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HyperCard port
Posted by: wrench100 on 2026-09-29 07:53:01
With the help of some AI, I've been working on a full port of HyperCard to the MacOS and iOS. This is not an emulation but a native Swift version of HyperCard for modern platforms. I need beta testers! This will not be a commercial product - open source all the way. You can find out more at this link, and sign up for the beta TestFlight https://trompingmarmots.com/AppSites/Contrapt/
Posted by: adespoton on 2026-09-29 08:41:03
Open the stacks you made in 1989.
THIS is the key bit. There's been multiple re-implementations over the years, but what I really want is a native app that can run my old stacks.

I'm curious though: how do you handle fonts, XCMDs and XFCNs?
Posted by: wrench100 on 2026-09-29 09:07:00
Don't have XCMDs or XFCNs yet. Still working on getting all of HyperTalk working, and some screen rendering issues. Right now, the metrics for most of the basic classic OS fonts are worked out, so they mostly render correctly. Gotta figure out what to do about fonts embedded as resources within a stack, The other issue will be getting fonts to then render when exporting stacks for the web. But it's very usable now, give it a try!
Posted by: adespoton on 2026-09-29 09:12:52
Don't have XCMDs or XFCNs yet. Still working on getting all of HyperTalk working, and some screen rendering issues. Right now, the metrics for most of the basic classic OS fonts are worked out, so they mostly render correctly. Gotta figure out what to do about fonts embedded as resources within a stack, The other issue will be getting fonts to then render when exporting stacks for the web. But it's very usable now, give it a try!
I guess that's going to be a similar issue for other embedded resources as well; I regularly embedded SND resources in my stacks, as well as custom FONTs, and even used custom CLUTs in the eventual colour versions. One of the things I leaned heavily on in HyperCard was the ability to store and load resources of various types.
Posted by: wrench100 on 2026-09-29 09:15:10
Aha! That's great to know! I was just wondering if it was worth bothering with decoding SND resources. I'll definitely put that on the list. The CLUT thing is very interesting, as well. I miss resource forks. It was a really elegant way to work.
Posted by: bigmessowires on 2026-09-29 09:26:30
With the help of some AI, I've been working on a full port of HyperCard to the MacOS and iOS. This is not an emulation but a native Swift version of HyperCard for modern platforms.
Wow!! That is amazing. I may or may not have some HyperCard stacks from 1989 with content that will have aged very poorly.
Posted by: wrench100 on 2026-09-29 10:02:05
Wow!! That is amazing. I may or may not have some HyperCard stacks from 1989 with content that will have aged very poorly.
You’re the perfect user!
Posted by: wrench100 on 2026-09-29 10:02:35
You’re the perfect user!
New version going live in a couple of hours. It fixes lots of rendering issues.
Posted by: dragorn on 2026-09-29 15:16:15
Might be worth checking out 'Stacks' as well, by the same person as AfterGlow. Not sure if it handles xfcns yet, though their work on afterglow makes me think they might pull it off.

morphing.cloud

Stacks — run classic HyperCard stacks on modern macOS

Run classic HyperCard stacks natively on modern macOS — sound, faithful typography, and HyperTalk support.
morphing.cloud morphing.cloud
Posted by: adespoton on 2026-09-29 15:19:08
Yeah; I looked at that one when they first went live; they didn't have xfcns working yet at that point, but were definitely intent on doing so.
Posted by: lauland1 on 2026-09-30 07:35:30
I am in no way seriously suggesting you bother to support its stacks, but there was a HyperCardGS I've been playing around with.

I've only just installed it so don't know much about it yet, like if its stacks are "flat" or not, or there existed a half decent converter for mac stacks.

HCGSBestOf.Home.jpg
Posted by: wrench100 on 2026-10-09 11:35:26
Contrapt has come a long way since my first post, but beta testers are still needed! HyperTalk is almost completely working, and there have been lots of rendering improvements that make imported scripts far more faithful to real HyperCard. There's preliminary XCMD support, but there is not going to be some kind of API that allows you to run XCMDs. Instead, I need to identify popular XCMD/XFNCs so that their functionality can be built-in to the app. So if you have any stacks that use particular XCMDs, please let me know! You can learn more about it, and sign up for the beta here.
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