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Comment by scroot | Hacker News Reader

Imagine if computing had continued down the path laid by systems like HyperCard

Hypercard is really kind of like the first implementation of HTML5. With applescript instead of javascript.

I mused about the idea of a version of Hypercard where you could load cards from network resources, or even just stacks. Ultimately though it would have been an even bigger security nightmare than the original Javascript. Hypercard was developed long before security was even a consideration on consumer hardware. The only thing it had was 5 different access levels, from a view only mode to full developer support.

It's as much of a fantasy as the one where Apple released a version of Hypercard for Windows 3.1 and blew Qbasic out of the water. It's a real shame Apple just chucked one of the most interesting beginner programming environments in the trash just as so many new people were getting interested in programming.

HyperLook was inspired by HyperCard and implemented for the NeWS window system in PostScript, and supported networking. I used it to implement SimCity for Unix.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeWS

SimCity, Cellular Automata, and Happy Tool for HyperLook (nee HyperNeWS (nee GoodNeWS))

HyperLook was like HyperCard for NeWS, with PostScript graphics and scripting plus networking. Here are three unique and wacky examples that plug together to show what HyperNeWS was all about, and where we could go in the future!

https://donhopkins.medium.com/hyperlook-nee-hypernews-nee-go...

Alan Kay on “Should web browsers have stuck to being document viewers?” and a discussion of Smalltalk, HyperCard, NeWS, and HyperLook:

https://donhopkins.medium.com/alan-kay-on-should-web-browser...

I knew I could get Don Hopkins to show up!

The access levels are just for editing stacks, no different than editing other files on a local PC, sort of like protection in an Excel spreadsheet.

Interacting with network stacks via Apple Events and file sharing supported users and passwords, so at least considered security.

Not quite AppleScript, but its own similar language, HyperTalk. (Some later versions of HyperCard also supported AppleScript, but it was rarely used.)

We're finally getting there. The model of web notebooks look a lot like Hypercard stacks in terms of usability; there's only missing someone packing them in and easy-to-use distribution and sharing environment that does not depend on users installing their own web server.

And if that package includes some reasonable local LLM model, creating simple programs by end users could be even easier than it ever was with Hypercard.

PWAs could have been so good. redbean/llamafile might be the closest, though.

The enduse developer experience sees the 17e and Neo paired with spoken instruction AI prompts going to the iPhone that effects the Hypercard network aware environment do the thing on the laptop.

I suspect that will get you trapped in a Myst linking book if you’re not careful! ;)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myst

I didn't mean "like hypercard" so literally in this manner. What I meant was, a computing environment that seems to blend seamlessly into the wider operating system, and that is able to sufficiently blur the line between end users and "programmers" (here called "authors"). Critical to this capability was the ability to "pop the hood" easily and mess with what was going on underneath.

All of today's computing is fundamentally based on a strong division between programmers and users. That division has only grown more stark with time. The dominance of Unix is partly to blame, in my view.

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