HyperCard Stack

ハイパーカードのスタック / 1987–2004 / Layout / Digital Retro

Stacks of screens made and passed around by amateurs, drawn one bit black on white. A single card fills the screen instead of a page, picture and text are pasted onto the same surface, and a row of small icon buttons along the bottom jumps to another card or another stack.

HyperCard Stack — Karl Baron, HyperTalk script editor on a Macintosh Plus, 2008 — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 2.0
Karl Baron, HyperTalk script editor on a Macintosh Plus, 2008 — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 2.0 · CC BY 2.0

At a glance

Visual cues

  • One card filling the screen, with no motion of turning a page
  • One bit black on white drawing, where greys and photographs both arrive as dither patterns
  • A row of small square icon buttons packed along the bottom edge of the card
  • Picture and text sharing one surface, with an input field marked by a single rule

Best used for

  • Building an exhibition screen that presents holdings one card at a time instead of as a run of pages
  • Rebuilding the feel of late 1980s and 1990s homemade software in one bit black and white

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Dictionary entry

Type
Use a bitmap screen face. Do not enlarge headings, and let text carry the same weight as the drawing on the card.
Composition
One card is one screen. Put the shared frame on the background layer and lay the individual picture and text over it. Pack the navigation buttons along the bottom.
Material
Black on white at one bit. Make midtones from dither patterns and halftone any photograph before placing it. Draw outlines as single pixel rules.
Caution
Hiding the links inside the artwork erases the way back, and nobody can tell which stack they are in or how far along it.
Further study
the near English phrasing of HyperTalk, made by Dan Winkler in 1986 and 1987 / the fact that Myst first shipped as a bundle of cards / the make of the stacks that circulated free as teaching material and address books

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Cite this entry

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Link
https://indexstyle.org/styles/hypercard
Markdown
[HyperCard Stack — IndexStyle](https://indexstyle.org/styles/hypercard)
HTML
<a href="https://indexstyle.org/styles/hypercard">HyperCard Stack — IndexStyle</a>

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