What was HyperCard?

  • HyperTalk Reference - This is a PDF containing screen shots of most of the pages of the HyperTalk Reference stack that came with HyperCard 2.4.
  • HyperTalk Center - This is a HyperCard fan site that contains a web site reproducing the HyperTalk Reference's contents and Help Extras in a more modern format.
  • MediaTalk Reference - This is an HTML-dump of the MediaTalk documentation included with Oracle Media Objects.
  • The xTalk Interviews - Short FAQ-style interviews with various people from the history of HyperCard and its clones.
  • CompileIt! Manual - This is a PDF of the manual to CompileIt!, a HyperCard stack that allows you to write HyperCard command plug-ins that access the Mac's system API and let you do everything any Mac programmer could do.
  • Why HyperCard was so f***in' great! - Presentation about HyperCard originally given at NSConference 2014
  • HyperCard Simulator - A clone of HyperCard running on the web, in your browser.

Community

HyperCard Stacks

  • Pantechnicon - Lots of HyperCard stacks. These are the files that used to be hosted at the HyperCard Pantechnicon.

Open Source HyperCard

  • The xTalk interpreter archive - Lots of HyperTalk-like programming languages, with source code
  • OpenXION - A cross-platform HyperTalk-like programming language written in Java, with source code.
  • HCX - Mac OS X source code for reading HyperCard stacks.
  • stackimport - A command-line tool that exports HyperCard stacks into image files and XML suitable for import into other applications.
  • CinsImp - A HyperCard clone that runs on the web. This is a port of a previous Mac desktop application of the same name, for which Source code is available.
  • HyperCardPreview - An application written in Swift that tries to faithfully render HyperCard stacks on OS X, bitmap fonts and all.
  • Stacksmith - An open source HyperCard clone-in-development of which you can already try occasional builds.
  • HyperCard File Format - A description of the general structure of a HyperCard stack on disk.
  • Pierre's HyperCard File Format - A modified version of the HyperCard File Format description above that contains additional information. Contributed by Pierre Lorenzi.
  • AddColor Resource Format - A description of the general structure of the resources used by HyperCard 2.3 and later to store color information.
  • HyperCard PLTE resource format and ResEdit Template - Description of the format of the PLTE resources that the 'palette' XCMD uses to define how auxiliary windows should look.
  • ColdCoffee HyperTalk to Java converter - A bunch of Java source code files that read a subset of HyperTalk and create Java source code from that.
  • XFromApp XCMD engine - Old C/C++ source code for running HyperCard plugins (XCMDs and XFCNs). Mostly of historical interest.
  • HyperTalk 1.x BNF grammar - A grammar for the HyperTalk programming langiage.

Commercial HyperCard clones

  • LiveCode - Originally known as MetaCard, this cross-platform IDE runs on Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Android, iOS and as a browser plugin.
  • SuperCard - The first HyperCard clone, for MacOS 10.14 and earlier.
  • NovoCard - A simple HyperCard-like app for the iPad, with JavaScript as the programming language.
  • DataOrganizer - A database that succeeds a modern HyperCard-like system for the Mac with Button Tasks/ClickScript-style programming named BayCard.