A Futile Question

[Henry Flam]

This is a question to anyone who still cares or is interested in the
promise of Hypercard. Is there any chance of prying HC from the paws of
Apple and making it possible for some coders to rewrite it into an
internet application. I don't understand why Apple doesn't release the
code into public domain. They have abandoned it and show no interest in
doing anything with it. Any ideas?

[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

This is NOT an offer to do it or even be involved, but the specs for
Hypercard have been public knowledge for over 20 years. Some bright person
could write a Hypercard program in Java.

As long as you did not violate any patents Apple would not be able to stop
you, and if anything is patented, it may be close to expiring. If not,
Apple might let you use them as long as you did not sell the program.

IMHO the main reason Apple abandoned Hypercard was not that they wanted
to bury it, but that it was too expensive to maintain in relation to
what they expected to get from it.

You could of course run your old stacks under BasiliskII if you used
a 680x0 version of Hypercard, and Sheepshaver if it was a PPC version.

You can still download Hypercard Player 2.4 from Apple, but not the full
version.

Geoff.

--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel g...@mendelson.com N3OWJ/4X1GM

[Mark]

In article <hflam-D1AC17.16531111112008@[74.223.185.199.nw.nuvox.net]>,
Henry Flam <hf...@telus.net> wrote:

Hi Henry,

Although this topic has been discussed many times before, it is a great
way to stir up this newsgroup a little bit and get some activity.

It is impossible to get or buy the source code of HyperCard from Apple,
unless you bring so much money that it compensates for all possible
damage. I suspect that Apple has already sold part of the rights of
HyperCard or is/was using parts of the HyperCard technology in e.g.
QuickTime, FileMaker, Spotlight, or another product.

There are several initiatives to create alternatives to HyperCard. You
can find an impressive sollection here:<http://www.creysoft.com/xtalk/>.
I have more or less successfully installed the jsCard compiler, but it
doesn't produce anything useful so far. It returns scripts with a lot of
garbage in it. Still, it is a fun tool to play with and not too complex
to modify on your own.

For any alternative, it will probably be rather difficult to compete
with the existing solutions SuperCard and Revolution. I use both
products and can hardly imagine that a new too will soon be as complete
and mature as these two. Even a free product will have difficulties
competing.

Perhaps, creating an alternative to HyperCard is no longer a priority. I
very much would like to see something very, very simple yet elaborate,
like HyperCard. The problem is that nowadays computer users expect to be
able to use all nowadays technologies, which such a simple programme may
not provide. Perhaps it is time for a new concept, similar to yet
different from the mainstream xTalk family. I'm not sure what that
should look like though.

--
Mark

Economy-x-Talk
Have your own custom software created
http://economy-x-talk.com

Convert your HyperCard stacks
http://differsifier.economy-x-talk.com

[Sylvain Bouju]

Mark <nos...@nospam.com> wrote:

> ... I

> very much would like to see something very, very simple yet elaborate,
> like HyperCard.

I should be very interested too, even I have got Revolution
since some years now, with a fresh 3 upgrade.

And if possible (I can dream...) completly online oriented like
all those Google Docs and Apps, = usable from everywhere
on every computer, OS and browser around...

--
Sylvain Bouju
--