Hi folks, I am new to this community but I wanted to share an interview that Ted Kaehler (who worked on both Smalltalk and HyperCard) was kind enough to do with me. I asked him about the two systems and how they relate to users being able to inspect and modify their own software. Some of his insights that interested me most were about the impact of the HyperCard Help Stack on HyperCard’s design itself, the places he says that Bill Atkinson was right in his different approach from Smalltalk, and how a user builds a drag and drop UI and then says “I’m almost done.” https://codingitwrong.github.io/empowering/ted.html

Alan Kay wanted to build a “personal computer for all ages.” Just as writing and music are each a kind of “literacy”, so the ability to build simulations and play with them would be a new literacy. Simulations help a student understand anything that changes over time. The spread of an epidemic or the growth of a forest fire are great examples. Every child should become empowered to do simulations.

❤️ ❤️ This helps with a long-standing question of mine: https://futureofcoding.slack.com/archives/CCL5VVBAN/p1613351462087400

Macintosh User Groups and stack exchange groups played a huge role in popularizing HyperCard.

Is that the origin of the name stackexchange.com?