Bill Atkinson : HyperCard <1987>

The first accessible hypermedia system

Freely available on all Macs

A huge success (learning material, game, inventory systems etc)

Lighting system for the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia !

Usual Apple mistake : proprietary

Hypercard = B&W Web, with Javascript, XML, XLST but no URL

HyperCard was created by Bill Atkinson and initially released in 1987, with the understanding that Atkinson would give HyperCard to Apple only if they promised to release it for free on all Macs (an agreement that, according to Atkinson, ran out when the largely-rewritten HyperCard 2.0 hit the shelves).

HyperCard is one of the first products that made use of and popularized the hypertext concept to a large popular base of users. Hypercard saw a loss in popularity with the growth of the World Wide Web, since the web could handle and deliver data in much the same way as HyperCard without being limited to files on your hard disk. Interestingly, HyperCard had a significant impact on the web as it inspired the creation of both HTTP itself and JavaScript.

Because it can be used to create custom applications in minutes, HyperCard is still used by many academic researchers and small businesses. Some companies run HyperCard applications -- that were written years ago on a Mac Plus -- on the latest dual-processor G4 PowerMacs.
Renault, the French auto giant, reportedly uses HyperCard for its inventory system. The software runs part of the lighting system for the tallest buildings in the world, the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
HyperCard is used widely in schools to teach programming concepts and for creating interactive learning materials or class reports.

Source : Wired : http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,54365,00.html

HyperCard is based on the concept of a "stack" of virtual "cards". Each card includes fields that store data, and the pattern for each card (its layout, as opposed to the data in the layout) is known as the "background". Backgrounds could include pictures (its original purpose, "background picture"), picture fields, buttons, text, text fields (editors) and other common GUI elements, which would then be copied onto new cards.
Users can construct databases by opening the Background editor and drawing items onto it to hold the various pieces of data. For instance, an address book could be easily built up by adding a few text fields to hold the name and address. Once completed, the user simply adds a new card (by typing command-n) and types into the fields. The background could be modified at any time, allowing changes to be made with ease – something traditional systems are very bad at. Basic operations such as search, add and delete were built into the HyperCard environment, allowing simple databases to be set up and used by anyone able to use the Apple Macintosh computer.
Scripting in the HyperTalk language allowed the system to be easily modified and extended. Unlike most programming languages, even those that claim to be easy to use, HyperTalk really was easy to use. Allowable syntax included all sorts of versions of the same statement, all in readable English, to avoid forcing the user to write their programs in a particular format.

Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyperCard