200 Points of Light - an incredible HyperCard Stack developed by Maya.
Found via an interesting post by Jer Thorpe here: creativeapplications.net
Who I actually remember speaking about HyperCard cicra 2010 at Flash on the Beach, saying it was the program that inspired him to get into computers and programming. Grant Skinner also mentioned HyperCard last year at Reasons to be Creative, showing examples of some early HyperCard games he'd made as a kid.
Anyhow, mild digressions aside, what I find so extraordinary about 200 Points is that it completely by-passes the linear, screen filling 'one card at a time' convention you so often see with HyperCard. Indeed working with HyperCard does tend to dictate this format I've discovered, which is a little difficult to get away from - a reason I find 200 Points so fascinating, not to mention the handy HyperTalk functionality for slicing and dicing database content - great! Described as a 'three dimensional interface paradigm', it reminds me very much of the kinds of ideas Ted Nelson cites in Dream Machines...
A summary of interesting points Jer makes in his post:
The game Myst started off as a HyperCard stack
The Beatles had an official 'A Hard Days Night' stack
XCMD's & XFCN's were a collection of external commands for HyperCard, a pre cursor to the modern plug-in
HyperCard could be connected to an ADBY box (developed by Beehive Technology) - the Arduino controller of its time
HyperCard is an intuitive tool that let the average computer user build their own tools - using a pre-built UI, drag-and-drop features and scripts written 'in English'
Some good points for development - in relation to my own research:
HyperCard fits well with Alan Kay's ideas for accessible OOP environments that are extendable and have stages of complexity
It is not a hypertext program per say, but rather a 'Software erector set' (bill Atkinson) and as such fits well with models of non linear thinking/ thought processing and Bricolage?
The existence of the ADBY box points to the existence of maker style communities gathered around HyperCard (added to those already in existence, which traded useful stacks) - points to communities of craft and worth further investigation.
To follow up:
Themes related to computational thinking/ subjectivity - Papert. S, 'Images of the Learning Society' in Mindstorms. Children, Computers and Powerful Ideas'
In Practice:
I have decided to focus more specifically on HyperCard and more advanced scripting in it. Squeak, is great but a bit too involved for this stage of my research, and therefore can wait til later...
With this in mind, a search of archive.org revealed this book by Danny Goodman - so far excellent, very thorough, with plenty on HyperTalk.
archive.org - the complete hyperCard handbook
