22 ms·

I liked seeing the examples of creating a calculator in HyperCard, but I don’t think that Steve Jobs killed it because it was some existential threat to Apple’s

I liked seeing the examples of creating a calculator in HyperCard, but I don’t think that Steve Jobs killed it because it was some existential threat to Apple’s profits. Apple gives away its software for free when you buy a Mac, and to my knowledge they don’t make a large fraction of money on selling software licenses. It’s also completely possible to run your own code today on a Mac, so we would have to believe that Jobs was only out to get the in-house easy to use programming language. More likely is that Jobs wanted to use work from NextStep for OSX which would mean rewriting HyperCard to work with NextStep, and Apple wasn’t exactly flush with cash when Jobs returned. One of the commenters notes that there was a clone for NextStep called “HyperSense” which failed to sell. So another possibility here is that HyperCard just wasn’t as popular as we’d want it to be.

JKCalhoun 6y ago
I see it as not-invented-here. He was in love with NeXT Step because it was his. The Apple ][ shipped with BASIC. Apple was not founded on letting you consume your computer. But the world had changed since the 1970's and there was a software ecosystem. Hypercard would seem to have brought programming to the masses. But by then there was a broad base of software companies that would provide users the calculator app, etc. This leaves Hypercard, like BASIC before it, a rather more beautiful and modern tool for nerds. And you can tell Jobs always had an uneasy relationship with nerds. :-)
- easton 6y ago
  > He was in love with NeXTSTEP because it was his. Famously, when he returned to Apple, he used NeXTSTEP/OpenStep instead of a Mac until Mac OS X 10.1 came out and it was stable enough for production use. I can't find the article, but someone received an email from him around 2000 where the headers said NeXTMail. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12182350 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12182350
  - p_l 6y ago
    Keynote was developed as a ripoff of the presentation program he used on NeXTSTEP called Concurrence, so it's an easy point in time to check how late (2003) Jobs used NeXT at least for some work. iWork suite didn't become "free" until 2013, and even then you have to buy a new mac or iOS device (so for example, given that I bought my mac used, I'd have to buy it new)
gfxgirl 6y ago
> Apple gives away its software for free when you buy a Mac, Correction: Apple charges a premium for their computers because that premium pays for all the software packages they include with it. XCode, Keynote, Pages, Numbers, etc... None of that is included in Windows but I can buy a fully usable by most people Windows laptop for $299 vs the cheapest Mac laptop is $999. Of course some of that $700 difference is that Mac is a better piece of hardware but much of it is you're paying for all the extra software. BTW: If I could choose to buy a Mac for $200-$300 less without most of the extra software I would since I don't use any of it.
- quonn 6y ago
  It‘s a nice theory, but impossible to prove. I‘d like to imagine the difference is because Apple makes a very nice profit, unlike many others.
  - gfxgirl 6y ago
    The bigger point is it's not free. Otherwise you can claim any part of a Mac is free. You're paying $999 for an OS and getting a free machine. You're paying $999 for a keyboard that has a free computer attached to it. Etc.. no, you're paying $999 for the entire bundle of features that come with your Mac. That includes the software. It's not free any more than any other part of it is free.
- twobitshifter 6y ago
  Thank you, free was not the right choice of words. My point was that Apple does not make its money selling individual pieces of software which would be endangered by HyperCard. Apple should be indifferent whether someone prefers using the OSX calculator or a version written in HyperCard. They’ve already paid for the machine and the software before they can start using HyperCard.
- Eric_WVGG 6y ago
  "paying for all the extra software" Are you referring to the productivity suite (Pages, Keynote, etc.) and GarageBand? These are apps that haven't seen significant new features in years, just occasional patches for OS requirements and a bit of iCloud functionality. These apps are functionally "complete." I think there's a pretty grey line between "you're paying for bundled software" and "Apple is just giving away these old things that cost them nothing to keep functional." If you had a peek at the spreadsheet that lists the expenses of "macbook" (materials, TSMC fees, industrial design man-hours, OS programming hours, etc.), "Pages" would not be a $50 line item. And if Apple dropped that bundled software Macbooks wouldn't drop by $200 or whatever.
perardi 6y ago
I think you've about got it. I don't think this was Apple's attempt to stifle the ability to code on your own computer. They shipped Project Builder on, what, day 1 of Mac OS X? It's more likely that… …this was not super popular, as what's the possible market for an app that builds applets that only work on Macs? Given Mac marketshare at the time, maybe not a lot of hobbyists who (a) wanted to make an app, but (b) didn't want to dive into building a full UIKit application. …this thing was confusing to market. It's hard to give the 1-liner description of HyperCard. …this got dropped because it was not part of the core focus of getting a next-generation operating system out the door. …maybe they didn't actually know how to rewrite it for OS X? Like, did anyone know how the HyperTalk interpreter worked besides the guy who make it?
- anthk 6y ago
  |maybe they didn't actually know how to rewrite it for OS X? Carbon existed in OSX.
addicted 6y ago
I don’t think the authors claim is about it killing money making potential. It seems to me the authors claim is that HyperCard did not belong to Jobs’s vision of a computer as basically an appliance. HyperCard fit better in a vision where a computer was more of a tool.
cmrdporcupine 6y ago
Late-80/early-90s Apple marketing: "The computer for the rest of us" and "User friendly." (doesn't work well because people don't want to pay extra for something that feels like it's for "beginners" and also don't want to think of themselves as "newbies" or "amateurs") Mid-90s marketing: "Think Different" (fine, but many people don't like to think of themselves as "weird") and "It just works" late 2000s, 2010s marketing: Straight up luxury branding. Aspirational, like a BMW, Mercedes, or a high end appliance.
rvense 6y ago
I don't think Hypercard saw many significant updates in its lifetime after version 2 came out in 1989. It barely supported color, was never PPC native, etc. Maybe its codebase wasn't fit to be updated (it was a very early Mac app written mostly by one genius coder, after all), or maybe it was just internal politics that made it languish, but by the time Jobs came back it was already an old, weird, out-of-place product. As much as I love it, it was my first exposure to programming, I'm not really surprised it was cut, and I strongly disagree with the friendly article that it was some conspiracy against computer users' freedom.

JKCalhoun 6y ago

I see it as not-invented-here. He was in love with NeXT Step because it was his. The Apple ][ shipped with BASIC. Apple was not founded on letting you consume your computer. But the world had changed since the 1970's and there was a software ecosystem. Hypercard would seem to have brought programming to the masses. But by then there was a broad base of software companies that would provide users the calculator app, etc. This leaves Hypercard, like BASIC before it, a rather more beautiful and modern tool for nerds. And you can tell Jobs always had an uneasy relationship with nerds. :-)

easton 6y ago
> He was in love with NeXTSTEP because it was his. Famously, when he returned to Apple, he used NeXTSTEP/OpenStep instead of a Mac until Mac OS X 10.1 came out and it was stable enough for production use. I can't find the article, but someone received an email from him around 2000 where the headers said NeXTMail. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12182350 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12182350
- p_l 6y ago
  Keynote was developed as a ripoff of the presentation program he used on NeXTSTEP called Concurrence, so it's an easy point in time to check how late (2003) Jobs used NeXT at least for some work. iWork suite didn't become "free" until 2013, and even then you have to buy a new mac or iOS device (so for example, given that I bought my mac used, I'd have to buy it new)

gfxgirl 6y ago

> Apple gives away its software for free when you buy a Mac, Correction: Apple charges a premium for their computers because that premium pays for all the software packages they include with it. XCode, Keynote, Pages, Numbers, etc... None of that is included in Windows but I can buy a fully usable by most people Windows laptop for $299 vs the cheapest Mac laptop is $999. Of course some of that $700 difference is that Mac is a better piece of hardware but much of it is you're paying for all the extra software. BTW: If I could choose to buy a Mac for $200-$300 less without most of the extra software I would since I don't use any of it.

quonn 6y ago
It‘s a nice theory, but impossible to prove. I‘d like to imagine the difference is because Apple makes a very nice profit, unlike many others.
- gfxgirl 6y ago
  The bigger point is it's not free. Otherwise you can claim any part of a Mac is free. You're paying $999 for an OS and getting a free machine. You're paying $999 for a keyboard that has a free computer attached to it. Etc.. no, you're paying $999 for the entire bundle of features that come with your Mac. That includes the software. It's not free any more than any other part of it is free.
twobitshifter 6y ago
Thank you, free was not the right choice of words. My point was that Apple does not make its money selling individual pieces of software which would be endangered by HyperCard. Apple should be indifferent whether someone prefers using the OSX calculator or a version written in HyperCard. They’ve already paid for the machine and the software before they can start using HyperCard.
Eric_WVGG 6y ago
"paying for all the extra software" Are you referring to the productivity suite (Pages, Keynote, etc.) and GarageBand? These are apps that haven't seen significant new features in years, just occasional patches for OS requirements and a bit of iCloud functionality. These apps are functionally "complete." I think there's a pretty grey line between "you're paying for bundled software" and "Apple is just giving away these old things that cost them nothing to keep functional." If you had a peek at the spreadsheet that lists the expenses of "macbook" (materials, TSMC fees, industrial design man-hours, OS programming hours, etc.), "Pages" would not be a $50 line item. And if Apple dropped that bundled software Macbooks wouldn't drop by $200 or whatever.

perardi 6y ago

I think you've about got it. I don't think this was Apple's attempt to stifle the ability to code on your own computer. They shipped Project Builder on, what, day 1 of Mac OS X? It's more likely that… …this was not super popular, as what's the possible market for an app that builds applets that only work on Macs? Given Mac marketshare at the time, maybe not a lot of hobbyists who (a) wanted to make an app, but (b) didn't want to dive into building a full UIKit application. …this thing was confusing to market. It's hard to give the 1-liner description of HyperCard. …this got dropped because it was not part of the core focus of getting a next-generation operating system out the door. …maybe they didn't actually know how to rewrite it for OS X? Like, did anyone know how the HyperTalk interpreter worked besides the guy who make it?

anthk 6y ago
|maybe they didn't actually know how to rewrite it for OS X? Carbon existed in OSX.

addicted 6y ago

I don’t think the authors claim is about it killing money making potential. It seems to me the authors claim is that HyperCard did not belong to Jobs’s vision of a computer as basically an appliance. HyperCard fit better in a vision where a computer was more of a tool.

cmrdporcupine 6y ago

Late-80/early-90s Apple marketing: "The computer for the rest of us" and "User friendly." (doesn't work well because people don't want to pay extra for something that feels like it's for "beginners" and also don't want to think of themselves as "newbies" or "amateurs") Mid-90s marketing: "Think Different" (fine, but many people don't like to think of themselves as "weird") and "It just works" late 2000s, 2010s marketing: Straight up luxury branding. Aspirational, like a BMW, Mercedes, or a high end appliance.

rvense 6y ago

I don't think Hypercard saw many significant updates in its lifetime after version 2 came out in 1989. It barely supported color, was never PPC native, etc. Maybe its codebase wasn't fit to be updated (it was a very early Mac app written mostly by one genius coder, after all), or maybe it was just internal politics that made it languish, but by the time Jobs came back it was already an old, weird, out-of-place product. As much as I love it, it was my first exposure to programming, I'm not really surprised it was cut, and I strongly disagree with the friendly article that it was some conspiracy against computer users' freedom.