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Bill Atkinson has died

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Re: Bill Atkinson has died

#261

Post by mort96 »

asnyder wrote: post #260
matthewn wrote: post #13

In an alternate timeline, HyperCard was not allowed to wither and die, but instead continued to mature, embraced the web, and inspired an entire genre of software-creating software. In this timeline, people shape their computing experiences as easily as one might sculpt a piece of clay, creating personal apps that make perfect sense to them and fit like a glove; computing devices actually become (for everyone, not ju…

His legacy still exists and continues today. Even updated to modern sensibilities, cross-platform, and compatible with all your legacy Hypercard stacks! As far as I remember, progression was Hypercard -> Metacard -> Runtime Revolution -> Livecode. https://livecode.com I was a kid when this progression first happened, my older brother Tuviah Snyder (now at Apple), was responsible for much of these updates and changes…

This seems like something completely different? Livecode looks like just another toolkit or SDK for developing standalone apps, which might be great for the handful of developers using it but certainly doesn't do anything to re-shape how users interact with their computers

Re: Bill Atkinson has died

#262

Post by skeeter2020 »

jjcob wrote: post #250
matthewn wrote: post #13

In an alternate timeline, HyperCard was not allowed to wither and die, but instead continued to mature, embraced the web, and inspired an entire genre of software-creating software. In this timeline, people shape their computing experiences as easily as one might sculpt a piece of clay, creating personal apps that make perfect sense to them and fit like a glove; computing devices actually become (for everyone, not ju…

We kind of had that for a time with FileMaker and MS Access. People could build pretty amazing stuff with those apps, even without being a programmer. I think the reason those apps never became mainstream is that they didn't have a good solution for sharing data. There were some ways you could use them to access database servers, but setting them up was so difficult that they were for all intents and purposes limited…

the stuff I made in Access (and later Excel) looks a lot like the stuff I generate with AI these days!

Re: Bill Atkinson has died

#263

Post by asnyder »

mort96 wrote: post #261
asnyder wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His legacy still exists and continues today. Even updated to modern sensibilities, cross-platform, and compatible with all your legacy Hypercard stacks! As far as I remember, progression was Hypercard -> Metacard -> Runtime Revolution -> Livecode. https://livecode.com I was a kid when this progression first happened, my older brother Tuviah Snyder (now at Apple), was responsible for much of these updates and changes…

This seems like something completely different? Livecode looks like just another toolkit or SDK for developing standalone apps, which might be great for the handful of developers using it but certainly doesn't do anything to re-shape how users interact with their computers

Nope, is completely the same base. Scroll the homepage, and you'll see an example of Livecode (updated HyperTalk).

You can open your HyperCard stacks, or MetaCard stacks, or Runtime/Livecode Stacks in their IDE, code, edit, etc, similar to what you would have back in Hypercard days, but with modern features, updates, and additions.

It's backwards compatible with HyperTalk, its current language is an updated HyperTalk (i.e. an updated MetaTalk), that incorporates all that was, but adds new features for today.

Your Livecode apps can be deployed and run as cross-platform desktop applications (Mac, Win, *nix) , mobile applications, and as far as I remember, web applications with HTML5 deployment (so they say).

Not affiliated with them in any way, just sharing my understanding and memories.

Re: Bill Atkinson has died

#264

Post by selimthegrim »

stevenwoo wrote: post #193
alanfalcon wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An infamous Starcraft example also contains notes of a similar story where they were so humbled by a competitor's demo (and criticism that their own game was simply "Warcraft in space") that they went back and significantly overhauled their game. Former Ion Storm employees later revealed that Dominion’s E3 1996 demo was pre-rendered, with actors pretending to play, not live gameplay.

I got a look at an early version of StarCraft source code as a reference for the sound library for Diablo 2 and curiosity made me do a quick analysis of the other stuff - they used a very naive approach to C++ and object inheritance to which first time C++ programmers often fall victim. It might have been their first C++ project so they probably needed to start over again anyways. We had an edict on Diablo 2 to make…

What exactly did they do that was naive?

Re: Bill Atkinson has died

#266

Post by brentjanderson »

betamaxthetape wrote: post #208
brentjanderson wrote: post #199

Bill's contribution with HyperCard is of course legendary. Apart from the experience of classrooms and computer labs in elementary schools, it was also the primary software powering a fusion of bridge-simulator-meets-live-action-drama field trips (among many other things) for over 20 years at the Space Center in central Utah.[0] I was one of many beneficiaries of this program as a participant, volunteer, and staff me…

Is that stack available anywhere? Or do you have a copy?

Sadly, most of them are lost to time. There's one that I'm aware of at https://archive.org/details/hypercard_voyager-engineer-new is just one station of about 15 from one of the ships.

https://thoriumsim.com is a modern incarnation of the same software.

Re: Bill Atkinson has died

#268

Post by gdubs »

jcynix wrote: post #147
gdubs wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adding a bit more context: The World Wide Web arguably exists because of HyperCard. The idea that information can be hyperlinked together. Atkinson was a brilliant engineer. As critical to the launch of A Macintosh as anyone — efficient rendering of regions, overlapping windows, etc. And last but not least, Mac Paint. Every computer painting program in existence owes Atkinson a nod.

> The idea that information can be hyperlinked together. HyperCard was really cool and I miss it. Its most important feature IMO was to enable non-programmers to rather easily author useful software. As happend with Excel. The idea that information can be hyperlinked is much older than HyperCard. Check out Ted Nelson and his https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Xanadu which predates HyperCard by more than a decade.…

I'm pretty obsessed with these 'branches not taken' concepts in computing. Like, everything is the same today. And there's good usability arguments that things shouldn't be different for the sake of being different. But, there are so many forgotten concepts of the past that were arguably much more powerful, simple, expressive ways to interact with machines.

Re: Bill Atkinson has died

#269

Post by jonnytran »

Arathorn wrote: post #29
matthewn wrote: post #13

In an alternate timeline, HyperCard was not allowed to wither and die, but instead continued to mature, embraced the web, and inspired an entire genre of software-creating software. In this timeline, people shape their computing experiences as easily as one might sculpt a piece of clay, creating personal apps that make perfect sense to them and fit like a glove; computing devices actually become (for everyone, not ju…

It’s ironic that the next graphical programming environment similar to Hypercard was probably Flash - and it obviously died too. What actually are the best successors now, at least for authoring generic apps for the open web? (Other than vibe coding things)

Have you seen Scrappy? It’s still early, but it’s the most interesting thing I’ve seen in a while.

https://pontus.granstrom.me/scrappy/

Re: Bill Atkinson has died

#270

Post by tdhz77 »

I asked Bill if he thought I could become an engineer even after earning my degree in sociology and political science. I really enjoyed writing software at the time but had no formal training. He laughed as he did and said of course, and you will be better than most. He found it as a strength and not a weakness. I will miss him.
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