A Response to Jon - first sketchy thoughts

In reply to my post on the forum Jon posted:

Great...that sounds fine and good. So...lets unpack hypercard a little further. Where did it come from...what was it originally designed to do....did it bring about the change they intended or something else?

What else was happening at the time Politically, Socially, Technologically....do some reading / thinking...and write me a three or four paragraph answer

The second bit I'm finding trickier. I was there but I need to do more than recount my own opinions!

So, by way of a temporary response:

Bill Atkinson (creator of Quickdraw, MacPaint) and influenced by Vannevar Bush, Alan Kay and Smalltalk created Hypercard starting in 1985 (originally Wildcard) with Dan Winkler supplying the language Hypertalk in 1986.

It was initially released in August 1987, with the understanding that Atkinson would give HyperCard to Apple only if they promised to release it for free on all Macs. Apple timed its release to coincide with the MacWorld Conference & Expo in Boston, Massachusetts to guarantee maximum publicity. HyperCard was a huge hit almost instantly.
Apple could not define its purpose, place in the product range or even market. The products endless capabilities seemed to potentially cut into the margins for ordinary shrink wrapped products. Even Atkinson has expressed surprise not just at its success but at the uses people were putting it to - see this link for some examples listed including renault

In its first year, one million copies of HyperCard were sold - in the previous year US computer use was 30m

HyperCard is a descendant of two ideas – a combination of a give away rolodex programme to keep track of his own journal articles plus his own research into searching and compressing algorithm for the future.

Atkinson is quoted as saying that:
“HyperCard is much more open and much more ambitious (than macpaint). . .
. . .HyperCard is something that you build on top of - It's going
to open up people because there are so many things you can do with it. . .
. . .It's certainly the largest thing I've attempted, and I
think its the most significant in terms of what it will do to the
computing community as a whole.”
“All the people with great ideas or specialized knowledge of
information won't need access to a professional Macintosh programmer with
time on his hands to express themselves. Making stacks is no big deal.
It's easy. The great ideas that are yet to come in the Macintosh
world are mostly going to be from people who aren't programmers but who
have great ideas. HyperCard is going to enable them.”
“
“The Macintosh dream has really been putting the power of the
personal computer into an individual person's hands.
HyperCard, acting like a software erector set, really opens up
Macintosh software architecture to where individual people can make
their own customized information environment, and interactive
information and applications without having to know any programming lan
guage. It takes the creation of software down to the level of MacPaint
images that you like, then pasting buttons on top of them to make them
do what you want. HyperCard puts this power into the hands of any
Macin tosh user. “

“. . .The most exciting thing for me is when
I see people amazed and pleased at the newfound power they got from a
program-when they say, ''Wow, I can do this!'' That's the feeling
people got back in 1984 when they saw MacPaint and started using it.
It's the same kind of feeling that is going to happen here with
HyperCard. But that feeling will be magnified, because the amount of
power you get out of HyperCard is really so much greater. HyperCard is
going to open up the whole meaning of what personal computers can be.”

“I think if we look a year from now, I'll bet there will be 20
times as many people making interactive inventions for the Macintosh as
there are now. A lot of people are going to get opened up, enabled,
empowered to control their computer. That's really what we're trying
to do. It's the same dream. Nothing's changed. It's the original
Macintosh dream of making the power of personal computer accessible to
anyone. HyperCard is just unfolding another layer of Macintosh. It
touches all the people who now own Macintosh computers, and a lot of
people who are going to own them because of this”


Technologically:
1984 – Macintosh
1985 – Windows
1986 Aldus Pagemaker
1987 – Hypercard
1987 Apple spins off application software business as Claris
1988 CDs outsell vynl for the first time
The introduction of Pagemaker in 1986 cemented the Mac as the core system of choice for Creatives with the emergence of the DTP market and the corresponding predictions of digital documents, paperless offices and the introduction of digital technology to print at the creative end. Correspondoingly Windows 1.0 would open up the PC platform to a greater number of people (albeit slowly) as the GUI took hold over the CLI. The idea of windows, menus, interactive regons on the screen, objects etc became part of the accepted computer experience whether Windows or Mac (PC users had to wait till windows 3.1 to really get this). Hypercard allowed creatives/educators/resrachers/tinkerers/geeks/ordinary Mac users to create products using these paradigms.
At the same time the CD was fast becoming the media vehicle of choice giving Hypercard products a new mechanism for distribution beyond the floppy.

Politically:
Thatcher Era in full swing – conservatism in the UK and the US – Thatcher re-elected
Privatisation at the forefront
Media organisation buyouts and mergers
1988 Liberal Democrats formed
The governments opposition to state control and group/community based decision making had now resulted in the first generation born into a world view where the needs of the individual are paramount.
The miners’ strike had all but killed the trade union movement and dealt a blow to the ability of the lower classes to influence political change and decision making.


Socially:
1987 Stock market collapse (Black Monday)
1986 Public Order Act
1987 Murdoch buys Herald & Weekly Times group, Harper & Row and South China Morning Post
With the needs of the individual paramount, those needs quickly become assumed fundamental rights.
Loadsamoney!
The beginning of the end of streaming in schools and the start of the ‘prizes for all’ culture. With the demise of individual political power, public attention focussed on other areas to assume some level of power/control including creation of media and the attainment of celebrity.
Post modernity replaces modernity as the prevailing view.

more to come . . .