by DonHopkins | 2025-06-07 20:00:17+00:00
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21779399

DonHopkins on Dec 13, 2019 | parent | context | favorite | on: Bill Atkinson: Reflections on the 40th anniversary...

I recently posted these thoughts about Bill Atkinson, and links to articles and a recent interview he gave to Brad Myers' user interface class at CMU: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21726302

Bill Atkinson is the humblest, sweetest, most astronomically talented guy -- practically the opposite of Rony Abovitz! I think they're on very different drugs. The Psychedelic Inspiration For Hypercard, by Bill Atkinson, as told to Leo Laporte.

"In 1985 I swallowed a tiny fleck of gelatin containing a medium dose of LSD, and I spent most of the night sitting on a concrete park bench outside my home in Los Gatos, California." ...

https://www.mondo2000.com/2018/06/18/the-inspiration-for-hyp...

Full interview with lots more details about the development of HyperCard:

https://twit.tv/shows/triangulation/episodes/247?autostart=f...

Bill Atkinson's guest lecture in Brad Meyer's CMU 05-640 Interaction Techniques class, Spring 2019, Feb 4, 2019:

https://scs.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=...

Including polaroids of early Lisa development.

About PhotoCard:

https://web.archive.org/web/20110303033205/http://www.billat...

PhotoCard by Bill Atkinson is a free app available from the iTunes App store, that allows you to create custom postcards using Bill's nature photos or your own personal photos, then send them by email or postal mail from your iPad, iPhone or iPod touch.

Bill Atkinson, Mac software legend and world renowned nature photographer, has created an innovative application that redefines how people create and send postcards.

With PhotoCard you can make dazzling, high resolution postcards on your iPad, iPhone or iPod touch, and send them on-the-spot, through email or the US Postal Service. The app is amazingly easy to use. To create a PhotoCard, select one of Bill's nature photos or one of your own personal photos. Then, flip the card over to type your message. For a fun touch, jazz up your PhotoCard with decorative stickers and stamps. If you're emailing your card, it can even include an audible greeting. When you've finished your creation, send it off to any email or postal address in the world!

pvg on Dec 13, 2019 | prev [–]

Was this bit about LSD and Hypercard covered before what seems like a 2016 interview and some later articles? So much has been written about HyperCard (and MacPaint and QuickDraw) I'm wondering if I somehow managed to miss it in all that material.

DonHopkins on Dec 13, 2019 | parent | next [–]

As far as I know, the first time Bill Atkinson publically mentioned that LSD inspired HyperCard was in an interview with Leo Laporte on Apr 25th 2016, which claims to be "Part 2". I have searched all over for part 1 but have not been able to find it. Then Mondo 2000 published a transcript of that part of the interview on June 18 2018, and I think a few other publications repeated it around that time.

And later on Feb 4, 2019 he gave a live talk to Brad Myers' "05-640: Interaction Techniques" user interface design class at CMU, during which he read the transcript.

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~bam/uicourse/05440inter2019/schedule....

It's well worth watching that interview. He went over and explained all of his amazing Polaroids of Lisa development, which I don't think have ever been published anywhere else.

See Bill Atkinson's Lisa development polaroids:

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~bam/uicourse/05440inter2019/Bill_Atki...

Then at 1:03:15 a student asked him the million dollar question: what was the impetus and motivation behind HyperCard? He chuckled, reached for the transcript he had off-camera, and then out of the blue he asked the entire class "How many of you guys have done ... a psychedelic?" (Brad reported "No hands", but I think some may have been embarrassed to admit it in front of their professor). So then Bill launched into reading the transcript of the LSD HyperCard story, and blew all the students' minds.

See video of Bill's talk:

https://scs.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=...

The next week I gave a talk to the same class that Bill had just traumatized by asking if they'd done illegal drugs, and (at 37:11) I trolled them by conspiratorially asking: "One thing I wanted to ask the class: Have any of you ever used ... (pregnant pause) ... HyperCard? Basically, because in 1987 I saw HyperCard, and it fucking blew my mind." Then I launched into my description of how important and amazing HyperCard was.

See video of Don's talk:

https://scs.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=...

Here is an index of all of the videos from Brad Myers' interaction techniques class, including Rob Haitani (Palm Pilot), Shumin Zhai (text input and swipe method), Dan Bricklin (spreadsheets, Demo prototyping tool), Don Hopkins (pie menus), and Bill Atkinson (Mac, HyperCard):

https://scs.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Sessions/List.a...