The HyperCard Legacy [Theory, Mac]

In 1963, my dad was looking for a job. Born in England and raised in Africa, he ended up in London after a few years of travel by ship and train. In those pre-pre-Craigslist days, people still searched for employment in newspapers, and an unusual listing in a London Newspaper caught his eye: a listing looking for computer operators. For my father, the listing raised two immediate questions: What is a computer? And how do you operate it? (A similar reaction would have come from job listings for auto mechanics in 1914 or web designers in 1994). Responding to that listing turned out to be a life-changing decision for my dad, who has spent the last 40 years working with computers and technology. A very similar directional moment came for me 24 years later, in 1987, when my dad arrived home from work with a Macintosh SE computer

The Mac SE was actually not as important to my life (and career) as was the software that came with it for free - in particular, an unusual and innovative application called HyperCard. HyperCard was a tool for making tools - Mac users could use Hypercard to build their own mini-programs to balance their taxes, manage sports statistics, make music - all kinds of individualized software that would be useful (or fun) for individual users. These little programs were called stacks, and were built as a system of cards that could be hyperlinked together. Building a HyperCard stack was remarkably easy, and the application quickly developed a devoted following.

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