It was simply a magical thing in the early days, and one wonders how things would have turned out if for instance we had had MacBasic instead of HyperCard:

https://folklore.org/MacBasic.html

https://www.folklore.org/Joining_Apple_Computer.html https://www.folklore.org/Evolution_of_a_classic.html

(and it kind of kills me that there isn't a book on the history of HyperCard --- a quick search did turn up:

https://www.taskade.com/blog/hypercard-history

which seems promising (if a bit self-serving and possibly AI-generated.... will have to find time to read)