In a rare capitulation, Apple announced today that it would be reviving an old standby, purely to silence to a small but noisy – and possibly insane – subgroup of customers.
The statement read in its entirety:
OK, god damn it, yes, we will create a version of HyperCard for OS X and update it in perpetuity!!! OK?! Now will you shut the hell up and leave us alone?!
In sure sign that no good deed ever goes unpunished, it was the release of Bento that was the final straw in the metaphorical camel’s back.
After yesterday’s announcement of Bento, FileMaker and Apple support were flooded with queries asking if it imported HyperCard stacks and if not, why not? And why not why not? And, well, just what was Apple’s continuity plan for HyperCard on Leopard anyway? And are you going to finish those fries? I know they fell on the floor, but they’re perfectly good and you wouldn’t want to waste them like you wasted the awesomest application ever and… hey, where are you going?!
“These people are relentless!” said an exasperated senior vice president of applications Sina Tamaddon. “They’re way worse than Newton users. They’re like zombies! These people show up at your house!
“I literally got down on my knees and begged [CEO] Steve [Jobs] to let someone spend a couple of hours to port it to OS X.”
HyperCard fans were typically self-righteous about the announcement.
“Apple has seen the error of its ways,” said Lester Poindexter, president of the HyperCard Users Group Of The World, As Represented By A Heavily Pixellated Image Of A Map Of The Globe In This Cool HyperCard Stack Where You Can Click On Each Country And It Will Show You Information About That Country And It Only Took Me Like Five Minutes To Make Because HyperCard Is That Easy And Cool.
Pushing his glasses up on his nose and hiking his pants to a height that usually requires submitting a flight plan to the FAA, Poindexter then insisted the rest of the interview be done through an interactive HyperCard stack it only took him “like five minutes to put together, tops.”
“Clearly, we were able to sway Apple with the logic of our argument that HyperCard is the bestest rapid development environment ever,” Poindexter’s stack said. “And all it took was hiding in Sina Tamaddon’s bathtub a few times to make it happen.”
This was followed by an animation of Poindexter’s head popping up from a bathtub.
Neither Poindexter or his stack were humble in the face of victory.
“This is just as my stack and I have been saying every five minutes for the last 15 years,” Poindexter said. “Isn’t that right, stack?”
The stack then emitted what sounded like a poorly recorded system sound of R2-D2 chirping.
HyperCard X is expected to be released really soon because Apple just can’t take this shit anymore.
First Post!!!!
2nd – Yee-haa.
Second!
Dude, I totally called it before I clicked in the RSS feed. Totally.
Claris or death.
Broke my streak of top threes, but top five will have to do.
*shaking tiny fist*
DOH! A pox on your house, Carl!
It was fucking good really, I was 13yo with my first stack
=’o)
Sure you did, Lucas. Sure you did.
That was a fun game. My first thought was, obviously, AppleWorks, but that seemed too obvious, so I took the time to think up a second, less obvious guess, and thought, HyperCard! Because, yeah, how awesome would that be? When I clicked over and found out my second guess was right, I threw my arms up in the air and screamed, “YES!”
Why would that make you think I live alone and am 40 years old?
And what do you mean, “How did I catch them?”
I wish I was 11.
Lest we forget, Myst was born out of HyperCard goodness.
And now Bungie’s using it to build Halo 4.
And the Mars rover runs on HyperCard stacks.
LOL.
“How did I catch them?”
Actually took me a second.
Your mom runs on HyperCard stacks.
Eeks! where are people coming from?
Can Steve get my old BBC working again?
Jobs ist Der Meister, or something Germanic.
John, I can’t believe you pulled a Poindexter…
Well played, though.
Best. Post……. um…. Tonight.
Still waiting for iCab 0.9b4.
All I can say is: ’bout darn time.
Yeah. HyperCard is back!!!!
Do you think they’ll re-release Cosmic Osmo? That was the bitchingest game ever, well, except Crystal Quest, and maybe Strategic Conquest. Okay, Shufflepuck Cafe was good, too.
Okay. Really Cosmic Osmo wasn’t so much a game as a total time waster. But I liked it anyway.
Wow. A photo. Can’t remember the last time a photo made it into a post.
21 is no laughing matter…
Poindexter is a fake! Take a look at that tie… Clip on? I think NOT!
A clever ruse, but a ruse nonetheless.
on openstack
goto card “Awesum”
beep
answer “Awesome, Hypercard is back!”
if laugh is true then speak with ralph “Touch my Nature”
end openstack
actually, I can’t remember how to do speaking,
that might be applescript rather than hypertalk…
I quietly muttered “yes…” after guessing hypercard from the RSS feed teaser, as I am at work already and jumping around would confirm what some people already suspect…
Other related news:
* “Mad Eye” Serlet announces that Bill Atkinson will be returning to lead the advanced R&D group that will produce more of these innovations for OS X.
* In a bizarre architectural round-trip, QuickDraw semantics will be added back to Cocoa. No word on when GWorlds will be available.
* The heavily-rumored hardware announcement at MacWorld will be a super-slim tablet – with a 640×480 display and a floppy in lieu of a hard disk.
* ADB peripherals are making a comeback – oh, and expect a new QuickTake camera model soon.
* F-Traps! F-Traps, baby!
Hey John, did my mom give you that picture? I told her not to show anybody…
I’m still waiting for Return to Dark Castle. Looks like it could take forever, since the last page update was January 27, 2000.
This is wonderful news!
After the release of Hypercard X, Apple can get to work on OpenDoc X and reopen eWorld. Then I might have a little release of my own.
With Hypercard X coming, can iNewton be far behind?
I need an OS X driver for my Imagewriter.
Wake me when they revive Cyberdog. Or when my flying car and jetpack are ready. Your choice.
Someone really should inflict a wedgie on Lester.
“Lester Poindexter” typical nomenclature stereotype. People named Poindexter are supposed to be nerds, right? RIGHT?
Simply untrue. Totally false picture of the Poindexter family name. For example, my parents dated, had sex and conceived me. That proves that Poindexters are not all social nerds. So mom and dad have never actually met face-to-face and mom was artificially fertilized. So what? Mom and dad had a wonderful dial-up telnet romance!
Name-ists!
Newtons Rule, iPhones Drool!
Woah. Bent-o looks so awesome! I can’t wait to get Bent-o. In fact, I really think all of you guys should get Bent-o!
Neil’s right! Namists! Though Mom and Pop are related, closely related, doesn’t mean they are unsociable. Pop’s never been out of the house but Mom goes out for food every three week.
Poindexter’s are normal people! Stop the bigotry!
My brother Qwerty says you people are just jealous because we can do arithmetic in base 16.
You Poindexter boys are 5L4CK3R2!
macslash.org/comments.pl?sid=6861&cid=120397
36 already! Well, business before pleasure, I suppose…
hahahahaha
http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com
I couldn’t understand some parts of this article Apple To Update Cancelled Application., but I guess I just need to check some more resources regarding this, because it sounds interesting.
Well… I think the idea of Apple bringing back HyperCard is pretty much dead. However, all is not lost if you are a HyperCard lover. TileStack.com, the startup that I created with some partners is a funded effort to recreate HyperCard, including HyperTalk, within a purely web based environment. We have even built an importer to convert your old stacks to web applications 😉 Check it out here: http://www.tilestack.com