Shakedown Social

herr stoltenberg :verified:on june 5, bill atkinson passed away at the age of 74 at his home in portola valley, california. his family confirmed the cause was pancreatic cancer.before the macintosh, computing was still largely limited to text commands. atkinson’s contributions made personal computing visual, intuitive and human centered. he believed deeply in the potential of technology to empower creativity and expression.<a href="https://deppenkessel.de/tags/lisa" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#lisa</a> <a href="https://deppenkessel.de/tags/mac" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#mac</a> <a href="https://deppenkessel.de/tags/68k" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#68k</a> <a href="https://deppenkessel.de/tags/hypercard" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#hypercard</a>

E<a href="https://hachyderm.io/@inthehands" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@inthehands</a> <a href="https://fosstodon.org/@lePetomaneAncien" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@lePetomaneAncien</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/@arroz" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@arroz</a> i have been searching for a <a href="https://sfba.social/tags/HyperCard" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#HyperCard</a> replacement for decades

Eliot LashRIP Bill Atkinson, creator of <a href="https://social.coop/tags/HyperCard" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#HyperCard</a>, <a href="https://social.coop/tags/MacPaint" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#MacPaint</a>, and much more. His software was way ahead of its time.Myst and Riven co-creator Robyn Miller reflected on how much they owed to his software: <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/tinselman.bsky.social/post/3lr4ephezhc2g" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://bsky.app/profile/tinselman.bsky.social/post/3lr4ephezhc2g</a><a href="https://appleinsider.com/articles/25/06/07/bill-atkinson-pioneering-early-apple-engineer-dies-at-74" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://appleinsider.com/articles/25/06/07/bill-atkinson-pioneering-early-apple-engineer-dies-at-74</a><a href="https://social.coop/tags/MacOS" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#MacOS</a> <a href="https://social.coop/tags/ClassicMac" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#ClassicMac</a> <a href="https://social.coop/tags/AppleLisa" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#AppleLisa</a> <a href="https://social.coop/tags/RetroComputing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#RetroComputing</a> <a href="https://social.coop/tags/ComputerHistory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#ComputerHistory</a>

デイヴJust learnt that Bill Atkinson left us a few days ago. 😿 As a kid whose first interactions with a computer were macPaint, and who literally wrote his first computer "programs" with Hypercard, Atkinson had a pivotal influence on my life… 💌 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Atkinson" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Atkinson</a><a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/obituary" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#obituary</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/hypercard" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#hypercard</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/apple" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#apple</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/mac" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#mac</a>

Dan ConnollyI kept the "HyperTalk Programming" book all these years.<a href="https://social.coop/tags/HyperCard" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#HyperCard</a><a href="https://archive.org/details/@dckc67/lists/1/mylowestbookshelf" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://archive.org/details/@dckc67/lists/1/mylowestbookshelf</a>

Dan Connolly<a href="https://social.coop/tags/grateful" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#grateful</a> for Bill Atkinson and <a href="https://social.coop/tags/HyperCard" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#HyperCard</a>HyperSchool is a HyperCard application for schools to do scheduling, attendance, and grades.It includes thousands of lines of <a href="https://social.coop/tags/HyperTalk" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#HyperTalk</a> code, plus some C code to interface to a scantron machine and to do simulated annealing before the user gets old.

europlus :autisminf:I’m not a fan of self-boosting, but I realised I was remiss in not putting some hashtags on this post after it started gaining the small amount of traction it has.For those who boosted or liked the original, I’m not asking or expecting a repeat. I just hope with these hashtags it gets a little more traction to acknowledge the genius of <a href="https://social.europlus.zone/tags/BillAtkinson" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#BillAtkinson</a>, who affected so many lives through the genius work he did.I know he impacted many aspects of my life through the work he did on the Mac, the original System, and MacPaint, and it seems many others were similarly impacted.It’s been truly inspiring for me to see Mac legends talk how he put the lie to the saying “Never meet your heroes”, as he seemed to have been a hero to many, and never a disappointment in person.RIP, Bill. :alogo6:<a href="https://social.europlus.zone/tags/RIPBillAtkinson" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#RIPBillAtkinson</a> <a href="https://social.europlus.zone/tags/HyperCard" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#HyperCard</a> <a href="https://social.europlus.zone/tags/MystGame" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#MystGame</a> <a href="https://social.europlus.zone/tags/Lisa" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Lisa</a> <a href="https://social.europlus.zone/tags/ClassicMacOS" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#ClassicMacOS</a> <a href="https://social.europlus.zone/tags/QuickDraw" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#QuickDraw</a> <a href="https://social.europlus.zone/tags/Dithering" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Dithering</a> <a href="https://social.europlus.zone/tags/AtkinsonDithering" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#AtkinsonDithering</a> <a href="https://social.europlus.zone/tags/ClassicMacs" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#ClassicMacs</a> <a href="https://social.europlus.zone/tags/ClassicMacintosh" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#ClassicMacintosh</a> <a href="https://social.europlus.zone/tags/Mac128K" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Mac128K</a> <a href="https://social.europlus.zone/tags/MarchingAnts" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#MarchingAnts</a> <a href="https://social.europlus.zone/tags/MacPaint" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#MacPaint</a> <a href="https://social.europlus.zone/tags/FatBits" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#FatBits</a> <a href="https://social.europlus.zone/@europlus/114645820628589016" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://social.europlus.zone/@europlus/114645820628589016</a>

skryI loved reading <a href="https://mastodon.social/@csilverman" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@csilverman</a>’s thoughtful tribute to Bill Atkinson, who gave us personal computing in so many ways. <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/BillAtkinson" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#BillAtkinson</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/Hypercard" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Hypercard</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/RIP" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#RIP</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/Macintosh" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Macintosh</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/@csilverman/114646274324945609" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://mastodon.social/@csilverman/114646274324945609</a>

gbilderI still miss <a href="https://digipres.club/tags/HyperCard" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#HyperCard</a>

Andy 🌎RIP Bill Atkinson - one of the original Macintosh team.He created both MacPaint & Hypercard which had a big influence on me as a kid.<a href="https://appleinsider.com/articles/25/06/07/bill-atkinson-pioneering-early-apple-engineer-dies-at-74" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://appleinsider.com/articles/25/06/07/bill-atkinson-pioneering-early-apple-engineer-dies-at-74</a><a href="https://fosstodon.org/tags/BillAtkinson" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#BillAtkinson</a> <a href="https://fosstodon.org/tags/RIP" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#RIP</a> <a href="https://fosstodon.org/tags/Macintosh" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Macintosh</a> <a href="https://fosstodon.org/tags/Hypercard" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Hypercard</a> <a href="https://fosstodon.org/tags/MacPaint" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#MacPaint</a>

Blake PattersonRIP Bill Atkinson<a href="https://oldbytes.space/tags/Apple" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Apple</a> <a href="https://oldbytes.space/tags/Mac" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Mac</a> <a href="https://oldbytes.space/tags/Macintosh" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Macintosh</a> <a href="https://oldbytes.space/tags/inventor" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#inventor</a> <a href="https://oldbytes.space/tags/artist" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#artist</a> <a href="https://oldbytes.space/tags/pirate" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#pirate</a> <a href="https://oldbytes.space/tags/vintageApple" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#vintageApple</a> <a href="https://oldbytes.space/tags/MacPaint" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#MacPaint</a> <a href="https://oldbytes.space/tags/HyperCard" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#HyperCard</a> <a href="https://oldbytes.space/tags/QuickDraw" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#QuickDraw</a> <a href="https://oldbytes.space/tags/hero" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#hero</a> <a href="https://oldbytes.space/tags/RIP" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#RIP</a>

Telmo 🦕Should the next <a href="https://masto.pt/tags/MARCHintosh" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#MARCHintosh</a> be dedicated to Bill Atkinson? His work—MacPaint, HyperCard, and a visionary approach to software—defined the soul of early Macintosh. Every retro Mac celebrates him in spirit, but perhaps this time we could make it official.<a href="https://masto.pt/tags/billatkinson" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#billatkinson</a> <a href="https://masto.pt/tags/macintosh" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#macintosh</a> <a href="https://masto.pt/tags/retromacintosh" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#retromacintosh</a> <a href="https://masto.pt/tags/hypercard" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#hypercard</a> <a href="https://masto.pt/tags/vintagemac" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#vintagemac</a> <a href="https://masto.pt/tags/retrocomputing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#retrocomputing</a>

Geoff DuncanSo, Bill Atkinson is probably the reason I stuck with computers, and definitely the reason I wound up on Macs. I'd done bits of programming before I stumbled across HyperCard (BASIC, 6502 Assembler, Pascal, shell scripting, blah blah blah—even smidgens of FORTRAN and COBOL) but it was always with disinterest: I just wanted to do a thing, and if I had to program to do it…sigh, *fine.* I couldn't wait to put the task behind me. But HyperCard…HyperCard made programming accessible and fun. And while HyperCard (and HyperTalk) had distinct limitations and shortcomings, it was amazing what it could be pushed to do—and I enjoyed doing it, which is something I cannot say of *any* development environment I've worked with since.I worked on games and educational titles built in HyperCard, and I created heaps of specialty and in-house systems (some of which were running until very recently). For years I ran a specialized web crawler that was (yep) built in HyperCard. Large parts of the backend for TidBITS were glued together with HyperCard. And no, none of this was rock solid, but it was very rare that HyperCard was the piece that failed.Of course, Bill Atkinson's contributions to the Mac, to computing, and the world were much larger than HyperCard. He was a giant, and I'm privileged to have stood on a tiny portion of one of his shoulders. Thank you.<a href="https://mindly.social/tags/billatkinson" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#billatkinson</a> <a href="https://mindly.social/tags/hypercard" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#hypercard</a>

Bruce MacDonald"It was Mr. Atkinson who programmed QuickDraw, a foundational software layer used for both the Lisa and Macintosh computers; composed of a library of small programs, it made it possible to display shapes, text and images on the screen efficiently." <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/07/technology/bill-atkinson-dead.html" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/07/technology/bill-atkinson-dead.html</a><a href="https://hachyderm.io/tags/obituary" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#obituary</a> <a href="https://hachyderm.io/tags/ComputerHistory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#ComputerHistory</a> <a href="https://hachyderm.io/tags/QuickDraw" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#QuickDraw</a> <a href="https://hachyderm.io/tags/HyperCard" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#HyperCard</a> <a href="https://hachyderm.io/tags/Macintosh" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Macintosh</a> <a href="https://hachyderm.io/tags/MeaningfulLabor" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#MeaningfulLabor</a>

vga256good long night bill. your software lives on with us.<a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/06/07/bill-atkinson-rip" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/06/07/bill-atkinson-rip</a><a href="https://dialup.cafe/tags/hypercard" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#hypercard</a> <a href="https://dialup.cafe/tags/vintageApple" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#vintageApple</a> <a href="https://dialup.cafe/tags/macintosh" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#macintosh</a>

Classic WebTwin Peaks on <a href="https://indieweb.social/tags/HyperCard" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#HyperCard</a>, 1991-94; via <a href="https://mastodon.archive.org/@internetarchive" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@internetarchive</a>.

Telmo 🦕The genius behind MacPaint, HyperCard, and so many other groundbreaking creations has left us. I like to think that Bill Atkinson is now in a better place—one where HyperCard was never discontinued, and its legacy lives on, evolving as it always should have.<a href="https://masto.pt/tags/billatkinson" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#billatkinson</a> <a href="https://masto.pt/tags/macintosh" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#macintosh</a> <a href="https://masto.pt/tags/hypercard" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#hypercard</a> <a href="https://masto.pt/tags/macpaint" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#macpaint</a> <a href="https://masto.pt/tags/retrocomputing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#retrocomputing</a>

Paolo AmorosoRIP Bill Atkinson.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Atkinson" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Atkinson</a><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44210606" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44210606</a><a href="https://oldbytes.space/tags/retrocomputing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#retrocomputing</a> <a href="https://oldbytes.space/tags/HyperCard" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#HyperCard</a> <a href="https://oldbytes.space/tags/apple" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#apple</a>

Maj - 🇨🇦<a href="https://mastodon.social/@ricmac" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@ricmac</a> <a href="https://w3c.social/@timbl" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@timbl</a> I created a "Choose Your Own Adventure" story/game in Hypercard circa 1989-90(?) It had a map that "unscrolled" and you could jump to different places and then complete puzzles and make decisions. I kept that floppy disk (which wasn't actually floppy at that point I think) for years...<a href="https://cosocial.ca/tags/deepMagic" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#deepMagic</a> <a href="https://cosocial.ca/tags/hypercard" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#hypercard</a> <a href="https://cosocial.ca/tags/nostalgia" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#nostalgia</a>

Richard MacManusI’m sure we will hear a lot about Bill Atkinson (RIP) over the next few days, but I want to point out the huge influence of <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/HyperCard" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#HyperCard</a> on the Web. <a href="https://w3c.social/@timbl" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@timbl</a> himself mentioned it in his original WWW proposal (<a href="https://cybercultural.com/p/1990-programming-the-world-wide-web/" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://cybercultural.com/p/1990-programming-the-world-wide-web/</a>), early web browsers like ViolaWWW were modeled on HyperCard (<a href="https://cybercultural.com/p/1992-web-vs-gopher/" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://cybercultural.com/p/1992-web-vs-gopher/</a>), and even JavaScript owed a debt to it (HyperCard included an object oriented scripting language called HyperTalk; <a href="https://cybercultural.com/p/1995-the-birth-of-javascript/" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://cybercultural.com/p/1995-the-birth-of-javascript/</a>).

Recent searches

Search options

Administered by:

Server stats:

#hypercard