MetaCard > Runtime Revolution > LiveCode

A place to discuss any and all xTalk implementations, not just LC LCC Forks, but HyperCard, SuperCard, MetaCard, Gain Momentum, Oracle MediaTalk, OpenXION, etc.
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OpenXTalkPaul
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MetaCard > Runtime Revolution > LiveCode

Post by OpenXTalkPaul »

I don't think it's possible to NOT talk about LC when we're talking about xTalk implementations!

As I understand it's history, and please correct me if I'm wrong because I didn't know much of anything about LC until around the time of the OpenSource Kickstarter campaign (2013), LC began its life as MetaCard, a HyperCard clone for Unix in the early 1990s. Sometime in later in the 1990s it moved towards being cross platform running on Linux, macOS, Windows and still ran on variations of Unix (like SunOS) as well... Then sometime in the early 2000s Kevin Miller and Co. took over from that with a new company called Runtime Revolution (RunRev), and finally changed the name to LiveCode Ltd. a few years later.

As much as LC's user like to complain (including sometimes me), LiveCode has in my opinion pushed xTalk much further than any other implimentation, and added an xTalk middleware language called LiveCode Builder (LCB) to enable users to create their own GUI widgets, precompiled byte code libraries, and tap into foreign libraries and system APIs with it's Foreign Function Interface (FFI). I could not have started to do some of the things I wanted to do without LCB. There's not much financial incentive in tools to make MIDI toys for Live Code Jamming with GarageBand or other DAWs. ("Live coding for realtime interactive music performances" was actually a thing long before LiveCode Ltd. see the history of Max/MSP and Pure Data https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pure_Data). LCB seems to me to be a LOT like the idea behind Heizer Software’s CompileIt! for HyperCard, a system where you could compile add-ons for HyperCard by coding them in HyperTalk Script + Mac toolbox calls and then compile that into much faster assembly / Motorola68K machine code add-ons (XCMD/XFCNs resources) for HC. http://preserve.mactech.com/articles/ma ... index.html
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richmond62
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Re: MetaCard->Runtime Revolution>LiveCode

Post by richmond62 »

MetaCard initially was desinged for UNIX as Linux was nothing worth talking about in the 1990s.

Kevin Miller initially designed Runtime Revolution as an alternative front-end for Metacard (it was quite a large improvement),
and then Metacard folded up and the rights to it ended up with Kevin Miller.

And, Yes, LiveCode has done wonders, and were it not for LiveCode we would not have any open source anything
to build on, so while we may say critical things about LiveCode's marketing and about various members of
people skills (or lack thereof) it would be extremely unjust not to acknowledge LiveCode's very great achievement.
https://richmondmathewson.owlstown.net/
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OpenXTalkPaul
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Re: MetaCard->Runtime Revolution>LiveCode

Post by OpenXTalkPaul »

Thanks for the info, I've updated and will keep editing post#1 until it's more complete.

Thanks for reminding me about Mac garden, haven't looked there in a while, found these old PowerPC versions of LC there:
http://macintoshgarden.org/apps/livecode-powerpc
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richmond62
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Re: MetaCard->Runtime Revolution>LiveCode

Post by richmond62 »

Macintosh Garden is really one of my spiritual homes
as it is where I get stuff to run on my PPC Mac Mini running MacOS 10.4 and MacOS 9 'Classic'.
https://richmondmathewson.owlstown.net/
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