What is Hypercard?

• Wikipedia - Hypercard

• Wikipedia - Hypertext

• Video - The Computer Chronicles (1987)

• Video - Why HyperCard is so F*ing great

• Bill Atkinson introducing HC - 1987

• Bill Atkinson reflecting 2012

How-to

• Hypercard Beginner's Guide

• Getting Started with Hypercard IIGS

• Hypercard Installation and New Features (1998)

Writings

• Retro Mac Computing - The Long View - Hypercard 

• As We May Think by Vannevar Bush - from The Atlantic, July 1945

• Techniques for Stack Development - Jeanne DeVoto

Examples

• Voyager Company hyperbooks

• Whole Earth Catalog

• Game - The Manhole

• Video - Dr. Who Database

• Video - If Monks had Macs

• Internet Archive Hypercard collection

Aspects of Hypercard

Hypertext and Scripting

• Hypertext allowed the first creation of branching and responding text (links!) and thus was a precursor to the World Wide Web

  • Hypercard "cards" can be considered to be analogous to web pages, and "stacks" to websites

Programs and Documents

"...by combining the features of documents and programs, it obviated the need for the user to interact directly with the file system.  There was no need to start a program and use it to open a document.  No need for the standard file package.  No need to explain to users that an application that created a document is a different thing from the document it created.  If you changed something in HyperCard, it was saved automatically. " from the article The Long View