HyperCard

HyperCard: Pioneering Hypermedia Software

A software application released by Apple in 1987, allowing users to create hypertextual information stacks for organizing data and developing custom applications.

What is HyperCard?

HyperCard was a software application developed by Bill Atkinson and released by Apple in August 1987. It was one of the first successful hypermedia systems before the World Wide Web.

HyperCard allowed users to create their own pages made up of different objects like text fields, graphics, buttons, and other components. These pages could be then organized into stacks and linked together to allow nonlinear navigation. Stacks could contain a diverse mix of media like images, movies, sounds, and text.

A key feature of HyperCard was HyperTalk, a programming language allowing interaction with the components on a card. It enabled users to write custom scripts and develop their own HyperCard applications like educational software, interactive books, databases, and games.

HyperCard pioneered many hypermedia concepts we see today on the internet and in computing devices. It demonstrated the potential of allowing users to access information in a nonlinear, associated way by following links between related content. Its easy-to-use features allowed anyone to create hypermedia applications, not just software developers.

While extremely popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s, HyperCard was not ported to other platforms and was discontinued in 2004 as interests shifted more toward web and mobile applications. But it inspired many creators of early internet and CD-ROM applications as they built on hypermedia ideas first introduced by HyperCard.

HyperCard Features

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