Decker, a platform that builds on the legacy of Hypercard and classic macOS

1 day ago (beyondloom.com)

Also, interview with creator: https://www.arraycast.com/2025/01/04/Decker.html

104 comments

tosh

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zeroq  1 day ago

I'm afraid that HyperCard is too old for broader audience to be able to grasp how extraordinary experience it was providing.

As a 6-7yo I had a collection of English words, stored with my own definitions and pronunciations, using basic building blocks, and it was as easy and intuitive as writing these words in my notebook.

People used the same building primitives to make real games or stuff like accounting applications.

And the best part - at that time it didn't looked cheap.

This one is really hard to describe - it's the same uncanny valley that makes small village in Fallout 1 feel massive and full of people despite it taking two screens with just few sprites running around, while full blown 3D world of Fallout 3, with real buildings and voice overs felt flat, soulless and empty.

  • analog31  1 day ago

    >>> And the best part - at that time it didn't looked cheap.

    This is one of the things that I think we've lost. Or at least that we come close to losing. I go back even further, to the text screens of mainframe computers, and text based microcomputers. Because everything was text on a screen, a kid like me could make something that "looks just like software" even if I couldn't match the sophistication of commercial software in terms of the inner workings.

    By the time I started using a graphical computer, my 68k Mac, it was already getting harder. I could write programs that ran in a terminal window, but making them "look like software" required a deep dive into the impenetrable workings of giant class libraries etc.

    HyperCard was a great middle ground. Its widgets looked just like the basic UI widgets of the OS, and users could do things like click on buttons and edit text fields. Just like software.

    Visual Basic got there too. I wouldn't say that VB (and the OS it ran on) was conceptually better than HyperCard, but VB got supported and HyperCard got dropped.

    • j-pb  9 hours ago

      I discovered that we got that back in a sense.

      If you task an llm with writing a CLI and have it use it, then it hides the "user interface" to a sufficient degree that you can pretty much build any kind of app/functionality in a couple days and it feels "professional".

      AI as UI with a somewhat universal affordance.

  • giantfrog  1 day ago

    The Fallout analogy is perfect. Limitation stimulates imagination. I think that’s part of why essentially limitless AI models produce things that are so devoid of it.

  • scelerat  1 day ago

    It took browsers and web dev until, IDK, maybe 2010? to match the interactivity and capability of Hypercard circa 1994.

    The actual killer app turned out to be the network itself, but for anyone who used and built things with Hypercard (a lot of people), all the patterns of components and event-driven development were like an echo from a refined past by the time it became part of the modern development toolkit.

    • NetMageSCW  1 day ago

      But nothing like the ease of development since FrontPage until Web Forms and they weren’t as good.

  • zahlman  1 day ago

    > too old... to be able to grasp... experience

    All you have to do is get people to try using it.

    It's vastly smoother now, because nothing prevents adding colour and Unicode support, or more modern widgets, etc. without really changing anything essential about overall concept. Plus we're now in a world where LLMs could write Hypertalk (or whatever modestly-updated alternative) for you.

    > the same uncanny valley that makes small village in Fallout 1 feel massive and full of people despite it taking two screens with just few sprites running around, while full blown 3D world of Fallout 3, with real buildings and voice overs felt flat, soulless and empty.

    Again, all you have to do is show it to people. I don't think people actually appreciate the "classics" more simply because they remember them being SOTA. If anything, the passage of time has given the grognards a chance to notice that not everything at the time was nearly as good as the things that gave them the most nostalgia.

    And again, the quality and fidelity of media is largely orthogonal to the aesthetic. 2d isometric tile games don't have the feeling they do because they're low resolution; not nearly so much as because the tiles intentionally fit together exactly, lines are at integer pixel ratios with no anti-aliasing, stuff like that.

  • torginus  18 hours ago

    I am not quite the right age for hypercard as well, but I did have my chances to interact with a variety of game making tools aimed at kids that were amazing for creating event-driven logic. Likewise in the professional world, tools aimed at business professionals (like MS Access), that kinda were abandoned - and there used to be a whole spectrum of stuff that connected WYSIWIG editors and simple languages to various levels of programming tools.

    The demand for this was huge.

mbreese  1 day ago

Is there a place these days for interfaces like this? I’m thinking about self contained applications like HyperCard stacks, but also FileMaker databases or even Access databases where we had interfaces linked to a database all as a self contained application. These tools with scripting languages powered a ton of small business applications. I know a lab I worked with was still using FileMaker databases up until a few years ago. These were user developed applications, done by people who may have been a bit technical, but who didn’t to know a full programming language.

If you’re a small shop and have a need for a little database, what do you use? Is there a default now? Notion?

  • jcynix  1 day ago

    I've seen people (non IT) do similar things (i.e. develop small applications) with Excel.

    I created my bibliographic database with HyperCard. And I still miss it. HyperCard's attractiveness was the easy UI creation. FileMaker wasn't bad, but a bit more limited UI wise. And sqlite, while a phantastic DB misses the easy UI.

  • mike_hearn  17 hours ago

    Sure. Oracle APEX is popular. You never hear about it on HN because the target user base for low code stuff doesn't overlap with the HN set much, but it's huge.

    https://blogs.oracle.com/apex/organizations-ww-chose-apex

    In that IDC survey it's the most popular low code product, over 2 million apps and half a million developers.

    There's a SaaS version at apex.oracle.com with a free tier if you want to try it, and you can self-host it as well.

    • mbreese  10 hours ago

      That’s what I’m looking for - low code environments for making quick applications that aren’t sexy, but that are genuinely helpful for a non-technical business. Thanks!

      From that link, it seems that Salesforce and Microsoft also have offerings. That doesn’t surprise me at all. I’ve seen a bit of MS PowerApps, but generally discounted it as I thought that app should have been a proper DB. Now I’m thinking that I may have been a bit hasty.

  • pjmlp  1 day ago

    Why past tense, Filemaker and Access are still being sold.

    A solution would probably be Airtable.

    • mbreese  1 day ago

      It’s more that I haven’t really seen many examples of Access or FileMaker applications in the wild for a while. Most of these were CRUD apps that were able to be moved to the web. But that doesn’t mean that typical users are any more capable of navigating hosting setups for modern CRUD web apps.

      The FileMaker example I saw was really for a legacy shop that was primarily used for existing applications. Nothing new was being added.

      But I’m sure there are more examples in the wild than I would have seen. I was curious what the larger HN community has seen or has experience with.

      I mean, for me, I’d probably put something in a SQLite database and build a simple web GUI on top of it. But I know that’s an option. What does a typical office worker do these days? Put everything in Excel? (That’s probably the answer)

      3 replies →

  • lysace  1 day ago

    > If you’re a small shop and have a need for a little database, what do you use?

    There's a zillion of under/over-developed solutions. Too much fragmentation for something to get enough traction to reach critical mass? Tricky space.

  • chrisweekly  1 day ago

    SQLite seems to me like it fits the bill.

    • swiftcoder  1 day ago

      SQLite doesn’t have a built-in user interface. The value of something like FileMaker isn’t the underlying storage mechanism, it’s the WYSIWYG user interface building that lets you quickly build custom apps around it

      2 replies →

tomhow  1 day ago

Previously:

Decker: A reincarnation of HyperCard with 1-bit graphics - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33377964 - Oct 2022 (88 comments)

proxysna  1 day ago

Never used HyperCard, but from descriptions and screenshots in the article reminds me a lot of Delphi/Pascal/Lazarus IDE’s. Appeal is understandable, because it is so cool to be snore to from a few lines of code to a clickable intractable executable, that is the sort of Feedback loop that I miss in python and go GUI builders that I’ve used previously, and why I keep c inning back to Lazarus.

jandrese  8 hours ago

It's kind of a shame this uses its own, probably more powerful, language instead of HyperTalk.

HyperTalk is one of the most accessible languages for beginners I've ever seen. Sure it was primitive and had somewhat weak data organization capabilities, but if you're like 6 it's pretty incredible for your experience to be:

    1. Open a blank script
    2. Drag a field on the screen and name it "myname"
    3. Drag a button on the screen, open up it's script and see:
       on mouseUp
       end mouseUp
    4. You then enter the following two lines between those two lines:
         ask "What is your name?"
         put it into card field myname
    5. Then you go back and click the button and a dialog box appears asking your name and when you type it in an hit enter the name appears in the field you created.

That sort of directness is lost in modern development environments. The concept that the button's script lives inside of the button, and in fact everything on the page could have its own script. The page itself also has script, even the stack itself. Your code can of course call code in other objects if need be (typically at the page or stack level), and there is a whole message passing thing happening in the background. It's by far the most intuitive programming environment I've ever seen. It has the kind of immediate impact that helps to save off boredom or feeling like there's too much homework before the fun starts.

In the day people complained about the syntactic sugar in HyperTalk, but I think it was just right for the target audience. They did have more of a point about the difficulty in managing structured data, often having to store things in hidden fields referenced by line and word number or hacks like that.

The most incredible part is this was all in an application that came with the OS. It was the perfect opportunity for a bored kid to randomly come across it and discover a lifelong passion. There was nothing to install, no product to buy first--it was just there, asking to be discovered. And even if your parents weren't about to buy a reference book you could open up other stacks and start reading the code to learn the language. Because most scripts were small and self contained (remember that they were stored at the widget level) this was a legitimate way to understand the basic syntax and keywords.

  • RodgerTheGreat  8 hours ago

    In Decker, most of this example would be similar. The button's default script template would be:

        on click do
    
    end

    And filling it in with an equivalent script would be something like:

        on click do
     myname.text:alert["What is your name?" "string"]
    end

    There is slightly more "programming-language-like" punctuation to Lil than HyperTalk, but simple examples are still simple, and in my opinion having first-class collections (lists, dictionaries, tables) and a richer set of APL-like operators makes Lil scale up much better to more complex programs. As a child I recall struggling tremendously with HyperTalk's "almost-english" structure; it made scripts easy enough to read and understand, but provided very little help when it came to writing new scripts.

    Decker has a similar Widget -> Card -> Deck event bubbling hierarchy to HyperCard, and in my opinion retains much of the same directness and simplicity for simple applications. The differences in approach won't please everyone, but they are all carefully considered, and have been refined over time based on feedback from the user community. Decker is a living, growing platform!

    • jandrese  6 hours ago

      Your example needs to add the part where you put that string into a card field so people can see their work.

      But your example also includes a period, a colon, square brackets, and a space where someone might expect a comma. It's going to look a lot more daunting to a first time programmer. Simply knowing when to use a period vs. the colon is not going to be obvious.

      1 reply →

donohoe  1 day ago

I miss HyperCard and I love projects like this at a nostalgia level - but if you're going to have aspirations that this is useful today (2026) with a real project then its a complete waste of time.

I want HyperCard where I can build out a stack or whatever and actually present it to people as a real and tangible thing. I love living in the past as much as anyone else, but this is a little disappointing.

  • InsideOutSanta  1 day ago

    A lot of these modern HyperCard reinterpretations get stuck on the black-and-white aesthetics of the original. That's cool, but it limits how broadly appealing they become. Even back when HyperCard was relevant, Apple's inability to properly introduce color as a first-class feature was what effectively killed the product.

    A few years ago, I think there would have been a market for a HyperCard-inspired tool that targeted modern technologies - probably web tech.

    Today, I guess vibecoding is what HyperCard was in the 80s and 90s, the tool you can use to quickly and easily build a little program that fills your specific need.

    • kalleboo  1 day ago

      > Even back when HyperCard was relevant, Apple's inability to properly introduce color as a first-class feature was what effectively killed the product

      They never hacked color into HyperCard 2 since their plans for HyperCard 3 were too grand - it was going to be a part of QuickTime, so that HyperCard stacks would be multimedia applications delivered as QuickTime movies, including embedding on the web. This was when Apple was spiraling though and it got cut.

    • zahlman  1 day ago

      You said it well. The aesthetic is so much more about building your project within the project itself (like what Jupyter and Marimo did for Python, but more so because you also lay out GUI this way), having built-in components, designing around very simple "multimedia" integrations (push a button and a sound plays! With a single command in the event handler!) etc. than about any of the technical limitations.

      To me, a properly modern "Hypercard" would be something like if Marimo and Pygame had a baby, and that baby was IDLE except it didn't suck.

      1 reply →

    • jandrese  9 hours ago

      > Apple's inability to properly introduce color as a first-class feature was what effectively killed the product.

      I think the bigger problem was when Apple stopped shipping the Hypercard development environment and instead shipped only Player. Also when they stopped developing or supporting the environment entirely.

      They had a really cool thing going, but since it didn't contribute directly to the bottom line corporate had it killed.

  • hyperhello  1 day ago

    HyperCardSimulator.com lets you make and import stacks anonymously and link to them online. Enjoy!

hallole  1 day ago

Woah, this is something I've wanted for forever! Only, without the "quirky" aspects of its design. I can appreciate the charm, but it does obstruct utility, and this sort of tool -- a super-general digital whiteboard -- would be oh so useful. I never knew of its predecessor, "HyperCard," either, which looks to be essentially what I wish for, only modernized.

JKCalhoun  9 hours ago

Engineers of a certain age, sitting around, kicking around ideas for a modern Hypercard… what a great pass-time.

Scripting language? Javascript? Python?

SDL3 for cross-platform rendering, audio…

Should the "cards" just be a subset of HTML?

Etc…

josters  1 day ago

This reminds me of LiveCode[1] (aka Revolution and MetaCard) which I’ve used quite a bit about a decade ago. Was also inspired by HyperCard. Just checked their site again and it seems they’ve discontinued the open source version and have pivoted to an AI-assisted drag and drop UI builder.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiveCode

cure_42  1 day ago

Decker seems like it would have a lot of potential for e-ink devices like the boox note series and such.

brightstar18  1 day ago

awesome, already love the detailed feature set. one thing I'd love is the option to change themes. for eg. i'd like a more modern theme if i want to create a presentation and send it across. retro is a bit of a cognitive overload on users who are now habitual of navigating a different type of UI.

fastball  1 day ago

If you want the "agentic future" version of this (sorry), tldraw just relased "tldraw offline"[1] which in some ways has a lot of overlap with HyperCard as well.

[1] https://offline.tldraw.com/

thataccount  1 day ago

Decker is neat. I was in the process of using it the other day, but discovered it did not have much by way of font size adjustment in text fields. You could make a heading, but I didn't see a way to make it bigger or larger than simply being a heading.

janci  1 day ago

It seems application state is mainly maintained in the widgets. Reminds me of Delphi. Is there a similar concept for representing state in a well-suited data structures, that can be created and composed visually like the UI widgets?

huseyinl  1 day ago

The HyperCard legacy lives on! The self-contained single-file HTML export alone makes this a fantastic medium for web zines and indie games, and the dithered aesthetic gives it immediate charm. Looking forward to diving into Lil.

carimura  1 day ago

If I could point to two major influences that directed me towards computer engineering it was Hypercard and BBS's.

philips  1 day ago

Looks awesome! Very oddly super small window for it in iOS safari though.

  • RodgerTheGreat  1 day ago

    Decker prefers integral upscaling. On most browsers, "Decker -> Fullscreen" in the menu (or "app.fullscreen:1" from a script) will enable "stretching", but this feature is not supported by Safari on iPhones last time I tested.

mempko  1 day ago

Wait, you are telling me people vibe created apps before LLMs? /s

This is beautiful. I loved Hypercard when I was a kid. If they added networking to it, it would have been superior to web browsers!

Please people, have some joy and stop taking people down a peg for vibe coding apps. Let people have fun again for once.

  • jandrese  9 hours ago

    Being able to load stack pages in from a remote site would be both amazing and a total security nightmare. Hypercard's security model was NOT suitable for that kinda of activity. Hypercard viruses were already a problem back in the 90s, but luckily they were hard to spread so the impact was limited.

  • 2b3a51  11 hours ago

    Vibe away. Vibe code like a teenager with leather trousers and a top with zips (punk days).

    Just don't put it in production or in a work flow where there could be consequences if (randomly) nondeterministic.