Do you remember Hypercard? If you’re a (very) longtime Mac user, you might recall tinkering with the amazing Hypercard application, described by the creator as “a software erector set, which lets non-programmers put together interactive information” using the HyperTalk scripting language along with an easy to use interactive interface builder.
Though Hypercard was never brought along to the modern era in Mac OS X or iOS (sigh, maybe some day), if you’re feeling nostalgic for geeking out in HyperTalk one more time, you can easily run the entire Hypercard application and enjoy a bunch of retro HyperCard stacks on your modern Mac right now thanks to the great in-browser emulator on archive.org.
To run Hypercard today, all you need is a modern web browser running in Mac OS, Mac OS X, Windows, or Linux. Yes really.
We’ll link to four different ways to run HyperCard in a web browser, the first is simply Hypercard on it’s own in System 7.5.3, whereas the other three links are Hypercard with large collections of pre-made Hypercard stacks – some of which you will undoubtedly recognize if you geeked out any of this stuff decades ago. Each link below runs Hypercard atop an old Macintosh OS release in the web browser, all using emulation, you do not need to download or install anything, simply click the link to launch a new window and then click to boot up the browser based virtual machine.
Is this cool or what?
For many old Macintosh uses, Hypercard was their first foray into the mere concept of creating software, whether it was just a goofy soundboard, a simple application, or a game. Dedicated developers even built entire elaborate programs and games on the Hypercard platform, including the wildly popular 1993 game Myst.
* The video below from 1987 discusses Hypercard with the famous Apple engineer Bill Atkinson:
If you’re enjoying this retro blast from the past, you’ll likely enjoy our other emulator topics as well as running classic Mac OS in a browser based Mac Plus emulator too. Have some retro fun!
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