Video Poker

Video Poker is a 1992 HyperCard implementation of the classic five-card draw video poker machine, written for Macintosh by Don Hewitt. Distributed as a single HyperCard stack, it lets players choose between black-and-white and full-color presentations from the opening screen, making it an unusually polished freeware entry from the early System 7 era.

HyperCard Heritage

Built entirely within HyperCard, the stack relies on HyperTalk scripting to handle dealing, holding, and payout logic. That lineage means it opens inside the HyperCard Player or full HyperCard authoring environment rather than as a standalone application, a typical packaging style for hobbyist Mac games of the period.

Gameplay

Each round deals five cards face up. The player taps to hold any subset, then triggers the draw to replace the rest. Standard Jacks-or-Better hand rankings drive the payout table, and a running credit total reflects wins and losses across sessions.

Visual Modes

A pre-game switch lets users pick between the original monochrome card faces and a color variant. The dual presentation accommodates both compact Macs with 1-bit displays and color-capable Quadras and LCs.

System and Distribution

The stack supports System 7.0 through 7.6 and Mac OS 9, on both 68k and PowerPC hardware. Macintosh Garden mirrors the original archive as videopoker1.2.cpt_.hqx, a Compact Pro file inside a BinHex 4.0 wrapper - a packaging combination characteristic of early-1990s Info-Mac uploads.