but not an Apple shop.
It just changed here with iPod/iPhone/iPad, those made Apple stuff more popular in Hungary as well, so now many people who has many buys Apple product like computers as well from Apple.

Some product I would own from Apple
→ an Apple MacIntosh IIgs with all Apple accessories
→ the Twentieth Anniversary MacIntosh, one original, one modded with DVD drive, and modern display (This was the computer that I saw on an exhibition in Hungary that produced that videos running parallel in many numbers, that BeOS could do just as shipped - If I remember well it was in 1997.
For PC, I remember the crowd was at gaming section to watch something brand new on this exhibition : this was the year when that Star Wars game arrived that contained video clips and needed a CD-ROM drive to play it, as the film parts huge data volume required the CD-ROM format.
I bought my firts OS/2 book, written by Hungarian authors, about the whole Warp version stuff … there.)
→ the “Molar Mac”, also one original, and one modded with modern parts
→ the most powerful translucent G3 laptop
→ a dual G5 with its elegant and heavy housing
→ the 17 inch Intel based laptop
→ it would be good a MacPro beast (even rackmount form ;- )) ) with Intel Proc
→ and a Studio Display : ))
→ and for curiosity an Apple Server too :-j

… but I am not in shape to have a necessary space and money to build/gather such collection, so just remain the cheaper daydreaming about it …

:cowboy_hat_face:

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Try Decker. Not sure if it’s possible to build under Haiku, but the browser edition should work in at least some of the available browsers.

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A similar user experience can be obtained using the Godot Engine combined with addons like Block Coding.
Godot may be more explicitly a game engine and doesn’t integrate drawing tools like HyperCard or Flash, but a number of tools have been made with it, such as Pixelorama, Museum of All Things (by Maya Claire on itch), Paragraphic, a number of game designing tools like RPG in a Box and ACTION GAME MAKER (from the same company as RPG Maker), and there are addons allowing it to do interesting non-gaming tasks like interacting with a PostgreSQL database. The haiku port seems to be a bit behind but there is a web version and it can export projects as HTML5 content.

there’s also Ren’Py; it offers less possibilities than Godot, but necessitates less skills to get started, just some Python basics. It is mostly used for visual novels but it does have regular interface features like Point-and-Click and Drag-and-Drop (of elements in the program, not files). There should be a web version of Ren’Py, otherwise it should run relatively easily with wine, and it can export to HTML5.

I would like to also mention Wick Editor as it allows to draw, animate and make things interactive from the same simple graphical interface, but it seems to be inactive since 2021. I’ve found a fork called Candlestick that is young but active.

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It built and ran fine, no changes needed!

1 Like
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Thanks to all of you offering probations to use some similar on Haiku.
I was never an Apple guy, nor in the affected time, neither later - so I had not used this suftware at all. I just sent this post to show a solution that not required to know a programming languge, compilation a source code into binary, or install en interpreter to run program code to run a program, like Basic or yab as interpreter or shell languages does.
It was enogh to install one program, in that you created “cardswith multimedia features” and create logic between this program, and finally the output became a program itself, not a bunch of data, as in case any powerpoint-like stuff that does the same, but needs an office suite installed that contains the appropriate presentation software, but not exactly as presentation generally linear dia show, meanwhile Hypercard editor of stacks contained forks and alternate pathes, and stepping backs, so returning back to cards which was added in the logic, if the cards was a last leaf on a decision branch.

I do not want to implement somethink like that, as - at least actually - I do not plan to create any program. I’m a bit lazy toward this and equally not inspired by any idea to create something.
I just praised this program, as this really does something that equals to personal computing as me means it, whose root rooted into birth into personal computing, where not a smart phone or tablet was the beginning, but a simple 8 bit home computer where only one program could run once, not multitasking dozens on a quicly mode setting - real mode /16 bit/, protected /32 bit/, long /64 bit/ - CPU with several cores - but one, with one mode :slight_smile:

Anyway-
I consider your answers helpful and useful to other members on the forum who has Apple machine backgrounds and fonds, and might have such created ‘stack(s)’ on a floppy or haddrive or even a CD/DVD-ROM disc … and want to try to give a second life to it.

:cowboy_hat_face: