HyperCard Mailing List

Hello HC-ers,

Does anyone have a copy of the once popular "The Mackerel Stack"? Here is
a link that got me interested in it:
http://www.smackerel.net/black_white_07.html

Any other stacks presented in the article would also be appreciated.

Thanks!
Tom


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

If you can find "Cosmic Osmo" you will be dlelighted.



-----Original Message-----
From: DTS <daretospam@[redacted].com
To: HyperCard <HyperCard-Mailing-List>
Sent: Fri, Aug 24, 2012 7:00 pm
Subject: [HC] Mackerel Stack





Hello HC-ers,

Does anyone have a copy of the once popular "The Mackerel Stack"? Here is
a link that got me interested in it:
http://www.smackerel.net/black_white_07.html

Any other stacks presented in the article would also be appreciated.

Thanks!
Tom

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]









[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Indeed, it is one of my favorite titles. I have official copies of Cosmic
Osmo and Manhole on CD-ROM. I was wondering about the more obscure titles
within the article since they seem to be of similar quality.

On Friday, August 24, 2012, <DunbarX@[redacted].com wrote:
>
>
> If you can find "Cosmic Osmo" you will be dlelighted.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: DTS <daretospam@[redacted].com
> To: HyperCard <HyperCard-Mailing-List>
> Sent: Fri, Aug 24, 2012 7:00 pm
> Subject: [HC] Mackerel Stack
>
> Hello HC-ers,
>
> Does anyone have a copy of the once popular "The Mackerel Stack"? Here is
> a link that got me interested in it:
> http://www.smackerel.net/black_white_07.html
>
> Any other stacks presented in the article would also be appreciated.
>
> Thanks!
> Tom
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I have a copy of Mackerel Stack. Where should I send it? Is zip fine
or do you need sit.hqx?

-- Rebecca Bettencourt


On Fri, Aug 24, 2012 at 5:12 PM, DTS <daretospam@[redacted].com wrote:
> Indeed, it is one of my favorite titles. I have official copies of Cosmic
> Osmo and Manhole on CD-ROM. I was wondering about the more obscure titles
> within the article since they seem to be of similar quality.
>
> On Friday, August 24, 2012, <DunbarX@[redacted].com wrote:
>>
>>
>> If you can find "Cosmic Osmo" you will be dlelighted.
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: DTS <daretospam@[redacted].com
>> To: HyperCard <HyperCard-Mailing-List>
>> Sent: Fri, Aug 24, 2012 7:00 pm
>> Subject: [HC] Mackerel Stack
>>
>> Hello HC-ers,
>>
>> Does anyone have a copy of the once popular "The Mackerel Stack"? Here is
>> a link that got me interested in it:
>> http://www.smackerel.net/black_white_07.html
>>
>> Any other stacks presented in the article would also be appreciated.
>>
>> Thanks!
>> Tom
>>
>> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>>
>> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>>
>>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
>

On Aug 25, 2012, at 2:12 AM, DTS <daretospam@[redacted].com wrote:
> Indeed, it is one of my favorite titles. I have official copies of Cosmic
> Osmo and Manhole on CD-ROM. I was wondering about the more obscure titles
> within the article since they seem to be of similar quality.

In case anyone is nostalgic but doesn't need the HyperCard experience, The Manhole is available as an iOS application these days.

Cheers,
-- Uli Kusterer
"The Witnesses of TeachText are everywhere..."
http://www.zathras.de

I actually hope to find the hypercard version of "beyond cypherpunk", the hypercard version of myst, hypercard 3 (pre-alpha) and the holy grail one day...



--- On Sat, 8/25/12, Uli Kusterer <Witness.of.TeachText@[redacted].net wrote:

From: Uli Kusterer <Witness.of.TeachText@[redacted].net
Subject: Re: [HC] Mackerel Stack
To: HyperCard-Mailing-List
Date: Saturday, August 25, 2012, 12:01 PM

I have a copy of Beyond Cyberpunk uploaded here (given to me in this form-
no original disk images unfortunately):
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14605816/beyond%20cyberpunk.rar

The HyperCard version of Myst would be really cool...was it released on
CD-ROM?

Enjoy,
Tom


On Sat, Aug 25, 2012 at 12:28 PM, Eric Engle <eric.engle@[redacted].com wrote:

> **
>
>
> I actually hope to find the hypercard version of "beyond cypherpunk", the
> hypercard version of myst, hypercard 3 (pre-alpha) and the holy grail one
> day...
>
> --- On Sat, 8/25/12, Uli Kusterer <Witness.of.TeachText@[redacted].net wrote:
>
> From: Uli Kusterer <Witness.of.TeachText@[redacted].net
> Subject: Re: [HC] Mackerel Stack
> To: HyperCard-Mailing-List
> Date: Saturday, August 25, 2012, 12:01 PM
>
>
>
>
> On Aug 25, 2012, at 2:12 AM, DTS <daretospam@[redacted].com wrote:
>
> > Indeed, it is one of my favorite titles. I have official copies of Cosmic
>
> > Osmo and Manhole on CD-ROM. I was wondering about the more obscure titles
>
> > within the article since they seem to be of similar quality.
>
> In case anyone is nostalgic but doesn't need the HyperCard experience, The
> Manhole is available as an iOS application these days.
>
> Cheers,
>
> -- Uli Kusterer
>
> "The Witnesses of TeachText are everywhere..."
>
> http://www.zathras.de
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

On 25.08.2012, at 21:28, Eric Engle <eric.engle@[redacted].com wrote:
> I actually hope to find the hypercard version of "beyond cypherpunk", the hypercard version of myst, hypercard 3 (pre-alpha) and the holy grail one day...

I have the (German) HyperCard version of Myst on a CD in storage somewhere.. It came with my Mac way back when.

Cheers,
-- Uli Kusterer
"The Witnesses of TeachText are everywhere..."
http://www.masters-of-the-void.com

> The HyperCard version of Myst would be really
> cool...was it released on CD-ROM?

The Mac version was first released in 1993. It was several linked HyperCard
stacks on a single CD. It probably turns up on E-bay occasionally. You
could also try writing to Rand Miller at Cyan to see if he knows anywhere to
find a copy (he probably doesn't but it would be worth a try).

> I actually hope to find ... hypercard 3 (pre-alpha)

That would indeed be quite a find.

And speaking of unreleased versions, a former HC team member told me once
that there was an unreleased native color version developed earlier (maybe at
Claris, I can't recall) that was code named "Oz" (when Dorothy goes to Oz
the movie changes from B&W to color). It was never released, and I don't know
how far along it was in development.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

On Aug 26, 2012, at 12:38 PM, hcheaven@[redacted].comwrote:

> > The HyperCard version of Myst would be really
> > cool...was it released on CD-ROM?
>
> The Mac version was first released in 1993. It was several linked HyperCard
> stacks on a single CD.


Fortunately it was released in late 1993. Earlier in 1993 I finished programming the A Hard Day's Night CD-ROM, which took first place in MacUser magazine's Top 50 CD-ROMs (narrowly beating Microsoft's Encarta). If Myst was out earlier in the year it would certainly have won.



>
> > I actually hope to find ... hypercard 3 (pre-alpha)
>
> That would indeed be quite a find.
>
> And speaking of unreleased versions, a former HC team member told me once
> that there was an unreleased native color version developed earlier (maybe at
> Claris, I can't recall) that was code named "Oz" (when Dorothy goes to Oz
> the movie changes from B&W to color). It was never released, and I don't know
> how far along it was in development.


The Claris team did develop the Colorize HC XCMD, and sneaked it out to the world under the company name of BungDabba Productions. I used it in the AHDN CD, as well as in a few others. Once AddColor came with HyperCard I switched over to using that.

A little more info on Colorize HC:

http://www.accessmylibrary.com/article-1G1-11612510/turnerize-stacks-colorize-hypercard.html

On Aug 25, 2012, at 9:45 PM, DTS wrote:

> I have a copy of Beyond Cyberpunk uploaded here (given to me in this form-
> no original disk images unfortunately):
> http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14605816/beyond%20cyberpunk.rar

You can dearchive the file with UnrarX or any other decent archiving tool. Inside there is a .hfv file, which is an HFS disk image. SheepShaver can open these files and there is software for OS X than can open them:

http://namedfork.net/fusehfs

Note that development has stopped at Lion. SL should work. Haven't tried it myself.

I guess that copy is not the most user friendly. I cleaned up the image
slightly (removed system folder) and put it into .img format and compressed
with Stuffit.

Download is here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14605816/Beyond_CyberPunk.sit

I can open it under emulation (Basilisk II) will eventually transfer to my
SE/30 since the emulator has a difficult time with fade in/out transitions
between cards.

-Tom

On Sun, Aug 26, 2012 at 11:38 AM, KA4HJH <ka4hjh@[redacted].com wrote:

> **
>
>
>
> On Aug 25, 2012, at 9:45 PM, DTS wrote:
>
> > I have a copy of Beyond Cyberpunk uploaded here (given to me in this
> form-
> > no original disk images unfortunately):
> > http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14605816/beyond%20cyberpunk.rar
>
> You can dearchive the file with UnrarX or any other decent archiving tool.
> Inside there is a .hfv file, which is an HFS disk image. SheepShaver can
> open these files and there is software for OS X than can open them:
>
> http://namedfork.net/fusehfs
>
> Note that development has stopped at Lion. SL should work. Haven't tried
> it myself.
>
>
>


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

On Sun, Aug 26, 2012 at 9:38 AM, <hcheaven@[redacted].com wrote:

> **
>
>
> > The HyperCard version of Myst would be really
> > cool...was it released on CD-ROM?
>
> The Mac version was first released in 1993. It was several linked
> HyperCard
> stacks on a single CD. It probably turns up on E-bay occasionally. You
> could also try writing to Rand Miller at Cyan to see if he knows anywhere
> to
> find a copy (he probably doesn't but it would be worth a try).
>

I did a little sleuthing about Myst in HyperCard and saw some comments
about it not being very interesting from a HyperCard perspective since
there are a bunch of blank cards with transparent buttons. Was the
earliest version like that? Or was it more like Cosmic Osmo? I think I
saw somewhere there was a black and white version, but that person may have
been confused. How would the earliest version be identified packaging-wise?


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

That gives an IMG file, that seems not to be good. Can you take the original stack and zip compress it?


On Aug 26, 2012, at 4:01 PM, DTS <daretospam@[redacted].com wrote:

> >Download is here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14605816/Beyond_CyberPunk.sit



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

> saw some comments about it [Myst] not being very
> interesting from a HyperCard perspective

From a scripting standpoint, a lot isn't all that interesting; a lot of
transparent buttons that take you to another card when clicked.

> a black and white version

No, it was color. Perhaps someone just viewed it on a black-and-white
monitor.

> How would the earliest version be identified
> packaging-wise?

Myst was re-released many times and there are multiple cover variations,
but I think the original had a very plain cover. Just the title MYST and a
graphic of the island. In later versions they started adding promotional text
on the cover stating that it was a best-selling game, etc. Also, be sure it
doesn't say "realMYST" or "MYST Masterpiece", which were modified versions
that came later. And obviously make sure it's the Mac version.

On this page of Cyan's site you can see a graphic which I believe is the
original cover:
http://cyanworlds.com/products/myst.php

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I managed to use Disk Utility to convert the IMG to a DMG, and then that mounted ok.

Some of the stacks open in LiveCode, though they don't run to well of course. I can't tell which files are Director ones, but any I try to open seem not to be Director documents.

Incidentally, the original version of Myst contained a bad mistake. Near
the end of the game there's an important clue written on a note, but the note
contained a serious typo (said "up" when it should have said "down", or
something like that).

Somehow Cyan didn't catch it until after the CDs were already being
manufacturered, so they included a piece of paper in the box explaining the error.

The mistake was fixed in later versions, so if your copy contains that
note, you'll know it was the original version.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

On 8/26/12 11:38 AM, hcheaven@[redacted].comwrote:

>> I actually hope to find ... hypercard 3 (pre-alpha)
>
> That would indeed be quite a find.

Indeed, since there never actually was an alpha. It wasn't finished
enough to even test in-house when the project was axed.

--
Jacqueline Landman Gay | jacque@[redacted].comHyperActive Software | http://www.hyperactivesw.com

>> That would indeed be quite a find.

> Indeed, since there never actually was an alpha.

But the pre-alpha version did exist, and some folks saw demos of certain
features. And I'd be surprised if some HC team members didn't save copies as
momentos of their work, so it's at least theoretically possible that someone
could obtain a copy to examine someday. But I wouldn't hold my breath
waiting for that to happen.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

On 8/26/12 10:54 PM, hcheaven@[redacted].comwrote:
>>> That would indeed be quite a find.
>
>> Indeed, since there never actually was an alpha.
>
> But the pre-alpha version did exist, and some folks saw demos of certain
> features. And I'd be surprised if some HC team members didn't save copies as
> momentos of their work, so it's at least theoretically possible that someone
> could obtain a copy to examine someday. But I wouldn't hold my breath
> waiting for that to happen.

Me either. :) I was lucky enough to see a demo, but I got the impression
that the "certain features" they showed me were everything they had so
far. I'm sure the code was preserved but I'd be very surprised if it
ever got out.

--
Jacqueline Landman Gay | jacque@[redacted].comHyperActive Software | http://www.hyperactivesw.com

On 26.08.2012, at 18:38, hcheaven@[redacted].comwrote:
>> I actually hope to find ... hypercard 3 (pre-alpha)
>
> That would indeed be quite a find.

I think most of us here would be quite curious about that one. Then again, I doubt anyone who worked on it would be allowed to release that one.

> And speaking of unreleased versions, a former HC team member told me once
> that there was an unreleased native color version developed earlier (maybe at
> Claris, I can't recall) that was code named "Oz" (when Dorothy goes to Oz
> the movie changes from B&W to color). It was never released, and I don't know
> how far along it was in development.


If you want to see a weird blast from the past, get an Apple IIGS simulator and try out HyperCard IIGS. It is nominally around the time of HyperCard 1.2.x, has native color (though limited to the 16 or so weird colors the Apple IIGS supported), but already has some features we didn't get until HyperCard 2.2 or so. The @HyperCard Twitter account posted some neat screen shots of it.

Cheers,
-- Uli Kusterer
"The Witnesses of TeachText are everywhere..."
http://www.zathras.de

On 26.08.2012, at 22:06, DTS <daretospam@[redacted].com wrote:
> I did a little sleuthing about Myst in HyperCard and saw some comments
> about it not being very interesting from a HyperCard perspective since
> there are a bunch of blank cards with transparent buttons. Was the
> earliest version like that? Or was it more like Cosmic Osmo? I think I
> saw somewhere there was a black and white version, but that person may have
> been confused.

I'm not aware of a B/W version of Myst, and given all the graphics were rendered in a 3D program, I doubt that was the case. The cards were white because it uses the HyperTint XCMD, which is essentially another colorizing XCMD that is programmed like ColorizeHC and fast, but has transition effects like AddColor.

Cheers,
-- Uli Kusterer
http://stacksmith.org

On Sun, Aug 26, 2012 at 3:25 PM, Colin Holgate <coiin@[redacted].net wrote:

> That gives an IMG file, that seems not to be good. Can you take the
> original stack and zip compress it?
>

I see the disk image is still causing issues, so here's the files in a
folder in a .sit (Stuffit) archive.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14605816/mac_stuff/Beyond_Cyberpunk_v1-5.sit

If you unstuff in Mac OS X, you should still have the resource fork intact.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]