HyperCard - technical definition

A Macintosh application development system from Apple that was one of the first visual tools for building hyperlinked applications. "Stacks" of "cards" are built that hold text, graphics, sound and video with links between them. Complex routines can be embedded in the cards using the HyperTalk programming language.

Until HyperCard 2.1, the HyperCard program had to be resident in the computer to run the stack. Although HyperCard compilers have been available from third parties, as of HyperCard 2.1, a runtime engine is included in the stack so that HyperCard does not have to be on the target machine.