The Library of Congress and HyperCard #VintageComputing #DigitalPreservation @librarycongress
Jacob Kowall and Hilary Szu Yin Shiue have been working at the US Library of Congress updating and expanding the Sustainability of Digital Formats website, which provides information and analysis on over 500 digital file formats and offers guidance on the long-term preservation of digital content at the Library.
Our preliminary research on HyperCard revealed that the software was a widely popular application in the 1980s and 1990s. In fact, HyperCard is an important piece of Library of Congress history. The American Memory project, an early collection of digitized LC materials, was first built with HyperCard in the pre-Internet era…
Despite its widespread usage in the 1980s and 1990s, HyperCard remains largely absent from the leading file format registries. For example, PRONOM, the UK National Archives’ comprehensive registry of digital file formats, has no entries for HyperCard formats, nor are any included in the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) media type list.
The Siegfried file format identification tool also fails to identify HyperCard files, indicating that none of the major format registries include entries for HyperCard. Although Wikidata has a record for the HyperCard file format (Q27996244), it provides little information useful for format analysis. For all the above reasons, we determined that both the Manuscript Division and the wider digital preservation community might especially benefit from further research and aggregated documentation on HyperCard files. Thus began our adventure into exploring the history and resurgence of HyperCard.
When developing HyperCard in the 1980s, its designer, Bill Atkinson, wanted to create a tool that both programmers and non-programmers could use to write their own computer applications. After its release in 1987, Atkinson likened the new program to an “erector set” for software, alluding to the popular toy construction set. Users of HyperCard created documents called “stacks,” which were made up of a series of related “cards.” Each card in a stack could contain text, images, interactive elements, and sound. HyperCard featured a classic, black-and-white user-interface. Despite its relatively humble appearance, the potential uses of HyperCard were extensive.
Read more how the collection’s HyperCard files were analyzed in the LC Blog post here.
Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat and our Discord!
