HYPERCARD

HyperCard for Macintosh from Apple Computer, Inc, is the most widely available programming system and multimedia authoring tool for the Macintosh. It is developed by Bill Atkinson and commercially available in 1987. HyperCard is useful development tool for a wide range of applications, including multimedia presentations, and computer-based training materials.

It has a built-in script language - HyperTalk. You can create, customize, and personalize HyperCard stacks without learning how to write scripts, but scripting with HyperTalk gives you even more control over your computer. You don't need any previous programming experience to write scripts with HyperTalk.

Basics
The systems built with HyperCard are built using the metaphor of stacks and cards. The projects, created with HyperCard, are called stacks. They are made of cards. Each stack contains one or more backgrounds. Each stack has a name.

Card is a rectangular area that can contain buttons, text, fields and graphics. Each card has a number, a unique id number and can also have a name. Card sizes vary from 64x64 pixels to 1280x1280 pixels.

Background contains one or more cards. Backgrounds can contain graphics, buttons and fields. Each background has a number, a unique id number and can also have a name. All cards contain background and foreground features. The background in a specific stack is usually common throughout since that defines the appearance and format of the card. However the foreground can be customized so, that cards may contain their own fields.

Fields are the information contained on the cards and may be text, graphics, alphabetic or numeric data. Each field has a number, a unique id number and may have a name.
Buttons are activated by the mouse and are used for initiating action. Allow for the creation of links between cards and stacks. A button may have an Icon and, in the latest versions of HyperCard, can be used as a container for text. Each button has a number, a unique id number and may have a name.

Each card can access any card that is in the stack. These cards may contain any kind of text, sound or picture and can be linked together to form one stack. One of the features that HyperCard offer is to provide background for the stacks. The user may choose to have all or some of the cards in the stack to have similar background avoiding the necessity to copy the same background for each single card. The cards may also contain fields or buttons. The shape of the buttons may be changed to be rectangular, invisible or iconic. Some scripts can be attached to the buttons in order to perform some actions when the buttons are clicked. These scripts are called handlers or functions by HyperCard. Scripts can also be used to perform any kind of actions when the mouse is up or down, so the user is capable to control any mouse movement on the screen. HyperCard also provides its users the capability of sending messages between its objects. The fields provided by HyperCard may be used to capture users data (text) entries or for displaying information. One may control the shape of the fields as s/he does in changing the shape for the buttons including scripts that can be associated to them. These fields can contain scroll bars to give the user the flexibility to scroll through the data entries.

Learn more about HyperCard.

Learning Curve
HyperCard comes with ready-to-use template stacks (including an address book, datebook, graph maker, phone dialer, and scanned art) to shorten the learning curve for novice multimedia developers. Beginners can start creating stacks right away; no scripting experience is required.

Systems Requirements