🪨 HyperCard on the Macintosh 🛠️

The "software erector set" that launched careers and an entire industry, and came tantalizingly close to delivering us the world wide web 6 years early. Our last post of 2025 takes a deep look at this important title. I also muse a bit on the approach HyperCard takes in extending the definition of what it means to develop software. Happy holidays!
(Back January 2)

stonetools.ghost.io/hypercard-…
#RetroComputing #hypercard #classicmac #mac #atkinson #nocode

HyperCard on the Macintosh

How do we approach the challenge of helping non-programmers build software? Do we throw up our hands at today's complexity and say, "Just let an AI do it.

^{Christopher Drum (Stone Tools)}

RE: mastodon.social/@stonetoolsblo…

How many lives and careers were influenced by #hypercard?

@pluralistic started his programming career as a HyperCard developer.
@bret was inspired to build "HyperCard in the World" which led to DynamicLand.
@wikipedia began as experiments in HyperCard stacks.

For my latest post, I got to know HyperCard, thought about how it compares to "vibe coding," and considered efforts to make English itself a programming language.