Oh man, there is an absolute beauty with 1-bit graphics that I think is deeply underappreciated. When the right dithering algorithm is used, the graphics look like what characters in cyberpunk novels dream of. [1]
I secretly wish the dominant aesthetic in computing was one where everything was mac-like 1-bit dithered graphics, and we only used color when absolutely necessary - when the black and white graphics just couldn't convey what was needed. Like if instead of throwing it away for color, we had just built on top of it.
Side note, I'm also often struck how 1-bit-ish graphics sometimes were used to great effect on the ZXSpectrum, another minimally graphically capable computer of the era. When the game developers were trying to use color the games often looked worse than if they had just stuck with a simpler scheme. Chase H.Q., Bombjack, Pang!, etc. all look amazing to my eye.
Just to plug my own project here, or maybe for comparison: HyperCard Simulator at https://hcsimulator.com will import and run your classic HyperCard stacks as faithfully as possible.
Cool! But how is the scrolling supposed to work? I just read through the Seinfeld stack on my iPad (iOS 17, Safari) and the text of some cards was cut off at the bottom with no way to scroll down.
If the original stack allowed the field area to scroll it will, but it may not. I tried to get the fonts and sizes to match as well as possible but the Mac text is converted to UTF and is rendered as HTML; i spliced the dinosaur genetics with frog DNA.
I tried some of the examples on my phone but it ends up being basically microscopic because it's targetting a classic Mac resolution. I think it would help if it either did something intelligent with pixel doubling or some other scaling technique, or at least didn't disable the user's ability to zoom in when it's too small.
It (and Director, and Flash - and early javascript) were too hard to index and rank for search. The searchability paradigm crushed the creative paradigm in web, financially around 1999-2004 and ultimately culturally to the extent that the former model is barely remembered.
That’s not why it didn’t happen. The Web took off in 1995; Google was the first really good web search facility, and it arrived in 1998. There were earlier ones (I remember using AltaVista), but generally if you wanted to find things before Google you used either a directory like Yahoo or other web pages to find stuff.
We also don’t know what “index and ranking for search” would have looked like in a HyperCard-style web paradigm. Something like Google could work; it would have to be a sophisticated enough to parse stacks instead of HTML, but we’re already deep into an alternate universe, so I’ll stop here.
Also, “index and ranking for search” is probably a bad thing. SEO has absolutely destroyed the web.
Doesn't really check with how most modern SPAs flourish despite having basically the same problems as Flash of being incompatible with most web crawlers since more often than not you can't trust what they decide to put in the URL bar (if anything) actually links back to the state that is on screen.
It's funny people saying hard to index. A fixed format like hypercard or Pdf is easier to index than angular and react. I assume google must be using some kind of headless chrome to index modern webpages.
Also includes Lil - a programming language quite different from Hyperscript/Applescript, but which is beautiful and interesting in its own right — kind of a “humanized” vector language.
Oh man, there is an absolute beauty with 1-bit graphics that I think is deeply underappreciated. When the right dithering algorithm is used, the graphics look like what characters in cyberpunk novels dream of. [1]
I secretly wish the dominant aesthetic in computing was one where everything was mac-like 1-bit dithered graphics, and we only used color when absolutely necessary - when the black and white graphics just couldn't convey what was needed. Like if instead of throwing it away for color, we had just built on top of it.
Side note, I'm also often struck how 1-bit-ish graphics sometimes were used to great effect on the ZXSpectrum, another minimally graphically capable computer of the era. When the game developers were trying to use color the games often looked worse than if they had just stuck with a simpler scheme. Chase H.Q., Bombjack, Pang!, etc. all look amazing to my eye.
1 - https://surma.dev/things/ditherpunk/
Did you see this year's Chaos Communication Congress videos? They have a nice video intro in 1 bit dithering. Random video (first 10 seconds):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNc8HJEWMtM
Return of the Obra Dinn is also an amazing game with entirely 1-bit rendering.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/653530/Return_of_the_Obra...
Just to plug my own project here, or maybe for comparison: HyperCard Simulator at https://hcsimulator.com will import and run your classic HyperCard stacks as faithfully as possible.
https://hcsimulator.com/Pantechnicon/original-collection/Tho...
Those first years of personal computing inspired so much amazing creativity like this.
Cool! But how is the scrolling supposed to work? I just read through the Seinfeld stack on my iPad (iOS 17, Safari) and the text of some cards was cut off at the bottom with no way to scroll down.
If the original stack allowed the field area to scroll it will, but it may not. I tried to get the fonts and sizes to match as well as possible but the Mac text is converted to UTF and is rendered as HTML; i spliced the dinosaur genetics with frog DNA.
This is awesome! Nice job!
I tried some of the examples on my phone but it ends up being basically microscopic because it's targetting a classic Mac resolution. I think it would help if it either did something intelligent with pixel doubling or some other scaling technique, or at least didn't disable the user's ability to zoom in when it's too small.
In the top menu, you can click Decker > Fullscreen and it will scale to the width of your screen. It's pretty usable in landscape mode.
Related:
Decker: A Multimedia Sketchpad - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33377964 - Oct 2022 (88 comments)
Also, Decker: Responding to Responses: https://beyondloom.com/blog/responses.html
I wish HyperCard would have been the web UI instead of HTML. Simpler, more consistent, more intuitive, fewer distractions.
It (and Director, and Flash - and early javascript) were too hard to index and rank for search. The searchability paradigm crushed the creative paradigm in web, financially around 1999-2004 and ultimately culturally to the extent that the former model is barely remembered.
That’s not why it didn’t happen. The Web took off in 1995; Google was the first really good web search facility, and it arrived in 1998. There were earlier ones (I remember using AltaVista), but generally if you wanted to find things before Google you used either a directory like Yahoo or other web pages to find stuff.
We also don’t know what “index and ranking for search” would have looked like in a HyperCard-style web paradigm. Something like Google could work; it would have to be a sophisticated enough to parse stacks instead of HTML, but we’re already deep into an alternate universe, so I’ll stop here.
Also, “index and ranking for search” is probably a bad thing. SEO has absolutely destroyed the web.
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Doesn't really check with how most modern SPAs flourish despite having basically the same problems as Flash of being incompatible with most web crawlers since more often than not you can't trust what they decide to put in the URL bar (if anything) actually links back to the state that is on screen.
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It's funny people saying hard to index. A fixed format like hypercard or Pdf is easier to index than angular and react. I assume google must be using some kind of headless chrome to index modern webpages.
Are there any web based projects that implement a Hypercard-like interface (cards, scripting, drawing), but do it with modern graphics and databases?
The creator of Decker talked about the motivation behind Decker, its design and the design of its scripting language lil on the ArrayCast podcast: https://www.arraycast.com/episodes/episode43-john-earnest-de...
Very interesting episode!
Also includes Lil - a programming language quite different from Hyperscript/Applescript, but which is beautiful and interesting in its own right — kind of a “humanized” vector language.
Here's another re-creation of HyperCard, WyldCard: https://github.com/defano/wyldcard
Shameless plug: If you're looking to make graphics for 1-bit scenarios like this, I make an app for that called Retro Dither for the Mac: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/retro-dither-b-w-is-beautiful/...
The inclusion of Font/DA Mover when you use the "Resources..." menu item made me chortle with joy.
This is one of my favorite gags, so I'm glad at least a few people caught the reference.
Would you be able to explain it to those of us who did not grow up with Macs at the time?
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Looks great, Seems like the tool to remake Micro$oft Home - Encarta 95 Mind Maze
Will something ESP32-based be able to run Decker?
No.
Beautiful