What is hypercard?

Hypercard is a set of tools used to create software applications. It was first released in 1987 and at that time included new Apple Macintosh computers. It was one of the first widely used examples of interactive media and preceded the worldwide website for several years.

The idea of ​​hypercard was to allow users to create applications to perform a specific task rather than adjust the existing application for their needs. It was described as simple and strong. There are recorded examples that it is easy to use for small children, but sufficiently effective to perform tasks, including the operation of the lighting system for the tallest buildings in the world, Peronas Towers in Malaysia.

The concept for hypercard and inspiration for its name is that the applications are built through virtual cards. Unlike a standard card system, such as a rotating address file, data on the "cards" can be connected and set to execute commands. This means that the Toks similarIn a way as a way in which text, sound, images and video can be connected on the website.

Unlike many programming languages ​​and hypercard systems, the user did not require the user to understand and know numerous commands and codes. Through the card system, the user could focus on developing what the application should do with, with Hypercard, and then take care of the code needed to perform these actions. The programming language, hypertalk, was maintained relatively simple, allowing users to see how their changes affected coding and had the opportunity to learn the language itself. This was in some ways similar to modern web page editing software that allows the user to switch between the page display "what you see is what you get" and the background HTML and another code that changes the user's design and writing to a function web page.

because programmi use hypercard byL So simple, at least relatively relatively created by the trend of domestic users who create their own applications and distribute them to other users. The sets of files distributed in this way were informally known as stackware. This name was based on the idea of ​​a pile of "cards" forming an application.

The latest Hypercard main update came in 1998 and was withdrawn from sale in 2004. The software is not automatically running on Mac Systems later than OS version 9. However, it can be used on newer machines through emulation modes.