Hypercard Simulator

[dandandandan]

This implementation shows HyperCard's object model and similar edit controls reimplemented as a JavaScript app.

https://hypercardsimulator.com/

[OpenXTalkPaul]

Hey Nice! I do like me some JS based xTalk interpreters!
Thanks for sharing and welcome to the OXT forum!

[FourthWorld]

Serious question: what are the challenges in learning JavaScript?

[richmond62]

I would suppose the challenges are no more and no less than learning any programming language, like learning a foreign language, it all comes down to motivation and the time to do it.

From a personal point of view, as a person who makes 95% of their bread and cheese from non-programming activities, and 90% of their programming activities are to provide support for that, I have neither the time nor the motivation to learn a new programming language; especially to the semi-fluent level I have achieved in LC/xTALK.

There is also the question of a bridge between set ups like SCRATCH and ENTRY and the likes of Python, C#, and the like: a space that xTalk can and should be filling.

And you, even if no one else, know full well who I hold responsible for the fact that xTalk is NOT that bridge beyond a few schools in Scotland (and despite claims only one school ever gets mentioned).

A fully portable (and I mean 'fully', not 'nearly') version of xTalk (standalones would not be needed on all platforms, c.f. Haiku OS) would be a big start in any sort of push to get it adopted for education.

What xTalk has, and the vast majority of other programming language do not, is a WYSIWYG, instant karma, rolls as it punches, interface, which gets children 'going' in a way a page of Python, C#, WTF just does not.

[OpenXTalkPaul]

Serious question: what are the challenges in learning JavaScript?

I can only answer for myself...
The biggest challenge for me is mostly that I''m not fond of JS, in particular I don't like the dot.syntax.stuff or the C style symbols. For example, I understand what '==' does, I just don't like the way it reads.

Until fairly recently JS was mostly only used for execution within a web page with no or limited access to operating system APIs. This was mostly a deal-breaker for me. Nowadays there's a few capable JS based app engines such as Electron, and some access to OS APIs/hardware (Node.js / React-Native).

I've learned some JS over the years, but I'm still not a fan.
But I am a fan boy for xTalk(s).

[richmond62]

Serious question: what are the challenges in learning JavaScript?

I have mucked around with Python recently, and the challenge to me was to get LiveCode "out of my head"
while I tried to learn it.

Recently got myself in trouble trying to explain something about Latin grammar
(something I have not bothered with much since I was 13: 47 years ago) because
both Bulgarian and Sanskrit grammar were getting in the way.

Recently mucking around on one of my BBC Micro computers and forgetting that conditional loops
are written in a different way in BBC BASIC than in LiveCode: then, having got that going, went back to LiveCode
and wrote a BBC BASIC loop inside an LC object and, for a split second, wondered why it didn't work.

Same problem seen in my Summer classes: not with the children, but the interns from the University who
have never seen a RAD IDE, and have heads full of C#, VBscript, Java and so forth. Had 0ne 22 year old
young woman crying because the 9 year olds were doing very, very simple stuff, and she could not
understand it: mainly because she had learnt other programming languages by rote rather than by thinking
her way through them.

[richmond62]

Had another look at this simulator; and, as far as HyperCard went [not very far compared with LC/OXT], as one cannot export
one's work as HyperCard stacks 7/or standalones for operating systems, it is fun, but really only that.

[FourthWorld]

IIRC HC only introduced standalones with v2.0.

Prior to that HC was bundled with every Mac, so we didn't need standalones, we could just share the stack files and knew every Mac user could run them.

Kinda like web apps today.

[richmond62]

Indeed, but I came late to the party with Mac OS 7 and HC 2.0.

And, in the context of this simulator, one cannot, for the sake of argument, use it to develop a HyperCard stack on Windows and then download one's work as an HC stack to run on Mac OS 9.

As this is now HC's future, I realise this is a bit gratuitous, and I, at least, can always work with HC, should I want to on my PPC Mac Mini running Mac OS 10.4 & 'Classic'.

[FourthWorld]

Apple killed HyperCard more than a quarter century ago.

Any web simulation in 2023 is only that, a simulation.

I miss greeting the ice man, but I enjoy a freon refrigerator.

[richmond62]

I miss greeting the ice man, but I enjoy a freon refrigerator.

Indeed, indeed: but your freon fridge is leaking freon and mucking up your ecosystem.

AND, to extend the metaphor slightly further: my freon fridge has a freezer compartment, [supposedly] never
needs defrosting and [supposedly] should not grow mould on the back, inner wall. But some of the claims in
the booklet that came with the fridge turn out to be wishful thinking and/or hyperbole: but because of those
claims my wife and I feel slightly dissatisfied. Had the fridge company not made those claims we would have
defrosted the fridge and wiped off the mould once every 2 weeks without feeling cheated.

[FourthWorld]

Yes, no thing is wholly a different thing, so all metaphors are imperfect.

Nonetheless, HyperCard's still dead, for so long that no emulated necromancy will make it a practical solution for the 21st century.

[dandandandan]

Had another look at this simulator; and, as far as HyperCard went [not very far compared with LC/OXT], as one cannot export
one's work as HyperCard stacks 7/or standalones for operating systems, it is fun, but really only that.

Hi, how are you doing?

The simulator is actually capable of exporting an entire stack as a HTML <stack-part> element which will work on any modern browser, using "Export HTML" in the menu. You can take the file and run it locally, or embed it on your own site very easily. Chrome, Mobile Safari, and regular Safari in the upcoming 2023 update, also can make icon-style web apps integrated with the OS, kind of like Electron but without overhead.

As for exporting a real HC stack file, well, I don't know if anyone's ever produced a proof of concept for that, like creating a card with a button and HC loading it. But the file format is pretty well documented by now.

Dan

[richmond62]

The simulator is actually capable of exporting an entire stack as a HTML <stack-part> element which will work on any modern browser

Quite possibly, but it is still going to look like a Hypercard stack stuck in about 1995: black and white bitmaps and all: so, while it may be
a jolly hayride for old farts like me who have happy memories of HyperCard when we still had pubic hairs, it really serves no other obvious purpose nowadays.