Microsoft Dynabook? PSHAW!

John Sarkela john_sarkela at 4thEstate.com
Wed Sep 15 14:55:05 UTC 1999


Ironically, the first release user manual for Digitalk
Smalltalk/VPM had a quote from Bill Gates suggesting
that the best language for developing OS/2 PM applications
was Smalltalk/VPM. Hmmmmmm. One wonders what goes on
behind closed doors. :-)

My Archair-Psychologist addition is that the magic of a 
Dynabook doesn't blossom unless it is founded on communication
and cooperation. I suspect that a large Redmond company
may have control issues in this area.

John Sarkela
CTO The Fourth Estate, Inc.

Standard Disclaimer: The opinions are mine.
Nothing left to do, but :-) :-) :-).

Mark Guzdial wrote:
> 
> I've been giving some thought to the Lampson/Thacker Dynabook thread, and
> my take is that they're only addressing part of the problem, and perhaps
> not the tougher part.
> 
> To me, the Dynabook Vision has always been a joint hardware and software
> vision.  Yes, a cool notebook with a great display and a stylus is
> essential, but being a software guy, I focus on the latter part.  The
> Dynabook is supposed to allow for the creation of "personal dynamic media."
> End users, such as kids, should be able to create music, animations, new
> kinds of stories, and new kinds of media.  Expertise should count with a
> Dynabook -- long-time users and gifted artists should really be able to
> make a Dynabook sing, but anyone should be able to create media with a
> Dynabook.  The Dynabook vision is to be the printing press of a new
> computational metamedium.
> 
> I believe that Lampson and Thacker can do the hardware, and if they do it,
> it'll be great.  But I don't believe that Microsoft is the place to get the
> Dynabook software out of.  This is the place that sees Visual Basic for
> Applications as an end-user programming language, whose notion of media
> creation for children is Microsoft Works, and whose notion of a rich
> multimedia workshop is, well, nonexistent.  There is the Microsoft
> streaming video stuff, but that's for distributing media, not creating it.
> 
> My Armchair-Psychologist guess is that the inability to really grok
> Dynabook stems from a misplanted root: Bill Gates reportedly is the world's
> biggest fan of Basic.  I like Basic a lot -- as is true for many others, it
> was my first programming language.  But if you think Basic is the end-all,
> you're not going to see what Smalltalk (and Logo and Lisp, and other very
> non-Basic-y) languages have to offer.
> 
> Mark
> 
> --------------------------
> Mark Guzdial : Georgia Tech : College of Computing : Atlanta, GA 30332-0280
> (404) 894-5618 : Fax (404) 894-0673 : guzdial at cc.gatech.edu
> http://www.cc.gatech.edu/gvu/people/Faculty/Mark.Guzdial.html





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