I'm afraid that HyperCard is too old for broader audience to be able to grasp how extraordinary experience it was providing.
As a 6-7yo I had a collection of English words, stored with my own definitions and pronunciations, using basic building blocks, and it was as easy and intuitive as writing these words in my notebook.
People used the same building primitives to make real games or stuff like accounting applications.
And the best part - at that time it didn't looked cheap.
This one is really hard to describe - it's the same uncanny valley that makes small village in Fallout 1 feel massive and full of people despite it taking two screens with just few sprites running around, while full blown 3D world of Fallout 3, with real buildings and voice overs felt flat, soulless and empty.
The Fallout analogy is perfect. Limitation stimulates imagination. I think that’s part of why essentially limitless AI models produce things that are so devoid of it.
Is there a place these days for interfaces like this? I’m thinking about self contained applications like HyperCard stacks, but also FileMaker databases or even Access databases where we had interfaces linked to a database all as a self contained application. These tools with scripting languages powered a ton of small business applications. I know a lab I worked with was still using FileMaker databases up until a few years ago. These were user developed applications, done by people who may have been a bit technical, but who didn’t to know a full programming language.
If you’re a small shop and have a need for a little database, what do you use? Is there a default now? Notion?
I've seen people (non IT) do similar things (i.e. develop small applications) with Excel.
I created my bibliographic database with HyperCard. And I still miss it. HyperCard's attractiveness was the easy UI creation. FileMaker wasn't bad, but a bit more limited UI wise. And sqlite, while a phantastic DB misses the easy UI.
It’s more that I haven’t really seen many examples of Access or FileMaker applications in the wild for a while. Most of these were CRUD apps that were able to be moved to the web. But that doesn’t mean that typical users are any more capable of navigating hosting setups for modern CRUD web apps.
The FileMaker example I saw was really for a legacy shop that was primarily used for existing applications. Nothing new was being added.
But I’m sure there are more examples in the wild than I would have seen. I was curious what the larger HN community has seen or has experience with.
I mean, for me, I’d probably put something in a SQLite database and build a simple web GUI on top of it. But I know that’s an option. What does a typical office worker do these days? Put everything in Excel? (That’s probably the answer)
SQLite doesn’t have a built-in user interface. The value of something like FileMaker isn’t the underlying storage mechanism, it’s the WYSIWYG user interface building that lets you quickly build custom apps around it
This reminds me of LiveCode[1] (aka Revolution and MetaCard) which I’ve used quite a bit about a decade ago. Was also inspired by HyperCard. Just checked their site again and it seems they’ve discontinued the open source version and have pivoted to an AI-assisted drag and drop UI builder.
I'm using LiveCode for a dozen personal applications (and for just the fun of coding; I'm a retired s/w engineer). It's no longer free, but I started with HyperCard and LiveCode is an excellent replacement, at least for me.
If you want the "agentic future" version of this (sorry), tldraw just relased "tldraw offline"[1] which in some ways has a lot of overlap with HyperCard as well.
I miss HyperCard and I love projects like this at a nostalgia level - but if you're going to have aspirations that this is useful today (2026) with a real project then its a complete waste of time.
I want HyperCard where I can build out a stack or whatever and actually present it to people as a real and tangible thing. I love living in the past as much as anyone else, but this is a little disappointing.
A lot of these modern HyperCard reinterpretations get stuck on the black-and-white aesthetics of the original. That's cool, but it limits how broadly appealing they become. Even back when HyperCard was relevant, Apple's inability to properly introduce color as a first-class feature was what effectively killed the product.
A few years ago, I think there would have been a market for a HyperCard-inspired tool that targeted modern technologies - probably web tech.
Today, I guess vibecoding is what HyperCard was in the 80s and 90s, the tool you can use to quickly and easily build a little program that fills your specific need.
It seems application state is mainly maintained in the widgets. Reminds me of Delphi. Is there a similar concept for representing state in a well-suited data structures, that can be created and composed visually like the UI widgets?
The HyperCard legacy lives on! The self-contained single-file HTML export alone makes this a fantastic medium for web zines and indie games, and the dithered aesthetic gives it immediate charm. Looking forward to diving into Lil.
Decker is neat. I was in the process of using it the other day, but discovered it did not have much by way of font size adjustment in text fields. You could make a heading, but I didn't see a way to make it bigger or larger than simply being a heading.
Decker fonts are composed of fixed-size bitmaps. The included example "fonts.deck" has a variety of additional fonts to choose from in various sizes, and an editor:
awesome, already love the detailed feature set. one thing I'd love is the option to change themes. for eg. i'd like a more modern theme if i want to create a presentation and send it across. retro is a bit of a cognitive overload on users who are now habitual of navigating a different type of UI.
Decker prefers integral upscaling. On most browsers, "Decker -> Fullscreen" in the menu (or "app.fullscreen:1" from a script) will enable "stretching", but this feature is not supported by Safari on iPhones last time I tested.
I'm afraid that HyperCard is too old for broader audience to be able to grasp how extraordinary experience it was providing.
As a 6-7yo I had a collection of English words, stored with my own definitions and pronunciations, using basic building blocks, and it was as easy and intuitive as writing these words in my notebook.
People used the same building primitives to make real games or stuff like accounting applications.
And the best part - at that time it didn't looked cheap.
This one is really hard to describe - it's the same uncanny valley that makes small village in Fallout 1 feel massive and full of people despite it taking two screens with just few sprites running around, while full blown 3D world of Fallout 3, with real buildings and voice overs felt flat, soulless and empty.
The Fallout analogy is perfect. Limitation stimulates imagination. I think that’s part of why essentially limitless AI models produce things that are so devoid of it.
the original Myst was created using HyperCard... which in and of itself is a crazy app with a huge impact on gaming in general.
Previously:
Decker: A reincarnation of HyperCard with 1-bit graphics - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40292181 - May 2024 (78 comments)
Decker – A HyperCard Replacement - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38985409 - Jan 2024 (36 comments)
Decker, a platform that builds on the legacy of Hypercard and classic macOS - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33377964 - Oct 2022 (88 comments)
Most recently, 27 days ago with 9 comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48693273
Is there a place these days for interfaces like this? I’m thinking about self contained applications like HyperCard stacks, but also FileMaker databases or even Access databases where we had interfaces linked to a database all as a self contained application. These tools with scripting languages powered a ton of small business applications. I know a lab I worked with was still using FileMaker databases up until a few years ago. These were user developed applications, done by people who may have been a bit technical, but who didn’t to know a full programming language.
If you’re a small shop and have a need for a little database, what do you use? Is there a default now? Notion?
I've seen people (non IT) do similar things (i.e. develop small applications) with Excel.
I created my bibliographic database with HyperCard. And I still miss it. HyperCard's attractiveness was the easy UI creation. FileMaker wasn't bad, but a bit more limited UI wise. And sqlite, while a phantastic DB misses the easy UI.
an llm coding agent?
Why past tense, Filemaker and Access are still being sold.
A solution would probably be Airtable.
It’s more that I haven’t really seen many examples of Access or FileMaker applications in the wild for a while. Most of these were CRUD apps that were able to be moved to the web. But that doesn’t mean that typical users are any more capable of navigating hosting setups for modern CRUD web apps.
The FileMaker example I saw was really for a legacy shop that was primarily used for existing applications. Nothing new was being added.
But I’m sure there are more examples in the wild than I would have seen. I was curious what the larger HN community has seen or has experience with.
I mean, for me, I’d probably put something in a SQLite database and build a simple web GUI on top of it. But I know that’s an option. What does a typical office worker do these days? Put everything in Excel? (That’s probably the answer)
SQLite seems to me like it fits the bill.
SQLite doesn’t have a built-in user interface. The value of something like FileMaker isn’t the underlying storage mechanism, it’s the WYSIWYG user interface building that lets you quickly build custom apps around it
This reminds me of LiveCode[1] (aka Revolution and MetaCard) which I’ve used quite a bit about a decade ago. Was also inspired by HyperCard. Just checked their site again and it seems they’ve discontinued the open source version and have pivoted to an AI-assisted drag and drop UI builder.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiveCode
I'm using LiveCode for a dozen personal applications (and for just the fun of coding; I'm a retired s/w engineer). It's no longer free, but I started with HyperCard and LiveCode is an excellent replacement, at least for me.
If you want the "agentic future" version of this (sorry), tldraw just relased "tldraw offline"[1] which in some ways has a lot of overlap with HyperCard as well.
[1] https://offline.tldraw.com/
Is there a scripting language for this? That was what really differentiated HyperCard and made it a replacement for the never-released MacBasic:
https://www.folklore.org/MacBasic.html
I miss HyperCard and I love projects like this at a nostalgia level - but if you're going to have aspirations that this is useful today (2026) with a real project then its a complete waste of time.
I want HyperCard where I can build out a stack or whatever and actually present it to people as a real and tangible thing. I love living in the past as much as anyone else, but this is a little disappointing.
A lot of these modern HyperCard reinterpretations get stuck on the black-and-white aesthetics of the original. That's cool, but it limits how broadly appealing they become. Even back when HyperCard was relevant, Apple's inability to properly introduce color as a first-class feature was what effectively killed the product.
A few years ago, I think there would have been a market for a HyperCard-inspired tool that targeted modern technologies - probably web tech.
Today, I guess vibecoding is what HyperCard was in the 80s and 90s, the tool you can use to quickly and easily build a little program that fills your specific need.
I use personal applications written in Decker on a daily basis.
There are over 300 games, zines, visual novels, and toys built with Decker on itch.io: https://itch.io/games/tag-decker
Last month saw the first game made entirely in Decker published on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4693460/The_Dreams_in_the...
We are neither living in the past nor wasting our time.
HyperCardSimulator.com lets you make and import stacks anonymously and link to them online. Enjoy!
It seems application state is mainly maintained in the widgets. Reminds me of Delphi. Is there a similar concept for representing state in a well-suited data structures, that can be created and composed visually like the UI widgets?
Decker heavily emphasizes the concept of "reified data", representing information as tangible entities within a deck.
You can create "contraptions" as specialized data containers/editors for specific applications:
http://beyondloom.com/decker/decker.html#customwidgets
For example, "WigglyKit" offers several contraptions which operate on a shared convention for representing animated images:
http://beyondloom.com/decker/wigglykit.html
You can also represent composite data as a series of cards in a deck, or use cards as encapsulated "objects" that you communicate with via events:
http://beyondloom.com/blog/sketchpad.html#cardsarerecords
In a pinch, you can also easily encode arbitrary data in fields as a JSON superset with their ".data" attribute.
The HyperCard legacy lives on! The self-contained single-file HTML export alone makes this a fantastic medium for web zines and indie games, and the dithered aesthetic gives it immediate charm. Looking forward to diving into Lil.
Decker is neat. I was in the process of using it the other day, but discovered it did not have much by way of font size adjustment in text fields. You could make a heading, but I didn't see a way to make it bigger or larger than simply being a heading.
Decker fonts are composed of fixed-size bitmaps. The included example "fonts.deck" has a variety of additional fonts to choose from in various sizes, and an editor:
https://beyondloom.com/decker/fonts.html
We also recently gained a library for working with vector-based text:
https://beyondloom.com/decker/hershey.html
Ah. That would have been good to know! I was looking mostly in the interface for a font size tweaker of some kind.
awesome, already love the detailed feature set. one thing I'd love is the option to change themes. for eg. i'd like a more modern theme if i want to create a presentation and send it across. retro is a bit of a cognitive overload on users who are now habitual of navigating a different type of UI.
Looks awesome! Very oddly super small window for it in iOS safari though.
Decker prefers integral upscaling. On most browsers, "Decker -> Fullscreen" in the menu (or "app.fullscreen:1" from a script) will enable "stretching", but this feature is not supported by Safari on iPhones last time I tested.