HyperCard was one of the best tools I've ever used. A real shame it never caught on.

I wouldn't say that it never caught on, but rather, that its successor (the Web), which it inspired directly, succeeded beyond anyone's wildest dreams.

Not really. Hypercard included a fully functional programming language (HyperTalk) and a simple database. It really isn't analogous to the Web.

I don’t know anything about HyperTalk but given that we live in an age where the web basically doesn’t work without a fully functional programming language (JavaScript) and a simple database (websql) isn’t the parent correct?

It's not really fair to compare the two that closely. Doing so misses a key aspect of Hypercard, which is how it fit holistically into the operating systems of its time. Hypercard "authors" had the ability to do many of the things their operating system could do from within the HC/HT system.

Hypertalk is also different in purpose and kind from JS. The former is easier to read than it is to write (Hypercard encouraged learning by copying / example), and was explicitly designed for everyday people. It was meant to bridge the gap between "users" and "programmers" and provide true computational media authoring.

It's true that HyperCard and the Web aren't exactly the same in all respects, but that's orthogonal to the fact that the Web drew direct inspiration from HyperCard (like, documented, on record, the inventors of Web browsers and HTTP saying as much).

Brendan Rich is on record saying that HyperTalk directly influenced JavaScript, e.g.: https://mobile.twitter.com/brendaneich/status/33768943772932...

Also it seems like what you're saying is confirming my point, not contradicting it? HyperCard has a presentation layer and a scripting language, and so too does the Web, both of which were directly influenced by their respective pieces in HyperCard. So how is this not analogous to the Web??

It was huge at the time. It only died because Apple killed it.

And Myst the game was made with it (and plenty other's from the Miller brothers)

Doing it in software allowed the original MacOS to be much more extensible and live on far longer than would have otherwise been expected.

To that point, QuickDraw is still shipping in MacOS although it's officially deprecated. Pretty impressive for an API that began life in 1979. I will dock it for never supporting more than a 1-bit transparency mask, but Atkinson had left Apple before that became important. I think he quit around the time Jobs was first fired.

He made HyperCard on his own and licensed it to Apple for cash, though he stipulated that they had to release it for free. Unfortunately, HyperCard's biggest legacy is only Myst, and the Tim Berners Lee shout-out.

HyperCard has a much bigger legacy than Myst: it inspired how Web browsers work, including the overall navigation look and feel, JavaScript, even the hand pointer! It's one of those super influential things that most people don't know about.

Never mind all the people who started out their programming careers tinkering with Hypercard.

Guilty as charged. HyperCard was a super fun environment to play around in and really easy to make simple games in. It was great for luring people deeper into programming.

I think it was removed in 10.15, as its tied to Carbon.

Even before the Mac, Apple had a history of doing it in software - Woz make the Apple II floppy drive use way fewer parts than their competitors by driving it in software.

Mac Paint looks similar to the Xerox PARC painting app:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/91/Smalltal...