HACKER Q&A
📣 amichail

Are we returning to the early 80s where users program the apps they use?


But this time, they would do so with the help of an AI?


  👤 k310 Accepted Answer ✓
When HyperCard returns in some fashion. You can run the version 2.4 on an old mac (MacOS9 or early 10) or an via an emulator. http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/macos9osx.html

This person pointed me to it. https://blog.alexseifert.com/2020/06/09/emulating-mac-os-9-o...

The solution is a pre-made instance of SheepShaver running Mac OS 9.0.4 that includes a number of utilities and other pieces of software. The ROM is also included and the whole bundle is packaged into a simple, runnable application for macOS 10.10 and above. That means, all you have to do is download it, unzip it, move it to your Application folder and run it. Mac OS 9 boots right up and you don’t have to do a thing otherwise.

You can find and download this brilliant solution for free on http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/macos9osx.html.

Apple (SJ) apparently didn't know how many in-house applications people built with HyperCard. Some were classified. Others were just proprietary. I wrote XCMDs with CompileIt and HYPERBasic (try finding that one ) that did fun things like plotting, and converting graphics to PDF (as text files). It was fun and rewarding.

Discussions can be found below and elsewhere. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30138533#30146989 https://apple.slashdot.org/story/01/03/30/0312203/trying-to-...

I haven't found a clone of HyperCard that suits my needs. Would be nice.


👤 themodelplumber
I'll believe it when I see a computer named after an agricultural product arrive at my doorstep, along with a 300 page spiral bound book of thousands of shortcut-prompts, each prompt shown next to a visual representation of the app it will build.

👤 krapp
No.