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Definition: HyperCard


An early Mac application development system from Apple that was one of the first visual tools for building hyperlinked applications. "Stacks" of "cards" were built that held text, graphics, sound and video with links between them. Complex routines could be embedded in the cards using the HyperTalk programming language.

The HyperCard program had to be resident in the computer to run the stack (the program). Although HyperCard compilers were available from third parties, a runtime engine was eventually included in the stack so that HyperCard did not have to be installed on the target machine. HyperCard came out in 1987, and although it was used to create myriad applications, and many programmers loved it, Apple stopped enhancing it after the turn of the century and stopped selling it in 2004. See hypertext and LiveCode.