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An application program ( software application , or application , or app for short) is a computer program designed to carry out a specific task other than one relating to the operation of the computer itself, typically to be used by end-users . Word processors , media players , and accounting software are examples. The collective noun " application software " refers to all applications collectively. The other principal classifications of software are system software , relating to the operation of the computer, and utility software ("utilities").

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83-509: HyperCard is a software application and development kit for Apple Macintosh and Apple IIGS computers. It is among the first successful hypermedia systems predating the World Wide Web . HyperCard combines a flat-file database with a graphical, flexible, user-modifiable interface. HyperCard includes a built-in programming language called HyperTalk for manipulating data and the user interface. This combination of features –

166-532: A command-line interface or graphical user interface . This does not include application software bundled within operating systems such as a software calculator or text editor . Object persistence An object database or object-oriented database is a database management system in which information is represented in the form of objects as used in object-oriented programming . Object databases are different from relational databases which are table-oriented. A third type, object–relational databases ,

249-404: A geography application for Microsoft Windows , or an Android application for education , or a Linux game . Sometimes a new and popular application arises that only runs on one platform , increasing the desirability of that platform. This is called a killer application or killer app , coined in the late 1980s. For example, VisiCalc was the first modern spreadsheet software for

332-536: A web browser . Development upon HyperCard 3.0 stalled when the QuickTime team was focused away from developing QuickTime interactive to the streaming features of QuickTime 4.0. in 1998 Steve Jobs disliked the software because Atkinson had chosen to stay at Apple to finish it instead of joining Jobs at NeXT , and (according to Atkinson) "it had Sculley 's stink all over it". In 2000, the HyperCard engineering team

415-521: A HyperCard stack and included bundled with some Macs (for example the Performa 5300), still lives on, making HyperCard a facilitating technology for starting one of the best-selling computer games of all time. According to Ward Cunningham , the inventor of Wiki , the wiki concept can be traced back to a HyperCard stack he wrote in the late 1980s. In 2017 the Internet Archive established

498-495: A catchword as this possibility was embraced by the Macintosh community, as was the phrase "programming for the rest of us", that is, anyone, not just professional programmers. It is this combination of features that also makes HyperCard a powerful hypermedia system. Users can build backgrounds to suit the needs of some system, say a rolodex , and use simple HyperTalk commands to provide buttons to move from place to place within

581-684: A contentious debate in the computing community regarding web applications replacing native applications for many purposes, especially on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets . Web apps have indeed greatly increased in popularity for some uses, but the advantages of applications make them unlikely to disappear soon, if ever. Furthermore, the two can be complementary, and even integrated. Application software can also be seen as being either horizontal or vertical . Horizontal applications are more popular and widespread, because they are general purpose, for example word processors or databases. Vertical applications are niche products , designed for

664-445: A database with simple form layout, flexible support for graphics, and ease of programming – suits HyperCard for many different projects such as rapid application development of applications and databases, interactive applications with no database requirements, command and control systems, and many examples in the demoscene . HyperCard was originally released in 1987 for $ 49.95 and was included free with all new Macs sold afterwards. It

747-534: A form-like GUI system, the stack file provides object persistence and database-like functionality, and HyperTalk allows handlers to be written for GUI events. Unlike the majority of RAD or database systems of the era, however, HyperCard combines all of these features, both user-facing and developer-facing, in a single application. This allows rapid turnaround and immediate prototyping, possibly without any coding, allowing users to author custom solutions to problems with their own personalized interface. "Empowerment" became

830-468: A full database system with robust information viewing and printing features. The HyperCard-inspired SuperCard for a while included the Roadster plug-in that allowed stacks to be placed inside web pages and viewed by web browsers with an appropriate browser plug-in. There was even a Windows version of this plug-in allowing computers other than Macintoshes to use the plug-in. The first HyperCard virus

913-560: A hardware interface that allows the computer to control external devices. Connected via the Apple Desktop Bus (ADB), this instrument can read the state of connected external switches or write digital outputs to a multitude of devices. Externals allow access to the Macintosh Toolbox, which contains many lower-level commands and functions not native to HyperTalk, such as control of the serial and ADB ports. HyperCard

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996-467: A lifetime, or forever). Since the development and near-universal adoption of the web , an important distinction that has emerged, has been between web applications — written with HTML , JavaScript and other web-native technologies and typically requiring one to be online and running a web browser — and the more traditional native applications written in whatever languages are available for one's particular type of computer . There has been

1079-524: A new debugger and many improvements to the underlying HyperTalk language. At the same time HyperCard 2.0 was being developed, a separate group within Apple developed and in 1991 released HyperCard IIGS, a version of HyperCard for the Apple IIGS system. Aimed mainly at the education market, HyperCard IIGS has roughly the same feature set as the 1.x versions of Macintosh HyperCard, while adding support for

1162-471: A new version, HyperCard Player, which Apple distributed with the Macintosh operating system , while Claris sold the full version commercially. Many users were upset that they had to pay to use software that had traditionally been supplied free and which many considered a basic part of the Mac. Even after HyperCard was generating revenue, Claris did little to market it. Development continued with minor upgrades, and

1245-431: A niche in application areas such as engineering and spatial databases , telecommunications , and scientific areas such as high energy physics and molecular biology . Another group of object databases focuses on embedded use in devices, packaged software, and real-time systems. Most object databases also offer some kind of query language , allowing objects to be found using a declarative programming approach. It

1328-747: A particular type of industry or business, or department within an organization. Integrated suites of software will try to handle every specific aspect possible of, for example, manufacturing or banking worker, accounting, or customer service. There are many types of application software: Applications can also be classified by computing platforms such as a desktop application for a particular operating system , delivery network such as in cloud computing and Web 2.0 applications, or delivery devices such as mobile apps for mobile devices . The operating system itself can be considered application software when performing simple calculating, measuring, rendering, and word processing tasks not used to control hardware via

1411-489: A project to preserve and emulate HyperCard stacks, allowing users to upload their own. The GUI of the prototype Apple Wizzy Active Lifestyle Telephone was based on HyperCard. HyperCard influenced the development of the Web in late 1990 through its influence on Robert Cailliau , who assisted in developing Tim Berners-Lee 's first Web browser. Javascript was inspired by HyperTalk. Although HyperCard stacks do not operate over

1494-447: A stack, where they are directly available to scripts in that stack. During HyperCard's peak popularity in the late 1980s, a whole ecosystem of vendors offered thousands of these externals such as HyperTalk compilers, graphing systems, database access, Internet connectivity, and animation. Oracle offered an XCMD that allows HyperCard to directly query Oracle databases on any platform, superseded by Oracle Card . BeeHive Technologies offered

1577-575: A term that is considered less daunting to beginning programmers. HyperCard can be extended significantly through the use of external command (XCMD) and external function (XFCN) modules. These are code libraries packaged in a resource fork that integrate into either the system generally or the HyperTalk language specifically; this is an early example of the plug-in concept. Unlike conventional plug-ins, these do not require separate installation before they are available for use; they can be included in

1660-501: A text field on the card and typing into it; both operations simply change the state of the target object within the stack. Such changes are immediately saved when complete, so typing into a field causes that text to be stored to the stack's physical file. The system operates in a largely stateless fashion, with no need to save during operation. This is in common with many database-oriented systems, although somewhat different from document-based applications. The final key element in HyperCard

1743-491: Is Classic mode in Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) on PowerPC-based machines. HyperCard has been used for a range of hypertext and artistic purposes. Before the advent of PowerPoint , HyperCard was often used as a general-purpose presentation program. Examples of HyperCard applications include simple databases, " choose your own adventure "-type games, and educational teaching aids. Due to its rapid application design facilities, HyperCard

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1826-412: Is a computer program designed to help people perform an activity. Depending on the activity for which it was designed, an application can manipulate text, numbers, audio, graphics, and a combination of these elements. Some application packages focus on a single task, such as word processing; others called integrated software include several applications. User-written software tailors systems to meet

1909-449: Is a hybrid of both approaches. Object databases have been considered since the early 1980s. Object-oriented database management systems (OODBMSs) also called ODBMS (Object Database Management System) combine database capabilities with object-oriented programming language capabilities. OODBMSs allow object-oriented programmers to develop the product, store them as objects, and replicate or modify existing objects to make new objects within

1992-537: Is in the area of object query languages, and the integration of the query and navigational interfaces, that the biggest differences between products are found. An attempt at standardization was made by the ODMG with the Object Query Language , OQL. Access to data can be faster because an object can be retrieved directly without a search, by following pointers . Another area of variation between products

2075-433: Is in the way that the schema of a database is defined. A general characteristic, however, is that the programming language and the database schema use the same type definitions. Multimedia applications are facilitated because the class methods associated with the data are responsible for its correct interpretation. Many object databases, for example Gemstone or VOSS, offer support for versioning . An object can be viewed as

2158-476: Is not based on SQL (although one of the people who designed XQuery also co-invented SQL). But they are also not object-oriented, in the programming sense: XQuery does not use encapsulation with hiding, implicit dispatch, and classes and methods. XQuery databases generally use XML and JSON as an interchange format, although other formats are used. Since the early 2000s JSON has gained community adoption and popularity in applications where developers are in control of

2241-604: Is not intrinsically object-oriented. Because of the popularity of XML, XQuery engines compete with object databases as a vehicle for storage of data that is too complex or variable to hold conveniently in a relational database. XQuery also allows modules to be written to provide encapsulation features that have been provided by Object-Oriented systems. XQuery v1 and XPath v2 and later are powerful and are available in both open source and libre (FOSS) software, as well as in commercial systems. They are easy to learn and use, and very powerful and fast. They are not relational and XQuery

2324-459: Is not restricted to the "of or on application software" meaning. For example, concepts such as application programming interface (API), application server , application virtualization , application lifecycle management and portable application apply to all computer programs alike, not just application software. Some applications are available in versions for several different platforms; others only work on one and are thus called, for example,

2407-526: Is occasionally the object of controversy. For example, one of the key questions in the United States v. Microsoft Corp. antitrust trial was whether Microsoft's Internet Explorer web browser was part of its Windows operating system or a separate piece of application software. As another example, the GNU/Linux naming controversy is, in part, due to disagreement about the relationship between

2490-517: Is one of the first products that made use of and popularized the hypertext concept to a large popular base of users. Jakob Nielsen has pointed out that HyperCard was really only a hypermedia program since its links started from regions on a card, not text objects; actual HTML -style text hyperlinks were possible in later versions, but were awkward to implement and seldom used. Deena Larsen programmed links into HyperCard for Marble Springs. Bill Atkinson later lamented that if he had only realized

2573-489: Is royalty-free and - openly or reservedly- can be run, distributed, modified, reversed, republished, or created in derivative works without any copyright attribution and therefore revocation . It can even be sold, but without transferring the public domain property to other single subjects. Public-domain SW can be released under a (un)licensing legal statement, which enforces those terms and conditions for an indefinite duration (for

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2656-478: Is the script, a single code-carrying element of every object within the stack. The script is a text field whose contents are interpreted in the HyperTalk language. Like any other property, the script of any object can be edited at any time and changes are saved as soon as they were complete. When the user invokes actions in the GUI, like clicking on a button or typing into a field, these actions are translated into events by

2739-611: The Internet , by 1988, at least 300 stacks were publicly available for download from the commercial CompuServe network (which was not connected to the official Internet yet). The system can link phone numbers on a user's computer together and enable them to dial numbers without a modem, using a less expensive piece of hardware, the Hyperdialer. In this sense, like the Web, it does form an association-based experience of information browsing via links, though not operating remotely over

2822-583: The Linux kernel and the operating systems built over this kernel . In some types of embedded systems , the application software and the operating system software may be indistinguishable from the user, as in the case of software used to control a VCR , DVD player, or microwave oven . The above definitions may exclude some applications that may exist on some computers in large organizations. For an alternative definition of an app: see Application Portfolio Management . The word "application" used as an adjective

2905-607: The National Film Board CinéRobothèque. In 1989, Hypercard was used to control the BBC Radiophonic Workshop Studio Network, using a single Macintosh. HyperCard was used to prototype a fully functional prototype of SIDOCI (one of the first experiments in the world to develop an integrated electronic patient record system) and was heavily used by Montréal Consulting firm DMR to demonstrate how "a typical day in

2988-513: The Windows Store , the term was extended in popular use to include desktop applications. There are many different and alternative ways to classify application software. From the legal point of view, application software is mainly classified with a black-box approach , about the rights of its end-users or subscribers (with eventual intermediate and tiered subscription levels). Software applications are also classified with respect to

3071-643: The 1990s, C++ dominated the commercial object database management market. Vendors added Java in the late 1990s and more recently, C# . Starting in 2004, object databases have seen a second growth period when open source object databases emerged that were widely affordable and easy to use, because they are entirely written in OOP languages like Smalltalk, Java, or C#, such as Versant's db4o (db4objects), DTS/S1 from Obsidian Dynamics and Perst (McObject), available under dual open source and commercial licensing. Object databases based on persistent programming acquired

3154-532: The Apple II and helped sell the then-new personal computers into offices. For Blackberry it was their email software. The shortened term "app" (coined in 1981 or earlier ) became popular, with the 2008 introduction of the iOS App Store , to refer to applications for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets . Later, with the 2010 introduction of the Mac App Store and the 2011 introduction of

3237-627: The Beatles , and the Voyager MacBeth . An early electronic edition of the Whole Earth Catalog was implemented in HyperCard. and stored on CD-ROM. The prototype and demo of the popular game You Don't Know Jack was written in HyperCard. The French auto manufacturer Renault used it to control their inventory system. In Quebec, Canada, HyperCard was used to control a robot arm used to insert and retrieve video disks at

3320-423: The HyperCard runtime. The runtime then examines the script of the object that is the target of the event, like a button, to see if its script object contains the event's code, called a handler. If it does, the HyperTalk engine runs the handler; if it does not, the runtime examines other objects in the visual hierarchy. These concepts make up the majority of the HyperCard system; stacks, backgrounds and cards provide

3403-711: The ODBT WG was suspended in March 2009 when, subsequent to the economic turmoil in late 2008, the ODB vendors involved in this effort decided to focus their resources elsewhere. In January 2007 the World Wide Web Consortium gave final recommendation status to the XQuery language. XQuery uses XML as its data model. Some of the ideas developed originally for object databases found their way into XQuery, but XQuery

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3486-1026: The ODMG Java Language Binding. Compliance to the other components of the specification was mixed. In 2001, the ODMG Java Language Binding was submitted to the Java Community Process as a basis for the Java Data Objects specification. The ODMG member companies then decided to concentrate their efforts on the Java Data Objects specification. As a result, the ODMG disbanded in 2001. Many object database ideas were also absorbed into SQL:1999 and have been implemented in varying degrees in object–relational database products. In 2005 Cook, Rai, and Rosenberger proposed to drop all standardization efforts to introduce additional object-oriented query APIs but rather use

3569-626: The OO programming language itself, i.e., Java and .NET, to express queries. As a result, Native Queries emerged. Similarly, Microsoft announced Language Integrated Query (LINQ) and DLINQ, an implementation of LINQ, in September 2005, to provide close, language-integrated database query capabilities with its programming languages C# and VB.NET 9. In February 2006, the Object Management Group (OMG) announced that they had been granted

3652-468: The OODBMS. Because the database is integrated with the programming language, the programmer can maintain consistency within one environment, in that both the OODBMS and the programming language will use the same model of representation. Relational DBMS projects, by way of contrast, maintain a clearer division between the database model and the application. As the usage of web-based technology increases with

3735-564: The TCP/IP protocol then. Like the Web, it also allows for the connections of many different kinds of media. Application software Applications may be bundled with the computer and its system software or published separately and may be coded as proprietary , open-source , or projects. When referring to applications for mobile devices such as phones, the term "app" is more commonly used. In information technology, an application ( app ), an application program , or application software

3818-521: The color graphics abilities of the IIGS. Although stacks (HyperCard program documents) are not binary-compatible, a translator program (another HyperCard stack) allows them to be moved from one platform to the other. Then, Apple decided that most of its application software packages, including HyperCard, would be the property of a wholly owned subsidiary called Claris . Many of the HyperCard developers chose to stay at Apple rather than move to Claris, causing

3901-569: The company promised to release it for free on all Macs. Apple timed its release to coincide with the MacWorld Conference & Expo in Boston , Massachusetts to guarantee maximum publicity. HyperCard was successful almost instantly. The Apple Programmer's and Developer's Association (APDA) said, "HyperCard has been an informational feeding frenzy. From August [1987, when it was announced] to October our phones never stopped ringing. It

3984-437: The creation of both HTTP (through its influence on Tim Berners-Lee 's colleague Robert Cailliau ), and JavaScript (whose creator, Brendan Eich , was inspired by HyperTalk ). It was also a key inspiration for ViolaWWW , an early web browser. The pointing-finger cursor used for navigating stacks was later used in the first web browsers, as the hyperlink cursor. The Myst computer game franchise, initially released as

4067-584: The creators of Myst , to corporate information services. Apple eventually folded Claris back into the parent company, returning HyperCard to Apple's core engineering group. In 1992, Apple released the eagerly anticipated upgrade of HyperCard 2.2 and included licensed versions of Color Tools and Addmotion II, adding support for color pictures and animations. However, these tools are limited and often cumbersome to use because HyperCard 2.0 lacks true, internal color support. Several attempts were made to restart HyperCard development once it returned to Apple. Because of

4150-510: The data format. JSONiq , a query-analog of XQuery for JSON (sharing XQuery's core expressions and operations), demonstrated the functional equivalence of the JSON and XML formats for data-oriented information. In this context, the main strategy of OODBMS maintainers was to retrofit JSON to their databases (by using it as the internal data type). In January 2016, with the PostgreSQL 9.5 release

4233-423: The development team to be split. Claris attempted to create a business model where HyperCard could also generate revenues. At first the freely-distributed versions of HyperCard shipped with authoring disabled. Early versions of Claris HyperCard contain an Easter Egg : typing "magic" into the message box converts the player into a full HyperCard authoring environment. When this trick became nearly universal, they wrote

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4316-404: The first failed attempt to create a third generation of HyperCard. During this period, HyperCard began losing market share. Without several important, basic features, HyperCard authors began moving to systems such as SuperCard and Macromedia Authorware . Nonetheless, HyperCard continued to be popular and used for a widening range of applications, from the game The Manhole , an earlier effort by

4399-713: The implementation of Intranets and extranets, companies have a vested interest in OODBMSs to display their complex data. Using a DBMS that has been specifically designed to store data as objects gives an advantage to those companies that are geared towards multimedia presentation or organizations that utilize computer-aided design (CAD). Some object-oriented databases are designed to work well with object-oriented programming languages such as Delphi , Ruby , Python , JavaScript , Perl , Java , C# , Visual Basic .NET , C++ , Objective-C and Smalltalk ; others such as JADE have their own programming languages. OODBMSs use exactly

4482-465: The life of a patient about to get surgery" would look like in a paperless age. Activision , which was until then mainly a game company, saw HyperCard as an entry point into the business market. Changing its name to Mediagenic, it published several major HyperCard-based applications, most notably Danny Goodman 's Focal Point, a personal information manager, and Reports For HyperCard, a program by Nine To Five Software that allows users to treat HyperCard as

4565-403: The market and have been joined by new open source and commercial products such as InterSystems Caché . Object database management systems added the concept of persistence to object programming languages. The early commercial products were integrated with various languages: GemStone ( Smalltalk ), Gbase ( LISP ), Vbase ( COP ) and VOSS (Virtual Object Storage System for Smalltalk ). For much of

4648-408: The objects on the background to "show through" behind the new card. This way, a stack of cards with a common layout and functionality can be created. The layout engine is similar in concept to a form as used in most rapid application development (RAD) environments such as Borland Delphi , and Microsoft Visual Basic and Visual Studio . The database features of the HyperCard system are based on

4731-558: The other efforts. Won Kim of MCC compiled the best of those papers in a book published by The MIT Press. Early commercial products included Gemstone (Servio Logic, name changed to GemStone Systems), Gbase (Graphael), and Vbase (Ontologic). Additional commercial products entered the market in the late 1980s through the mid 1990s. These included ITASCA (Itasca Systems), Jasmine (Fujitsu, marketed by Computer Associates), Matisse (Matisse Software), Objectivity/DB (Objectivity, Inc.), ObjectStore ( Progress Software , acquired from eXcelon which

4814-445: The past without a lot of heavy-duty programming. It's let a lot of non-programmers, like me, into that loop. David Lingwood, APDA HyperCard is based on the concept of a "stack" of virtual "cards". Cards hold data, just as they would in a Rolodex card-filing device. Each card contains a set of interactive objects, including text fields, check boxes, buttons, and similar common graphical user interface (GUI) elements. Users browse

4897-404: The personal computer of choice". While noting that its large memory requirement made it best suited for computers with 2 MB of memory and hard drives, the magazine predicted that "the smallest programming shop should be able to turn out stackware", especially for using CD-ROMs. Compute! predicted in 1988 that most future Mac software would be developed using HyperCard, if only because using it

4980-479: The power of network-oriented stacks, instead of focusing on local stacks on a single machine, HyperCard could have become the first Web browser. HyperCard saw a loss in popularity with the growth of the World Wide Web, since the Web could handle and deliver data in much the same way as HyperCard without being limited to files on a local hard disk . HyperCard had a significant impact on the web as it inspired

5063-547: The product's widespread use as a multimedia-authoring tool it was rolled into the QuickTime group. A new effort to allow HyperCard to create QuickTime interactive (QTi) movies started, once again under the direction of Kevin Calhoun. QTi extended QuickTime's core multimedia playback features to provide true interactive facilities and a low-level programming language based on 68000 assembly language. The resulting HyperCard 3.0

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5146-734: The programming language in which the source code is written or executed, and concerning their purpose and outputs. Application software is usually distinguished into two main classes: closed source vs open source software applications, and free or proprietary software applications. Proprietary software is placed under the exclusive copyright, and a software license grants limited usage rights. The open-closed principle states that software may be "open only for extension, but not for modification". Such applications can only get add-ons from third parties. Free and open-source software (FOSS) shall be run, distributed, sold, or extended for any purpose, and -being open- shall be modified or reversed in

5229-605: The right to develop new specifications based on the ODMG 3.0 specification and the formation of the Object Database Technology Working Group (ODBT WG). The ODBT WG planned to create a set of standards that would incorporate advances in object database technology (e.g., replication), data management (e.g., spatial indexing), and data formats (e.g., XML) and to include new features into these standards that support domains where object databases are being adopted (e.g., real-time systems). The work of

5312-637: The same model as object-oriented programming languages. Object database management systems grew out of research during the early to mid-1970s into having intrinsic database management support for graph-structured objects. The term "object-oriented database system" first appeared around 1985. Notable research projects included Encore-Ob/Server ( Brown University ), EXODUS ( University of Wisconsin–Madison ), IRIS (Hewlett-Packard), ODE ( Bell Labs ), ORION ( Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation or MCC), Vodak (GMD-IPSI), and Zeitgeist (Texas Instruments). The ORION project had more published papers than any of

5395-409: The same way. FOSS software applications released under a free license may be perpetual and also royalty-free . Perhaps, the owner , the holder or third-party enforcer of any right ( copyright , trademark , patent , or ius in re aliena ) are entitled to add exceptions, limitations, time decays or expiring dates to the license terms of use. Public-domain software is a type of FOSS which

5478-570: The set of all its versions. Also, object versions can be treated as objects in their own right. Some object databases also provide systematic support for triggers and constraints which are the basis of active databases . The efficiency of such a database is also greatly improved in areas which demand massive amounts of data about one item. For example, a banking institution could get the user's account information and provide them efficiently with extensive information such as transactions, account information entries etc. The Object Data Management Group

5561-553: The software. Apple and its mainstream developers understood that HyperCard's user empowerment could reduce the sales of ordinary shrink-wrapped products. Stewart Alsop II speculated that HyperCard might replace Finder as the shell of the Macintosh graphical user interface. In late 1989, Kevin Calhoun, then a HyperCard engineer at Apple, led an effort to upgrade the program. This resulted in HyperCard 2.0, released in 1990. The new version included an on-the-fly compiler that greatly increased performance of computationally intensive code,

5644-475: The stack by navigating from card to card, using built-in navigation features, a powerful search mechanism, or through user-created scripts. Users build or modify stacks by adding new cards. They place GUI objects on the cards using an interactive layout engine based on a simple drag-and-drop interface. Also, HyperCard includes prototype or template cards called backgrounds; when new cards are created they can refer to one of these background cards, which causes all of

5727-519: The stack, or provide the same navigation system within the data elements of the UI, like text fields. Using these features, it is easy to build linked systems similar to hypertext links on the Web. Unlike the Web, programming, placement, and browsing are all the same tool. Similar systems have been created for HTML, but traditional Web services are considerably more heavyweight. HyperCard contains an object-oriented scripting language called HyperTalk , which

5810-409: The storage of the state of all of the objects on the cards in the physical file representing the stack. The database does not exist as a separate system within the HyperCard stack; no database engine or similar construct exists. Instead, the state of any object in the system is considered to be live and editable at any time. From the HyperCard runtime's perspective, there is no difference between moving

5893-417: The user's specific needs. User-written software includes spreadsheet templates, word processor macros, scientific simulations, audio, graphics, and animation scripts. Even email filters are a kind of user software. Users create this software themselves and often overlook how important it is. The delineation between system software such as operating systems and application software is not exact, however, and

5976-461: Was a consortium of object database and object–relational mapping vendors, members of the academic community, and interested parties. Its goal was to create a set of specifications that would allow for portable applications that store objects in database management systems. It published several versions of its specification. The last release was ODMG 3.0. By 2001, most of the major object database and object–relational mapping vendors claimed conformance to

6059-436: Was a zoo." Within a few months of release, there were multiple HyperCard books and a 50 disk set of public domain stacks. Apple's project managers found HyperCard was being used by a huge number of people, internally and externally. Bug reports and upgrade suggestions continued to flow in, demonstrating its wide variety of users. Since it was also free, it was difficult to justify dedicating engineering resources to improvements in

6142-576: Was also often used for prototyping applications and sometimes even for version 1.0 implementations. Inside Apple, the QuickTime team was one of HyperCard's biggest customers. HyperCard has lower hardware requirements than Macromedia Director . Several commercial software products were created in HyperCard, most notably the original version of the graphic adventure game Myst , the Voyager Company 's Expanded Books , multimedia CD-ROMs of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony CD-ROM , A Hard Day's Night by

6225-440: Was created by Bill Atkinson following an LSD trip. Work for it began in March 1985 under the name of WildCard (hence its creator code of WILD). In 1986, Dan Winkler began work on HyperTalk and the name was changed to HyperCard for trademark reasons. It was released on 11 August 1987 for the first day of the MacWorld Conference & Expo in Boston , with the understanding that Atkinson would give HyperCard to Apple only if

6308-692: Was discovered in Belgium and the Netherlands in April 1991. Because HyperCard executed scripts in stacks immediately on opening, it was also one of the first applications susceptible to macro viruses . The Merryxmas virus was discovered in early 1993 by Ken Dunham, two years before the Concept virus. Very few viruses were based on HyperCard, and their overall impact was minimal. Compute!'s Apple Applications in 1987 stated that HyperCard "may make Macintosh

6391-408: Was first presented in 1996 when an alpha-quality version was shown to developers at Apple's annual Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). Under the leadership of Dan Crow development continued through the late 1990s, with public demos showing many popular features such as color support, Internet connectivity, and the ability to play HyperCard stacks (which were now special QuickTime movies) in

6474-492: Was noted for having a syntax resembling casual English language. HyperTalk language features were predetermined by the HyperCard environment, although they could be extended by the use of externals functions (XFCN) and commands (XCMD), written in a compiled language. The weakly typed HyperTalk supports most standard programming structures such as "if–then" and "repeat". HyperTalk is verbose, hence its ease of use and readability. HyperTalk code segments are referred to as "scripts",

6557-425: Was originally Object Design, Incorporated ), ONTOS (Ontos, Inc., name changed from Ontologic), O 2 (O 2 Technology, merged with several companies, acquired by Informix , which was in turn acquired by IBM ), POET (now FastObjects from Versant which acquired Poet Software), Versant Object Database ( Versant Corporation), VOSS (Logic Arts) and JADE (Jade Software Corporation). Some of these products remain on

6640-476: Was reassigned to other tasks after Jobs decided to abandon the product. Calhoun and Crow both left Apple shortly after, in 2001. Its final release was in 1998, and it was totally discontinued in March 2004. HyperCard runs natively only in the classic Mac OS , but it can still be used in Mac OS X 's Classic mode on PowerPC based machines (G5 and earlier). The last functional native HyperCard authoring environment

6723-530: Was so addictive that developers "won't be able to tear themselves away from it long enough to create anything else". Byte in 1989 listed it as among the "Excellence" winners of the Byte Awards. While stating that "like any first entry, it has some flaws", the magazine wrote that "HyperCard opened up a new category of software", and praised Apple for bundling it with every Mac. In 2001 Steve Wozniak called HyperCard "the best program ever written". HyperCard

6806-415: Was the first FOSS OODBMS to offer an efficient JSON internal datatype (JSONB) with a complete set of functions and operations, for all basic relational and non-relational manipulations. An object database stores complex data and relationships between data directly, without mapping to relational rows and columns , and this makes them suitable for applications dealing with very complex data. Objects have

6889-559: Was withdrawn from sale in March 2004, having received its final update in 1998 upon the return of Steve Jobs to Apple. HyperCard was not ported to Mac OS X , but can run in the Classic Environment on versions of Mac OS X that support it. The beauty of HyperCard is that it lets people program without having to learn how to write code — what I call "programming for the rest of us". HyperCard has made it possible for people to do things they wouldn't have ever thought of doing in

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