HyperCard - the Founding Father of xTalk Implementations

A place to discuss any and all xTalk implementations, not just LC LCC Forks, but HyperCard, SuperCard, MetaCard, Gain Momentum, Oracle MediaTalk, OpenXION, etc.
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OpenXTalkPaul
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HyperCard - the Founding Father of xTalk Implementations

Post by OpenXTalkPaul »

HyperCard What can be said about it that hasn't been said a million times already?

I was thinking it would be great to include a small emulator setup with miniVMac (or better BasiliskII) or some links to online Mac + Hypercard emulations (as found on Archive.org in their Hypercard collection) or web recreation (ViperCard) or possibly a converter/viewer like HyperCard preview (available on gitHub) for some retro fun! I still have that Schrödinger's Cat card-animation stack that my sister made that blew my mind with as a kid! It would be cool and make me happy to include that somehow. I tried converting it to LC at one point but it didn't work out so well with that 1-bit black/white art.
bbellina
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Re: HyperCard - the Founding Father of xTalk Implementations

Post by bbellina »

I prefer the Apple IIGS version of HyperCard to the Mac version. HyperCard IIGS supported color natively and it was possible to do some pretty amazing things. It had almost all the features of the Mac version and its HyperTalk was compatible, so it was pretty easy to use Macintosh resources. Apple provided a conversion utility called HyperMover which can be used to disassemble stacks on either the IIGS or Mac and then convert them to the other platform. Some amount of polish is needed afterward but HyperMover does a pretty good job. I converted Apple's Apple //c Plus Technical Look stack last year using HyperMover to HyperCard IIGS since I bought //c Plus and it irritated me that I had to use a Mac rather than an Apple II to look at the reference stack Apple produced for their last Apple II model. I released it along with a number of other stacks on my issue of Script-Central 2020 which is my homage to the HyperCard IIGS did magazine from the 1990's. In addition to the stacks I also included directions on how anyone else can make their own issue of Script-Central but I don't think anyone has tried. I am toying with the idea of releasing another version if I can put together an interesting collection of stacks.

http://bbellina.blogspot.com/2021/02/sc ... ition.html

- Brendan
My software: https://sites.google.com/view/silverwandsoftware/
My blog: bbellina.blogspot.com
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OpenXTalkPaul
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Re: HyperCard - the Founding Father of xTalk Implementations

Post by OpenXTalkPaul »

bbellina wrote: Thu Oct 07, 2021 5:06 am I prefer the Apple IIGS version of HyperCard to the Mac version. HyperCard IIGS supported color natively and it was possible to do some pretty amazing things. It had almost all the features of the Mac version and its HyperTalk was compatible, so it was pretty easy to use Macintosh resources. Apple provided a conversion utility called HyperMover which can be used to disassemble stacks on either the IIGS or Mac and then convert them to the other platform. Some amount of polish is needed afterward but HyperMover does a pretty good job. I converted Apple's Apple //c Plus Technical Look stack last year using HyperMover to HyperCard IIGS since I bought //c Plus and it irritated me that I had to use a Mac rather than an Apple II to look at the reference stack Apple produced for their last Apple II model. I released it along with a number of other stacks on my issue of Script-Central 2020 which is my homage to the HyperCard IIGS did magazine from the 1990's. In addition to the stacks I also included directions on how anyone else can make their own issue of Script-Central but I don't think anyone has tried. I am toying with the idea of releasing another version if I can put together an interesting collection of stacks.

http://bbellina.blogspot.com/2021/02/sc ... ition.html

- Brendan
My software: https://sites.google.com/view/silverwandsoftware/
My blog: bbellina.blogspot.com
Thanks for coming and adding these comments!
I sometimes forget that there was a HyperCard version released for the Apple IIGS.
I went from Atari Computer to a B&W Mac512Ke (modded to Plus) and then to PowerPC Mac after that, so I never experienced a real Apple II although I did try it out via the emulator you mentioned a long time ago. ProDos was very strange to me coming from a Mac perspective.

HyperCard GS should probably have it's own subject here because from what I've read, it did have some significant differences, it was based on HyperCard 1.x and didn't have the just-in-time dynamic compiling of HyperCard 2.x on Mac, but as you said it had other advantages such as native color capabilities from the beginning. I might just take some time to give that another whirl under emulation.
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