Book People Archive

invention? or dead end? or still a dream to this very day?

http://www.honco.net/os/kay.html said:
>    "[In 1968], Kay had envisioned the Dynabook, which
>    he described as "a portable interactive personal computer,
>    as accessible as a book." The Dynabook would be
>    linked to a network and offer users a synthesis of
>    text, visuals, animation and audio. Kay drew an initial
>    pen and ink sketch of this device, which is widely considered
>    the prototype for the notebook computer. Today, most
>    portable computers contain all the technology his vision
>    would require, yet Kay has insisted in his talks and writings
>    that the Dynabook remains a dream. "

so, from alan kay _himself_, his vision still "remains a dream".

of what are we to make of this?

***

bill said:
>   If you read Doug Engelbart's work from 1962 and 1968
>    (online at www.bootstrap.org), he was all over this idea

nice.   but where's his e-library?


>   Engelbart's lab at SRI, who connected up their NLS
>    hypertext publishing system.  This was in 1969.
>    They fully expected it to be permanent.

great expectations.   but again, where is this n.l.s. today?


>   And there's Nelson and van Dam's work on HES and FRESS
>    at Brown in 1968 and 1969.

well, ted nelson is a genius, one who is still before his time
-- his explication of the flaws of the current web as being
the very things that his blueprint was designed to _avoid_
is priceless -- which explains why his library doesn't exist...


>   There was a huge group there at UIUC (oddly enough, at CERL)
>    throughout the 60's and 70's working on PLATO, working on
>    systems to use computers for teaching (funded by Army dollars).

where are these systems today?
the $100 laptop people could
make use of something like that.

***

and what about project gutenberg?

17,000+ e-texts are located at:
>    http://www.gutenberg.org

that is all.

***

_invention_ doesn't mean "drawing up a plan".
or "having the idea", or "making a prototype"...

it means building a factory and turning out your widgets.

(and here's a piece of good unsolicited advice:
ask yourself why someone would want you to
get all bogged down in stupid semantic matters
when you should be looking at what's important.)

-bowerbird

p.s.   michael, perhaps if you gave us the i.s.b.n.
on that box of punchcards containing your "alice",
it would be easier for us to track it down...          ;+)