[Editor’s note: I first fell in love with computers in my 7th grade science class when I saw a pizza box Mac LCII running a program called HyperCard. Think of it as the grand daddy of Flash and the hyperlinked web. I had dabbled with computers before but they had never seemed so cool, or able to accomplish such nifty tasks. I remember creating one of my first “stacks” for my social study class that same year. Everyone else drew out their “choose your own adventure” story with pen and ink, but I turned mine into a computer game. There were some problems, of course. First among them color was not supported. But you could get around it (in fact I did my science fair project the next year on how to do exactly that). Ah, good times. Long abandoned, HyperCard makes it’s return as HyperStudio and a new generation can discover the joys on both the Mac and now Windows, too.]
Republished from MacNN.com.
Software MacKiev and Roger Wagner have reintroduced HyperStudio as HyperStudio 5, the first new edition of the software in over a decade. The software is used to organize information (stacks) into a structure that supports storytelling, commonly used in education. The new version includes iLife support and includes webcams. It now has live object support, allowing editing of any action, even brush strokes. HyperStudio 5 has advanced graphics effects and text options and has a customizable toolbar, displaying the most frequently used tools.
The new release can publish to MobileMe, export to iPod video formats, and import media from YouTube, iMovie and iTunes. It can also import old HyperStudio stacks. Future improvements, including extended options for podcasting and recording and displaying live video, are in progress and will be made available without additional charge to HyperStudio 5 users.
HyperStudio 5 includes over 1300 clipart graphic elements, 500 background images, 280 sounds, 200 animations and 30 movies. It supports common file formats like JPG, MOV, M4V and HTML for export and can import PDF, PNG, JPG, TIF, MP3, AAC, WMA, AIFF, MOV, AVI and more. The software requires Mac OS X 10.4.11 or higher and a G4 400MHZ or faster processor. It requires a minimum of 256MB RAM. It is available for order now, costing $90 for a single-user license and providing volume discounts for multiple users. Windows version is also available.
