4 ms·

The thing that hypercard completely missed was the hyperlink. The second thing was that hypercard was a program html was a format. Another case of worse is be

by somat 4y ago

The thing that hypercard completely missed was the hyperlink. The second thing was that hypercard was a program html was a format. Another case of worse is better? shrug.

lukasb 4y ago
The thing html missed out on (which was part of the original vision, to be fair) was using the same program for editing and viewing.
- gardenfelder 4y ago
  And bi-directional links by way of Ted Nelson
  - somat 4y ago
    Bi-directional links are a non-starter from the perspective of having an autonomous distributed system. Think about it this way, would you be happy if any random scammer could place links into your web page, well, with bidirectional links, now they can.
    - tomjen3 4y ago
      Certainly, I wouldn't want spammers to be able to insert links into my text. However, if there was an option in my browser to see who had linked to the content, sorted by some reasonable measure, such as page-rank, don't you think that would be a good thing for the web?
      - Tagbert 4y ago
        The HTML way for that is HTTP Referer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_referer#:~:text=In%20HTTP%2C%20%22%20Referer%20%22%20%28a%20misspelling%20of,web%20page%20can%20see%20where%20the%20request%20originated https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_referer#:~:text=In%20HTTP... Your server would need to log and report on those entries. Of course, for privacy and other reasons, this is probably not dependable any more.
- tkk23 4y ago
  Netscape had it for a long time.
- doctor_eval 4y ago
  My recollection is the original graphical browsers were all editors. I’m pretty sure for example ViolaWWW was an editor, and directly referenced HyperCard too. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ViolaWWW https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ViolaWWW
Daub 4y ago
You all probably know this… Contemporary computing behavior is for the cursor to change to a little hand as it rolls over a link or button. This was first introduced by HyperCard, so it is there as an everyday reminder of its legacy.
- amatecha 4y ago
  On the same note, I often wonder why the mouse cursor on so many OSes is identical to the one used on the Macintosh[0]. Did they really all just copy what was in the Macintosh System Software, or was there an earlier pioneer of the typical black arrow with a white outline? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_Mac_OS#/media/File:Apple_Macintosh_Desktop.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_Mac_OS#/media/File:App...
  - cricalix 4y ago
    First image in this blog post shows the cursor as it was first(?) seen on an Alto. So, so much of our computing paradigms came from Xerox PARC. http://www.righto.com/2017/10/the-xerox-alto-smalltalk-and-rewriting.html http://www.righto.com/2017/10/the-xerox-alto-smalltalk-and-r...
    - amatecha 4y ago
      Ah yeah but the "tail" on that arrow is much longer! The one I see in Linux and BSDs appears to be literally pixel-for-pixel identical to the Macintosh one, though I haven't exactly done a closeup comparison.
      - lelanthran 4y ago
        > Ah yeah but the "tail" on that arrow is much longer! The one I see in Linux and BSDs appears to be literally pixel-for-pixel identical to the Macintosh one, though I haven't exactly done a closeup comparison. They are quite similar, but there's more pixel differences between current Linux/BSD pointers and the Macintosh pointer than there are between the Macintosh pointer than the Alto one (roughly 1 pixel difference). IOW, Macintosh is closer to the Alto one than it is to the Linux/BSD ones.
msephton 4y ago
But the Hyper in HyperCard literally means hyperlink.
KerrAvon 4y ago
HyperCard absolutely had hyperlinks, and later versions had them in recognizable form before the web did — you could link from an arbitrary range of text in a text field.
- amatecha 4y ago
  You could link to content _in another Stack_ (file) , for that matter. HyperCard absolutely had hyperlinks :) They were just called Buttons, but you could not only directly link to something, but also attach scripting to do additional stuff, pretty much exactly like the <a> tag we use and attach click events to today. I mean, I guess it wasn't like a piece of inline text, but you would just overlay a transparent button. That's a method I used, but there were probably better ways to link text. It was a long time ago, tough to even remember haha
  - galaxyLogic 4y ago
    But you could not link to content on another machine. I think that was the thing that made HyperCard obsolete the day HTML arrived.
    - fragmede 4y ago
      the way I remember it, hypercard was hosted locally, as in, you'd get it on a floppy and then copy it to your computer. so linking to another computer didn't really make sense in that pre-Internet era
    - vanderZwan 4y ago
      > the day HTML arrived. I don't know where you lived but where I did internet adoption was slow, and most computers operated in isolation for years before everyone was connected. Floppy disks and CD-ROM reigned supreme for quite a while. Long enough for a new version of HyperCard to have come out with hyperlink support if that had been a priority.
      - somat 4y ago

by somat 4y ago

The thing that hypercard completely missed was the hyperlink. The second thing was that hypercard was a program html was a format. Another case of worse is better? shrug.

lukasb 4y ago

The thing html missed out on (which was part of the original vision, to be fair) was using the same program for editing and viewing.

gardenfelder 4y ago
And bi-directional links by way of Ted Nelson
- somat 4y ago
  Bi-directional links are a non-starter from the perspective of having an autonomous distributed system. Think about it this way, would you be happy if any random scammer could place links into your web page, well, with bidirectional links, now they can.
  - tomjen3 4y ago
    Certainly, I wouldn't want spammers to be able to insert links into my text. However, if there was an option in my browser to see who had linked to the content, sorted by some reasonable measure, such as page-rank, don't you think that would be a good thing for the web?
    - Tagbert 4y ago
      The HTML way for that is HTTP Referer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_referer#:~:text=In%20HTTP%2C%20%22%20Referer%20%22%20%28a%20misspelling%20of,web%20page%20can%20see%20where%20the%20request%20originated https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_referer#:~:text=In%20HTTP... Your server would need to log and report on those entries. Of course, for privacy and other reasons, this is probably not dependable any more.
tkk23 4y ago
Netscape had it for a long time.
doctor_eval 4y ago
My recollection is the original graphical browsers were all editors. I’m pretty sure for example ViolaWWW was an editor, and directly referenced HyperCard too. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ViolaWWW https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ViolaWWW

Daub 4y ago

You all probably know this… Contemporary computing behavior is for the cursor to change to a little hand as it rolls over a link or button. This was first introduced by HyperCard, so it is there as an everyday reminder of its legacy.

amatecha 4y ago
On the same note, I often wonder why the mouse cursor on so many OSes is identical to the one used on the Macintosh[0]. Did they really all just copy what was in the Macintosh System Software, or was there an earlier pioneer of the typical black arrow with a white outline? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_Mac_OS#/media/File:Apple_Macintosh_Desktop.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_Mac_OS#/media/File:App...
- cricalix 4y ago
  First image in this blog post shows the cursor as it was first(?) seen on an Alto. So, so much of our computing paradigms came from Xerox PARC. http://www.righto.com/2017/10/the-xerox-alto-smalltalk-and-rewriting.html http://www.righto.com/2017/10/the-xerox-alto-smalltalk-and-r...
  - amatecha 4y ago
    Ah yeah but the "tail" on that arrow is much longer! The one I see in Linux and BSDs appears to be literally pixel-for-pixel identical to the Macintosh one, though I haven't exactly done a closeup comparison.
    - lelanthran 4y ago
      > Ah yeah but the "tail" on that arrow is much longer! The one I see in Linux and BSDs appears to be literally pixel-for-pixel identical to the Macintosh one, though I haven't exactly done a closeup comparison. They are quite similar, but there's more pixel differences between current Linux/BSD pointers and the Macintosh pointer than there are between the Macintosh pointer than the Alto one (roughly 1 pixel difference). IOW, Macintosh is closer to the Alto one than it is to the Linux/BSD ones.

msephton 4y ago

But the Hyper in HyperCard literally means hyperlink.

KerrAvon 4y ago

HyperCard absolutely had hyperlinks, and later versions had them in recognizable form before the web did — you could link from an arbitrary range of text in a text field.

amatecha 4y ago
You could link to content _in another Stack_ (file) , for that matter. HyperCard absolutely had hyperlinks :) They were just called Buttons, but you could not only directly link to something, but also attach scripting to do additional stuff, pretty much exactly like the <a> tag we use and attach click events to today. I mean, I guess it wasn't like a piece of inline text, but you would just overlay a transparent button. That's a method I used, but there were probably better ways to link text. It was a long time ago, tough to even remember haha
- galaxyLogic 4y ago
  But you could not link to content on another machine. I think that was the thing that made HyperCard obsolete the day HTML arrived.
  - fragmede 4y ago
    the way I remember it, hypercard was hosted locally, as in, you'd get it on a floppy and then copy it to your computer. so linking to another computer didn't really make sense in that pre-Internet era
  - vanderZwan 4y ago
    > the day HTML arrived. I don't know where you lived but where I did internet adoption was slow, and most computers operated in isolation for years before everyone was connected. Floppy disks and CD-ROM reigned supreme for quite a while. Long enough for a new version of HyperCard to have come out with hyperlink support if that had been a priority.
    - somat 4y ago