Yet another project to do a Dynabook. Maybe they'll be able to get further than the ones I've been involved with? (Annoyingly, this requires a (free) subscription.)
WILL THE FUTURE OF COMPUTING BE WRITTEN ON A TABLET? Enlisting the talents of two computer designers who were part of Alan Kay's legendary team at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center in the 1970s, Microsoft has plans for developing a portable, wireless, keyboardless "tablet computer." Although generally similar devices developed by Apple, Go Corp., and AT&T were commercial failures in the past decade, Microsoft is betting that the current rapid convergence of display, processing, storage and other technologies is finally setting the stage for commercial tablet computers using handwriting or speech input. (One recent development has been Microsoft's introduction of its Cleartype software that improves the readability of fonts on flat panel computer displays.) The two designers who will lead the new Microsoft tablet computer effort are Chuck Thacker and Butler Lampson. Lampson says, "I think this will be the way most people interact with the Net and the rest of the computing universe as well." Thacker injects a personal note: "I've always wanted this kind of device, and in systems research one of the most motivating things is that you want the device yourself." (New York Times 30 Aug 99) http://search.nytimes.com/search/daily/bin/fastweb?getdoc+site+site+82844+0+...
If I could have the features of an HP Journada with the form factor of a Clio, a 1280x1024 screen, stereo sound, integrated Calligrapher software, Win/CE 3.0 with it's support for up to 256mb of memory fulfilled and running Squeak on it, i'd feel like i'd died and gone to heaven. A native Squeak OS or Linux-lite would be just fine too!
As it is, i'm getting an HP Journada with 32 mb of memory and getting Squeak onto it somehow... whenever the money shows up. Squeak in the field for a solid 8 hours (as tested). Across the Pacific on two batteries.
Dave LeBlanc
At 10:00 PM 8/31/99 -0700, Tim Rowledge wrote:
Yet another project to do a Dynabook. Maybe they'll be able to get further than the ones I've been involved with? (Annoyingly, this requires a (free) subscription.)
WILL THE FUTURE OF COMPUTING BE WRITTEN ON A TABLET? Enlisting the talents of two computer designers who were part of Alan Kay's legendary team at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center in the 1970s, Microsoft has plans for developing a portable, wireless, keyboardless "tablet computer." Although generally similar devices developed by Apple, Go Corp., and AT&T were commercial failures in the past decade, Microsoft is betting that the current rapid convergence of display, processing, storage and other technologies is finally setting the stage for commercial tablet computers using handwriting or speech input. (One recent development has been Microsoft's introduction of its Cleartype software that improves the readability of fonts on flat panel computer displays.) The two designers who will lead the new Microsoft tablet computer effort are Chuck Thacker and Butler Lampson. Lampson says, "I think this will be the way most people interact with the Net and the rest of the computing universe as well." Thacker injects a personal note: "I've always wanted this kind of device, and in systems research one of the most motivating things is that you want the device yourself." (New York Times 30 Aug 99) http://search.nytimes.com/search/daily/bin/fastweb?getdoc+site+site+82844+0
+wAAA+tablet%7Eand%7E%22research%7Ecenter%22
-- New: It comes in different colors from the previous version. Tim Rowledge: rowledge@interval.com (w) +1 (650) 842-6110 (w) tim@sumeru.stanford.edu (h) http://sumeru.stanford.edu/tim
Microsoft's (not-so hidden) agenda here has to be to save themselves from the mess they've created with WinCE.
All the apps have to be recompiled for different platforms/architectures because WinCE is not a VM technology.
My guess is that their spec will contain a hardware CPU requirement so they can create another "Wintel" monopoly for the PDA world (although it may not be an Intel chip they spec).
The alternatives are:
a. The dominant technology is another VM-based PDA OS (not likely, I'm afraid) b. The Palm product line becomes the dominant technology (leaving Microsoft with dominance of the soon-to-be obsolete desktop platform)
It's possible that they will come up with a VM-based spec, but the C++ bigots hold the political power and such a spec is more likely to be sabotaged than not.
Steve
-----Original Message----- From: Tim Rowledge [mailto:rowledge@interval.com] Sent: August 31, 1999 10:01 PM To: Squeak mailinglist Subject: Lampson/Thacker to do Dynabook?
Yet another project to do a Dynabook. Maybe they'll be able to get further than the ones I've been involved with? (Annoyingly, this requires a (free) subscription.)
WILL THE FUTURE OF COMPUTING BE WRITTEN ON A TABLET? Enlisting the talents of two computer designers who were part of Alan Kay's legendary team at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center in the 1970s, Microsoft has plans for developing a portable, wireless, keyboardless "tablet computer." Although generally similar devices developed by Apple, Go Corp., and AT&T were commercial failures in the past decade, Microsoft is betting that the current rapid convergence of display, processing, storage and other technologies is finally setting the stage for commercial tablet computers using handwriting or speech input. (One recent development has been Microsoft's introduction of its Cleartype software that improves the readability of fonts on flat panel computer displays.) The two designers who will lead the new Microsoft tablet computer effort are Chuck Thacker and Butler Lampson. Lampson says, "I think this will be the way most people interact with the Net and the rest of the computing universe as well." Thacker injects a personal note: "I've always wanted this kind of device, and in systems research one of the most motivating things is that you want the device yourself." (New York Times 30 Aug 99) http://search.nytimes.com/search/daily/bin/fastweb?getdoc+site+sit
e+82844+0+wAAA+tablet%7Eand%7E%22research%7Ecenter%22
-- New: It comes in different colors from the previous version. Tim Rowledge: rowledge@interval.com (w) +1 (650) 842-6110 (w) tim@sumeru.stanford.edu (h) http://sumeru.stanford.edu/tim
Well, the dynabook exists already. I read all papers I could find about Alan Kay's idea about dynabook. It exists as a physical computer. The Powerbook is a perfect example. All features are there and people are using the computer in described ways. That part that is weakest on the Powerbook and dito machines are the dynamic software environment, but exist when Squeak is installed. All examples of Dynabook (and the other similar ideas from Alan Kay that I have found) all have keyboard.
Taking away the keyboard and touch pad/mouse and subsitute it with a pen is great. I want such computer in education ( I am a teacher). I would be able to create completely new application that would take education to a new pedagogical level. I have several application in my drawing board waiting for the computer.
By the way there already exists a penbased computer as is like Dynabook but without keyboard and touch pad - made by Fujitsu - and it runs NT or W95. What I know of, it is not targeted education, though.
The "penbased " computer market - inlcuding Palm and such - looks like the computer market before IBM PC was introduced.
/Truls
Yet another project to do a Dynabook. Maybe they'll be able to get further than the ones I've been involved with? (Annoyingly, this requires a (free) subscription.)
WILL THE FUTURE OF COMPUTING BE WRITTEN ON A TABLET? Enlisting the talents of two computer designers who were part of Alan Kay's legendary team at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center in the 1970s, Microsoft has plans for developing a portable, wireless, keyboardless "tablet computer." Although generally similar devices developed by Apple, Go Corp., and AT&T were commercial failures in the past decade, Microsoft is betting that the current rapid convergence of display, processing, storage and other technologies is finally setting the stage for commercial tablet computers using handwriting or speech input. (One recent development has been Microsoft's introduction of its Cleartype software that improves the readability of fonts on flat panel computer displays.) The two designers who will lead the new Microsoft tablet computer effort are Chuck Thacker and Butler Lampson. Lampson says, "I think this will be the way most people interact with the Net and the rest of the computing universe as well." Thacker injects a personal note: "I've always wanted this kind of device, and in systems research one of the most motivating things is that you want the device yourself." (New York Times 30 Aug 99) http://search.nytimes.com/search/daily/bin/fastweb?getdoc+site+site+82844+0+... A+tablet%7Eand%7E%22research%7Ecenter%22
-- New: It comes in different colors from the previous version. Tim Rowledge: rowledge@interval.com (w) +1 (650) 842-6110 (w) tim@sumeru.stanford.edu (h) http://sumeru.stanford.edu/tim
On Wed, Sep 01, 1999 at 07:15:01PM +0200, Truls Cronberg wrote:
Well, the dynabook exists already. I read all papers I could find about Alan Kay's idea about dynabook. It exists as a physical computer. The Powerbook is a perfect example. All features are there and people are using the computer in described ways. That part that is weakest on the Powerbook and dito machines are the dynamic software environment, but exist when Squeak is installed. All examples of Dynabook (and the other similar ideas from Alan Kay that I have found) all have keyboard.
I would say that the high price of modern laptops also cuts into their portability. The Dynabook ideal (as I read it, anyway) is that you can just keep one in your knapsack/briefcase and pull it out when needed, and most of us can't afford to be that casual with a fragile $3000 laptop. I won't call anything a Dynabook until it's priced a lot lower.
If we want every school child to have a notebook computer in his or her knapsack, we have to make sure that every parent can afford to buy that child another one every two or three years. (And also that the average notebook can survive drops, mud, sand, snowballs and being sat on.) Currently, notebooks seem to be marketted as a prestige item, not a computer for the masses.
When I want to have a computer handy, I throw my old TRS-80 Model 100 (circa 1983) in my knapsack and use that. It's cheap enough that I don't care too much what happens to it.
(Unfortunately, it doesn't run Squeak. Anyone want to try to port it? ;-)
--Chris
I would say that the high price of modern laptops also cuts into their portability. The Dynabook ideal (as I read it, anyway) is that you can just keep one in your knapsack/briefcase and pull it out when needed, and most of us can't afford to be that casual with a fragile $3000 laptop. I won't call anything a Dynabook until it's priced a lot lower.
Ok, I can buy that argument. It is partly in the original description. I can't remember anything about pricing, but anyone should be able to use it and a high price limits this availability. Strictly, a penbased computer without keyboard lack defined features of the original description of Dynabook as much as high pricing.
/Truls
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Truls Cronberg