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"[unrev-II] The DKR hardware I'd like to make..."
http://www.bootstrap.org/dkr/discussion/0754.html

"Consider a couple of these souped up devices given to each village in
Africa. Anyone with $1 billion for true development aid to 500,000
African villages? (This is just the cost of one unfinished dam or one
shut down nuclear plant.)
Consider millions of these devices airdropped into Iraq and Yugoslavia
-- instead of more expensive cruise missiles! Anybody got $1 billion to
spend on ensuring democracy with a true defense against tyranny in those
places? (This is probably what the U.S. military's spends on gas/oil for
a month cruising the area...)
This is like a system I wanted to develop and deploy pre-Y2K just in
case...
But it still has much value in preparing for any potential (natural,
political, economic, biological) disaster, as well as aiding the
development of democracy.
It's somewhat like the wearable crystsls described in The Skills of
Xanadu" by Theodore Sturgeon (available in his book The Golden Helix),
although the one thing it lacks is easy self-repliaction...
Developing and then deploying this sort of device is the sort of thing
the UN or a major foundation should fund (if they were on the ball).
But luckily, there is hope from toymakers!"

OLPC is on the ropes, and it took a couple more years than I predicted, but here are the toymakers coming through for us with Pandora!

The hopeful social outcome of all this increase in productivity was talked about as far back as 1964:
http://www.educationanddemocracy.org/FSCfiles/C_CC2a_TripleRevolution.htm
in a letter sent to President Lyndon B. Johnson in March 1964 called "The Triple Revolution".

Actually, the increase is more like a doubling every 1.5 years, which is about seven cycles in ten years, or more like 128X. But the rate of increase itself has been increasing too. Price has also been dropping. This makes effectively a 1000X increase in price/performance per decade at the current rates.

By the time any toddler of today is finishing graduate school, computers will be about 1000X (for the first decade) multiplied (not added) by 1000X (for the second decade) or about a million times faster than they are now -- just like computers are about a million times faster than twenty to thirty years ago (at constant dollars, or so MIPS per $). Related links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore's_law
http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0134.html?printable=1
http://www.bootstrap.org/dkr/discussion/0126.html
http://www.transhumanist.com/volume1/moravec.htm
(The rate of exponential growth itself is even increasing!) According to that last link, those AI computers had about 1 MIPS processing power. (And it's a funny idea Hans Moravec had, and I think correct, that only for the last decade or so has AI been taking advantage of faster desktop CPUs going beyond 1 MIPS..)

At lower previous rates, over 30 years, we see a million times improvement. As an example, compare the late 1970s Apple II
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_II
with todays' (2007) eight core Mac Pro.
http://www.apple.com/macpro/
Then --> Now (approximate increase)
CPU: 1 Mhz --> 8 * 3 Ghz (8000X faster, but about another 100X internal improvements from wider data operations and pipelining and such). (somewhere in x100000 to x1000000)
RAM: 4K --> 4GB RAM just starting to be common. (x1000000)
Disk: 300K disks --> 300 gigabyte disks. (x1000000)
And all for about the same price (adjusted for inflation). Some other considerations:
Bandwidth: 11 bytes/sec modem at $10 / hour --> 800000 bytes/second by cable at $60 / month (about x10000 faster, well that doesn't quite fit, but its still a big improvement -- and if you factor in the cost for continuous access, there is probably another 10x or 100X boost in there, producing effectively close to a x1000000 improvement of price/performance)
Printing: about 1000 characters per minute for $1200 printer -> 10 pages per minute each with millions of color pixels -- with the printer often now free with the computer (not sure how to call this as a multiple, since quality has changed so much).

So, here are possible specs for a personal computer of 2027 if it was a million times faster than today's:
CPU: 8 * 3 Ghz --> 8000 X 3 THz (1000X more CPUs each 1000X faster, though I think it likely such systems might just instead have a million processors at about today's speeds, perhaps interweaving memory and processing power)
RAM: 4GB --> 4000TB (enough to hold all of the current surface internet in RAM, see:
http://www2.sims.berkeley.edu/research/projects/how-much-info-2003/internet.htm )
See also:

Computers are increasing by a factor of about 1000X in performance per
price per decade. By the time any toddler of today is finishing
graduate school, computers will be about 1000X (for the first decade)
multiplied (not added) by 1000X (for the second decade) or about
a million times faster than they are now -- just like computers are
about a million times faster than twenty to thirty years ago (at
constant dollars, or so MIPS per $). Related links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore's_law
http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0134.html?pr intable=1
http://www.bootstrap.org/dkr/discussion/0126.html
http://www.transhumanist.com/volume1/moravec.htm
(The rate of exponential growth itself is even increasing!)
According to that last link, those AI computers had about 1 MIPS
processing power. (And it's a funny idea Hans Moravec had, and I think
correct, that only for the last decade or so has AI been taking
advantage of faster desktop CPUs going beyond 1 MIPS..)

As an example, compare the late 1970s Apple II
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_II
with todays' (2007) eight core Mac Pro.
http://www.apple.com/macpro/
Then --> Now (approximate increase)
CPU: 1 Mhz --> 8 * 3 Ghz (8000X faster, but about another 100X internal
improvements from wider data operations and pipelining and such).
(somewhere in x100000 to x1000000)
RAM: 4K --> 4GB RAM just starting to be common. (x1000000)
Disk: 300K disks --> 300 gigabyte disks. (x1000000)
And all for about the same price (adjusted for inflation).
Some other considerations:
Bandwidth: 11 bytes/sec modem at $10 / hour --> 800000 bytes/second by
cable at $60 / month (about x10000 faster, well that doesn't quite fit,
but its still a big improvement -- and if you factor in the cost for
continuous access, there is probably another 10x or 100X boost in there,
producing effectively close to a x1000000 improvement of price/performance)
Printing: about 1000 characters per minute for $1200 printer -> 10 pages
per minute each with millions of color pixels -- with the printer often
now free with the computer (not sure how to call this as a multiple,
since quality has changed so much).

So, here are possible specs for a personal computer of 2027 if it was a
million times faster than today's:
CPU: 8 * 3 Ghz --> 8000 X 3 THz (1000X more CPUs each 1000X faster,
though I think it likely such systems might just instead have a million
processors at about today's speeds, perhaps interweaving memory and
processing power)
RAM: 4GB --> 4000TB (enough to hold all of the current surface internet
in RAM, see:
http://www2.sims.berkeley.edu/research/projects/ho w-much-info-2003/internet.htm
)
See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigabyte
for MB, GB, TB, PB, EB series and their meaning
DISK: 300GB --> 300PB (which is 300,000 TB)
For reference, a DVD movie uncompressed is about 5GB.
Note that, according to:
http://elegans.uky.edu/blog/?p=49
300 TB would allow you to record your entire life in video for 16hr/day
for 100 years at 500MB/hr. So you could do that for 1000 people on just
your own $3000 2027AD personal computer. Or you could just perhaps store
the interesting bits of life video for perhaps a hundred thousand people
or so. Needless to say,

I wonder why people seem to forget the inventions done by Douglas Engelbart. "What did he do?", you might ask. Or maybe you say something like "oh, the mouse guy, right?". Well, If I was only to point out one thing he did, I would mention what we call "the mother of all demos" which he gave in december 1968. There he demonstrated the use of a mouse, hypertext linking and video conferencing. Again: He demonstrated the use of a mouse and hypertext linking in documents more than 20 years before Tim Berners-Lee "invented" the web.

Some references for those interested:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Engelbart
http://sloan.stanford.edu/mousesite/1968Demo.html
http://www.bootstrap.org/

Greets! http://sloan.stanford.edu/mousesite/1968Demo.html The Sloan MouseSite has better video where you can actually read what Doug has on the screen! I've been lucky enough to see this video with commentary by Doug - he's still around, still has ideas relevant and ahead of most of the rest of the computing world and is always glad to discuss his ideas with people. You can find out his current plans at the Bootstrap Institute: http://www.bootstrap.org/

See my comment in 2000 to Doug Engelbart's Bootstrap List at:
    http://www.bootstrap.org/dkr/discussion/0754.html
From there [with some outdated links removed]:

I'd love to make a souped up version of this for OHS/DKR use: (Read about in May 2000 Popular Mechanics) "Cybiko Introduces First Handheld Internet Wireless Entertainment System At Toy Fair 2000"

US $149.00 The Cybiko system combines instant messaging, interactive gaming, email and personal information manager (PIM) capabilities in an all-in-one device. ... Available in four translucent colors, Cybiko has a full QWERTY keyboard to compose messages, LCD display, .5 MB memory (expandable to 16MB), a high frequency transmitter and Vibration Alert feature. The unit measures 4.8 x 2.8-inches and weighs under four ounces making it light, thin and small enough to carry in a book bag, purse or shirt pocket. ... With Cybiko, kids and teens can communicate instantly with others within a radius of 150 to 300 feet, depending on the environment, creating their very own virtual community.

Wow!

Imagine what we could have for $1000 by the end of this year by integrating technology that already exists:

Develop a beefed up version supporting a distributed file system like Freenet...
    http://freenet.sourceforge.net/

Using technology like this 6GB in 14 ounces $500 portable audio player/recorder: [nomad Jukebox]:

And a two mile radio range: [Motorola walky talky]

Maybe with a next generation StrongARM 600Mhz processor:
    http://www.intel.com/pressroom/archive/releases/em 050399.htm
Like a faster version of: [BossaNova mobile processor]

Running Squeak (and maybe Linux) as an open source OS/Development environment:
    http://www.squeak.org/

Using Bootstrap OHS/DKR type ideas for the interface...

Powered by solar energy and/or Baygen radio windup technology and/or fuel cells.

And with a digital camera for fun and creation of educational how-to tutorials... (And on the spot news reporting...)

And remember that in five years this entire thing will cost US$100 each.

As an alternative, this could be a set of HandSpring modules instead: [Springboard]

Consider a couple of these souped up devices given to each village in Africa. Anyone with $1 billion for true development aid to 500,000 African villages? (This is just the cost of one unfinished dam or one shut down nuclear plant.)

Consider millions of these devices airdropped into Iraq and Yugoslavia -- instead of more expensive cruise missiles! Anybody got $1 billion to spend on ensuring democracy with a true defense against tyranny in those places? (This is probably what the U.S. military's spends on gas/oil for a month cruising the area...)

This is like a system I wanted to develop and deploy pre-Y2K just in case... But it still has much value in preparing for any potential (natural, political, economic, biological) disaster, as well as aiding the development of democracy.

It's somewhat like the wearable crystals described in The Skills of Xanadu" by Theodore Sturgeon (available in his book The Golden Helix), although the one thing it lacks is easy self-repliaction...

Developing and then deploying this sort of device is the sort of thing the UN or a major foundation should fund (if they were on the ball). But luckily, there is hope from toymakers!

====

Anyway, glad to see six years later this is going ahead at that $100 price point (and developed by other than toymakers). My hat goes off to the dedicated people making this happen.

http://www.saveiridium.com/

(And, really, it's just an extension of traffic cameras, which are equally objectionable to GPS-without-a-warrant.)

Mechanized tracking of the public is not police doing their job. It's police delegating their job to machines. If something is serious enough to track, it should be serious enough to assign a human being -- or at the very least, require a judge to authorize mechanized tracking. If we drop that requirement, then we end up with excess surveillance of the public.

And what's wrong with that? The potential for abuse by a government. We've already seen examples of Clinton and Bush deploying the IRS against its political enemies. Complete surveillance of anyone would be another taxpayer-funded tool of the incumbant to perpetuate his/her personal or party rule. Knowledge is power. If you know your political enemy is cheating on his/her spouse through surveillance logs, that political enemy is instantly destroyed. All it takes is an anonymous call to a tabloid -- no official announcement from the government surveillance agency is necessary.

In general, knowledge through surveillance enables control. Knowing every last detail of a political enemy allows an exploiter to innocuously apply martial arts-style precise pressure to make the enemy's life fall like a house of cards -- for example, slashing the tires on the enemy's car on the day of a critical secret meeting.

The difference between human tracking and machine tracking is the difference between manuscript-copying and the printing press, or between the printing press and the Internet, i.e., qualitative. As Douglas Engelbart has described this phenomenon:

The more I studied, the more it became clear that you make a small change in the size and it just often times makes a noticeable quantitative change. But, pretty soon the change gets large enough that you're going to get qualitative changes.

I like to think a global network mesh could enable something like Orson Scott Card's citizens net; government, and economics would fall squarely in the hands of the people. For this to happen, we need proper education and corporations have done a fine job of turning schools into factories for worker bees and obedient consumers. In the truest form of capitalism, information flows freely.

Of course, we all know too many examples how our modern economic incarnation of "capitalism" works hard to restrict knowledge through "proper" channels and limit competition. It may take a while, but I think as the costs of communication continue to fall, we may see some effort towards creating alternative economies within the superstructure of global capitalism. Just a little rant . . . I'd be happy to clarify any questions you all may have.

And here's another link that contains sentiments similar to nooron: The Bootstrap Institute

The [Open Hyperdocument System]'s initial design specifications are a result of 50 years of innovation and experimentation by Doug Engelbart and his team of researchers among a variety of user communities, including aerospace and software development. These requirements include fine-grained addressability of all types of documents and support for multiple ways of viewing and manipulating them. Some of these features have found their way into existing tools, such as the World Wide Web, while others are currently being explored. The purpose of the OHS is to serve as a standard framework for these features, so that different applications may interoperate with the DKR and with each other.

At a finer grain, it was Engelbart's idea and sketches that were the beginnings of what came to be known as the "mouse", but an engineer named Bill English that actually followed through and made it happen (from the history here).

It seems to me that the holy grail of input devices are ones that measure nervous impulses.

This Link describes it pretty well.

This is going to be a lengthy but serious discussion of MMORPGs.

Usually, when I read these kinds of articles about game addicts, I always think, "if only we could use his powers for good!" If only we could make it so that people get more out of games than just fun. If only we could actually get something genuinely useful at the same time (so we don't end up with stories like this one from The Onion).

My canonical example is Crazy Taxi. In this game, you drive a taxi, taking people from place to place in a pseudo-San Francisco city. You get more points for driving recklessly, getting as close as you can to crashing things without actually crashing into them. What if...you could actually learn the streets of San Fran while playing this game? I hate driving there because I don't know what the streets are, because of all the one-way streets, because of all the cars and pedestrians. But what if you could actually learn the streets incidentally while playing the game? You would actually be learning something useful beyond the game console.

Now, analogously, what if we could get something useful out of MMORPGs, more than just entertainment and player-killing?

Here's a crazy idea: what if we could actually simulate real problems of society in MMORPGs and harness the power of players in solving those problems? For example, homelessness or pollution?

What if these MMORPGs were modelled such that they actually reflected real aspects of the world, creating an environment where we could actually experiment with different public policies, or even have the numerous players (who are clearly very intelligent people) try to figure out different solutions to these problems? Try out different ideas that may eventually influence what we actually do in the real world?

One example that's pushing in this direction is University of Washington's UrbanSim, where they try to predict what the impact of different public policy decisions will be on the environment. (They also run tests on old data to make sure their model matches the actual results).

I'm aware of how difficult this would be, all of the barriers in making convincing and realistic models, in making an appropriate reward system to incentivize people, in actually convincing academic scholars in sociology and public policy as well as policy makers that these ideas can be realistically and feasibly implemented with the expected results. (I'm in the Phd program in Computer Science at Berkeley, I have a pretty good idea of how difficult it would be).

But think about the potential here as well. A simulation with thousands of people interacting with one another, where we could try out radical new ideas in solving problems. Think of it as SimSociety. Think of it as a variation of Doug Engelbart's vision, where we need to get better at solving problems because the ones we're facing these days are far harder than anything we've ever seen before. Players could be doing more than just having fun. They could also be making a difference, for the better.

Three separate emails this morning directed me to Tom Coates' post about the definition of social software.

I thought I would offer a few resources for those who are inclined to look at the historical roots of this new phenomena. First, I applaud Coates' reference to Engelbart, because the social aspects of computer augmentation were very much on his mind as early as the 1950s. I wrote about that in 1985. At that time, and in many conversations since then, Engelbart stressed that his original framework for augmentation included "humans, using language, artifacts, methodology, and training," although most emphasis by most people in the intervening decades has been on the visible part, the artifacts. In that sense, the emphasis on social software today is (or ought to be, in my opinion) a reminder that the real capabilities of augmentation lie not just in the capabilities and affordances of the hardware or software but in the thinking and communication practices these tools enable. Of course, in 1993 -- hard to believe it was a decade ago -- I wrote about the Well, BBSs, Usenet, Muds, IRC, etc. in The Virtual Community. So much debate and commentary has flowed around the notion of "community" in this context that it doesn't make a lot of sense to rehash it here and now, although, arguably, online community is an early example of Technologies of Cooperation. I would only note that when a particular group of people uses social software for long enough -- whether it is synchronous or asynchronous, deskbound or mobile, text or graphical -- they establish individual and group social relationships that are different in kind from the more fleeting relationships that emerge from task-oriented group formation. Although the enterprise of Electric Minds is long forgotten, I talked a lot about "the social web" in 1996-97 (and Judith Donath wrote about The Sociable Web). The original conversations are gone, but a snapshot of the editorial content of Electric Minds exists -- note in particlar The Virtual Community Center.. In 2001, I updated "The Virtual Community" with a new chapter that went into detail about the community debate and brought in the notion of social networks: and three years ago, Lisa Kimball and I wrote about the advantages to enterprises of establishing online social networks.

And of course many others from the social sciences, political science, and the technology side have studied and written about the way people use computer-mediated communications in teams, group formation, and social networks. I don't want to give the impression that I've been the only person writing about this: indeed, I have two shelves of books by authors from a variety of disciplines about the social, political, psychological aspects of social cyberspaces. Certainly, we have much more to learn about Trinity dying in Matrix 2. And I applaud the reinvigoration of interest in a phenomenon that popped up just as soon as people could send email to distribution lists (HUMAN-NETS was one of the oldest discussions of social software.): I think the emerging field would do well to acknowledge and build on this earlier work. Something new is happening, truly, in terms of the kinds of softare available, and the scale

Mice are supposed to have three buttons, right?

Well, yes and no.

The first mouse had zero buttons. Later refinements from the NLS team added three buttons to the mouse, however. The mouse was originally supposed to have a chording keyboard for the other hand which could have multiple uses.

See a history in pictures from Douglas Engelbart's Bootstrap Alliance for details and more info.

Mice are supposed to have three buttons, right?

Well, yes and no.

The first mouse had zero buttons. Later refinements from the NLS team added three buttons to the mouse, however. The mouse was originally supposed to have a chording keyboard for the other hand which could have multiple uses.

See a history in pictures from Douglas Engelbart's Bootstrap Alliance for details and more info.

Mice are supposed to have three buttons, right?

Well, yes and no.

The first mouse had zero buttons. Later refinements from the NLS team added three buttons to the mouse, however. The mouse was originally supposed to have a chording keyboard for the other hand which could have multiple uses.

See a history in pictures from Douglas Engelbart's Bootstrap Alliance for details and more info.

• " ...the guys at Apple, like Bill Atkinson [one of the Lisa programmers who later developed the MacPaint program for the Apple Macintosh computer] -- I think Atkinson is the greatest--and Bill Budge [who programmed Pinball Construction Set for Electronic Arts]. These guys are all great.
  
  We don't have much to talk about. We feel good vibes and exchange three or four words. I know that if one of these guys opens his mouth, he knows what he is talking about. So when he does open his mouth and he does know what he is talking about, it's not a great shock. And since I tend to know what I am talking about, too, I would probably say the same thing, so why bother talking, really? It's like the joke tellers' convention where people sit around and they don't even have to tell a joke. They just say the joke number and everybody laughs. It would be great to be able to work with all these guys, but we are business competitors. I think we could do incredible stuff together. Maybe the Martians will invade and we will have to do a Manhattan project in computers. We would all be shipped to New Mexico. Who knows?"

• ".. A patent was rarely given, so most inventors applied for an author's certificate. The Soviet government owned the intellectual property that the author's certificate documented, so the certificate was merely an acknowledgement of the inventor's contribution. Ironically, it is the simple, direct format of the author certificate that facilitated Altschuller's research into the inventive process ... During the formulation of TRIZ, Altshuller and colleagues reviewed tens of thousands of author's certificates and patents.
  
  In 1946, Altshuller decided that he must create a new science for the theory of invention ... author certificates ... included a cover sheet, a one-page sketch and a short invention description. This simple format made it easy to identify underlying patterns of the inventive process ... Altshuller identified patterns frequently used in the more innovative patents.
  
  ... These patterns identified in the development of a design contain two major components: regularities in design evolution, and principles used in innovative solutions. Altshuller's observations led to an additional breakthrough; since the evolution of engineering design was a process governed by definable laws, it could be taught ... a revolution in the field of inventive problem solving had begun.
  
  ... Altshuller and his boyhood friend, Raphael Shapiro ... in a 1948 letter to Stalin ... criticized the inventive process used throughout the nation and offered some measures to improve the methodology. Their proposed improvements were an embroyonic form of TRIZ. Unfortunately, their patriotism and valuable ideas were not rewarded. Altshuller and Shapiro were charged with "inventing with the purpose to do harm to the country." After a year of interrogation and torture, they were sentenced to 25 years in a prison camp above the Arctic Circle.
  
  What would have been a hellish existence for most people became a time of significant intellectual growth and productivity for Altshuller. The prison camp contained dozens of professors, eminent scientists, musicians, and artists, all of whom were jailed during Stalin's great Purges. As a result, Altschuller's education continued. Because fellow prisoners were happy to have someone who was eager to learn and listen for hours, the prison camp became Altshuller's private university. The worst punishment for Altshuller was the prohibition on writing. A prisoner could be beaten cruelly and placed in a cell if he were found in possession of a notebook. Despite this considerable obstacle, Altshuller continued to develop the science of innovation.
  
  Stalin died in 1953, and Altshuller and Shapiro were released one year later ... publishing their first article on principles of their theory in a 1956 issue of a scientific magazine ... Under the pseudonymn Altov, Altshuller wrote science fiction stories to earn his living. But here again he found an application for TRIZ in the creation of many of the ideas for his futuristic devices and creatures.
  
  ... During the 1970s, translations of Altshuller's books and articles circulated in Germany and Poland, eventually reaching Japan, the U.S.A. and other Western countries ... Only two of Altshuller's books have been translated into English ... key findings are explained in these books, which reflect his study of over 200,000 patents, focusing on 40,000 identified as containined the most innovative design solutions.
  
  Traditional problem solving builds on past experiences ... What if we have never encountered a problem analagous to the one we face? This obvious question reveals the shortcomings of our standard approach to inventive problems. A table of conflicts (Contradiction Table, Appendix D) between 39 design parameters (Table 1) answers this question of how we can face an unfamiliar conflict by offering 1201 generic problems that were solved using at least one of 40 generic principles (Appendix C and Table 2).

• elementary school using TRIZ
• weapons technology, Kowalick
• Cringely on Kowalick updating TRIZ for GM and NASA
• more refs

Low cost long range wireless devices handling distributed peer-to-peer content to ensure democracy:
http://www.bootstrap.org/dkr/discussion/0754.html

Or how about supporting an open source community on manufacturing knowledge:
http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/oscomak/index.htm

which relates to surviving Vernor Vinge's Singularity (Teilhard's Noosphere)
http://www.bootstrap.org/dkr/discussion/0126.html

Or just supporting more open source / free software educational simulations: http://www.gardenwithinsight.com/nsfprop.htm

Or support some other people's efforts:

Humanity Libraries Project
http://www.humaninfo.org/

Center for the Public Domain
http://www.centerpd.org/

Low cost long range wireless devices handling distributed peer-to-peer content to ensure democracy:
http://www.bootstrap.org/dkr/discussion/0754.html

Or how about supporting an open source community on manufacturing knowledge:
http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/oscomak/index.htm

which relates to surviving Vernor Vinge's Singularity (Teilhard's Noosphere)
http://www.bootstrap.org/dkr/discussion/0126.html

Or just supporting more open source / free software educational simulations: http://www.gardenwithinsight.com/nsfprop.htm

Or support some other people's efforts:

Humanity Libraries Project
http://www.humaninfo.org/

Center for the Public Domain
http://www.centerpd.org/

Englebart was no doubt years ahead of his time but email as we know it is traced back to Tomlinson.

As the article about Ray Tomlinson says:
Like a number of then existing electronic message programs, the oldest dating from the early 1960s, SNDMSG only worked locally; it was designed to allow the exchange of messages between users who shared the same machine. Such users could create a text file and deliver it to a designated "mail box."

Tomlinson's achievement seems to have been "transferring files among linked computers at remote sites within ARPANET", that is creating users' mail boxes accessable over ARPNET, which did not exist as such before 1968.

As Englebart describes the system: "Each individual has private file space, and the group has community space, on a high-speed disc with a capacity of 96 million characters." The system therefore doesn't appear to be the network environment that Tomlinson was working in.

Englebart's list of Pioneering Firsts is said to include "integrated hypermedia email" but the term email may be an anachronism in this context.

If you understand and are comfortable with Simula there is the Smalltalk-72 emulation [1] created by Dan Ingalls you can file into Squeak.

Doug Engelbert pioneered the use of Graphic Human Tool Interface with bitmap displays starting in 1957 and going public with his oNLine System in the "MotherOfAllDemos" in 1968.

• [1] Smalltalk-72 ChangeSet for Squeak
  ftp://st.cs.uiuc.edu/pub/Smalltalk/Squeak/goodies/ Smalltalk-72/
• [2] WikiWiki:TheMotherOfAllDemos
  http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?TheMotherOfAllDemos
• [3] RealAudio copy of the MotherOfAllDemos
  http://sloan.stanford.edu/MouseSite/1968Demo.html
• [4] The Augmented Knowlege Workshop - Chronology - 1964
  http://www.bootstrap.org/augment-101931.htm#6C

About that time I also rigged up a mechanism that utilized a lightweight helmet for the user to wear: turning his head from side to side would move the cursor horizontally, and nodding the head
up and down would move the cursor vertically. This looked a bit strange, but it worked. AND this also gave me cramps, in the neck, after ten minutes or so.

--

This is a great opportunity for the Open Source movement, but it needs to be formulated and focused in the right way.

In general, groupware systems have suffered from the notion that the real problem is to integrate a number of different communication and planning applications into a useable, multi-user system. This is a perfectly respectable, goal but will never lead to the revolution that is necessary.

What is really needed is vision of a whole system for collective knowledge management and group work. The most important pieces of this are a shared, interactive, structured document store that allows for live collaboration in the production of collective knowledge. Doug Engelbart (who has actually been working towards these goals for at least 40 years now) calls this component a Dynamic Knowledge Repository, and he has a very clear understanding of what its requirements are. Given this substrate, a wide range of tools for task management, workflow management, and user modelling (amon other things) can be brought together with (hopefully) minimal effort.

You might see where I'm going. There has been a lot of work done in researching this problem and there have been a number of different groups working toward this goal. Engelbart's group at McDonnell Douglas actually implemented a system of this sort and called it Augment. It would be a shame (and sadly not atypical of open source projects) to ignore the insights of this man and his work.

More specifically, Doug and a number of us have been engaging in a design process for some time. I think we have a fairly clear idea of what such a system will look like using modern technologies and approaches. Mail me for more information. Or visit the OHS Project pages (currently pretty thin).

1. Open source library of knowledge for developing nations (making the world's intellectual wealth available to all)
http://www.oneworld.org/globalp roj ects/humcdrom/
http://www.oneworld.org/globalprojects/& lt;/a>
http://www.oneworld .or g/globalprojects/humcdrom/copyrigh.htm
http://payson.tulane.edu:8888/
; http://www.globalprojects.org/
; http://www.humanitylibraries.net/ http://www.villageearth.org/
http://www.villageearth.org/ATLi bra ry/cdrom.htm

2. Open source knowledge management systems
http://www.bootstrap.org/
http://bootstrap.org/colloquium/ar chi ves.html
http://www.bootstrap.org/dkr/discussion /

3. Self-replicating space habitats (support trillions of humans in style without overrunning the earth)
http://members.aol.com/oscarcombs/s ett le.htm
http://members.aol.com/oscarcombs /sp acsetl.htm
http://www.permanent.com/
http://science.n as. nasa.gov/Services/Education/SpaceSettlement/
http://www.luf.org/
http://www.ssi.org/
http://www.ssi.org/alt-plan.html http://www.spacedev.com/
http://www.spacehab.com/
http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/oscomak/

4. Pursue the "Ecocity Berkley" vision in the book by that name by Richard Register and look for related visions of sustainable development
http://www.amazon.com/exec/ob ido s/ASIN/1556430094/
http://www.co-intelligence.or g/y 2k_commtyorgs.html
http://www.fuzzylu.com/greencenter/h ome .htm
http://www.ulb.ac.be/ceese/meta/sust vl. html
http://www.rmi.org/

5. Work towards ending the drug war and pardoning hundreds of thousands of Americans imprisoned on non-violent drug charges. (I believe drug use is wrong and should be avoided, and by all means as it is now illegal, so don't do drugs! But as with alcohol and tobacco and caffeine, drug abuse should be considered a medical problem, not a legal one (except when like DUI it hurts or puts at risk others directly)).
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pag es/ frontline/shows/drugs/
http://www.drcnet.org/facts/

6. Teaching tolerance and compassion
http://www.splcenter.org/
http://www.splcenter.or g/t eachingtolerance/tt-index.html

7. Open source educational simulations and simulation construction toolkits (one of the most meaningful ways to use computers in the classroom).
http://www.gardenwithinsight.com/ http://riceinfo.ri ce. edu/armadillo/Simulations/simserver.html
http://www.creativeteachingsite .co m/edusims.html
http://www.workingmodel.com/
http://www.idsia.ch/~andrea/simtools.h tml

8. Preserving biodiversity (when it's gone, it's gone forever)
http://www.tnc.org/
http://www.environment.about.com/newsissues/enviro nment/library/weekly/aa091700.htm

9. Develop any specific sustainable technology in energy (e.g. solar), recycling (e.g. recycle computers), materials (e.g. plastics from starch), society (e.g. participatory democracy & social justice).
http://www.google.com/sear ch? q=sustainable+technology
http://www.edf.org/issues/Recycling.htm l
http://www.sustainable.doe.gov/

10. Make corporations more accountable to human needs
http://www.adbusters.org/inform ati on/foundation/
http://www.adbusters.org/c amp aigns/charter/death.html
Previous link vanished, try instead:
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:www.adbuste rs.org/ campaigns/charter/death.html+corporate+death+penal ty&hl=en
http://www.cwsl.edu/news/n_corpo rat e_death.html
http://monkeyfist.com/articles/340& lt;br> http://www.chaordic.org/

11. Reform the "Intellectual property" laws and their related organizations, perhaps so that copyrights are for a couple decades and most patents are for a dozen years and only for true innovations. Ensure that any IP developed with any government money is immediately put into the public domain.
http://danny.oz.au/fre e-s oftware/advocacy/against_IP.html
(Lots of other Slashot links!)

12. If you don't want to get you hands dirty volunteering your own time, look around and find good people (not organizations, although the people may be in organizations) already doing good things. Pick people with a track record of years of fighting for the common good or who have already made a major accomplishment demonstrating commitment and just anonymously give them $100K without strings attached. Example: Marty Johnson at Isles, Inc.
http://www.isles.org/mileston.html& lt;br> Find people just starting a career of public service or a charitable venture and struggling to do good things and give them $20K and tell them you believe in their promise and cause. Expect a bunch of the money to be wasted but give it anyway and learn how to give effectively. For ideas, look at the grantees list of any foundation. Then ask those people who they know who are just starting out and trying to do a good job.
http://www.beldon.org/grants2000_07.htm l

When I was about thirteen, I got about seven books out of the library on money thinking I wanted to become a millionaire. Six told me how to get rich (start a business and run it well.) One of them asked me "why do you want to be rich?" That is the one whose name I remember and the ideas in it have changed my life. For advice on setting a direction of what to do with wealth, read the Book "The Seven Laws of Money" by Michael Phillips and Sally Raspberry, especially the chapter on how foundations fail in their mission and how grants go to people who sound good but usually can't deliver (i.e. how hard it is to give money away).
http://www.seeingmoney.com/SevenLaws.ht m
http://www.hallbusi nes ses.com/biographies_primers/1420.shtml

My wife and I are working on a few of these issues ourselves (and a few example links are to our stuff). We make money contracting and spend it to "buy" our own time for making quality software the market can't or doesn't seem to want to pay for. Even without IPO riches, any competent software developer can make $75K-100K in today's market. Graduate students can live on $20K a year, and so can many software developers (kids make it harder) if they follow the path of Voluntary Simplicity. It's a question of priorities.
http://www.life.ca/subject/simplicity .ht ml
http://www.simpleliving.net/slj/ http://www.scn.org/earth/lightly/ http://www.thegarden.net/simplicity/

Voluntary simplicity leaves a lot of funds for doing good deeds - even if they are done on your own time by using your own money to take time off and develop open source software or do other worthwhile ventures. Or take a job that doesn't pay as well but involves helping an organization that you believe in.
http://www.idealist.org/

There are awesome things happening over the next twenty to forty years. According to Moore's law, desktop computers in twenty or so years will be a million times faster than today's. Already computers can drive cars somewhat well and identify vegetable better than humans.

http://www.research.ibm.com/resources/magazine/199 9/number_3/machine399.html ;

Other breakthrough innovations are happening in technological areas like energy, materials, nanotechnology, communications, agriculture, biotechnology, and robotics. Use your wealth to think deeply about what all this means and do something to ensure human survival with style.

It is saddening to see people spend so much money on less important stuff (another night club in this case). Now if it was a night club where these issues are discussed, then maybe it makes sense.

Capitalism without charity is evil, because capitalism only meets the needs of people with money.

1. Open source library of knowledge for developing nations (making the world's intellectual wealth available to all)
http://www.oneworld.org/globalp roj ects/humcdrom/
http://www.oneworld.org/globalprojects/& lt;/a>
http://www.oneworld .or g/globalprojects/humcdrom/copyrigh.htm
http://payson.tulane.edu:8888/
; http://www.globalprojects.org/
; http://www.humanitylibraries.net/ http://www.villageearth.org/
http://www.villageearth.org/ATLi bra ry/cdrom.htm

2. Open source knowledge management systems
http://www.bootstrap.org/
http://bootstrap.org/colloquium/ar chi ves.html
http://www.bootstrap.org/dkr/discussion /

3. Self-replicating space habitats (support trillions of humans in style without overrunning the earth)
http://members.aol.com/oscarcombs/s ett le.htm
http://members.aol.com/oscarcombs /sp acsetl.htm
http://www.permanent.com/
http://science.n as. nasa.gov/Services/Education/SpaceSettlement/
http://www.luf.org/
http://www.ssi.org/
http://www.ssi.org/alt-plan.html http://www.spacedev.com/
http://www.spacehab.com/
http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/oscomak/

4. Pursue the "Ecocity Berkley" vision in the book by that name by Richard Register and look for related visions of sustainable development
http://www.amazon.com/exec/ob ido s/ASIN/1556430094/
http://www.co-intelligence.or g/y 2k_commtyorgs.html
http://www.fuzzylu.com/greencenter/h ome .htm
http://www.ulb.ac.be/ceese/meta/sust vl. html
http://www.rmi.org/

5. Work towards ending the drug war and pardoning hundreds of thousands of Americans imprisoned on non-violent drug charges. (I believe drug use is wrong and should be avoided, and by all means as it is now illegal, so don't do drugs! But as with alcohol and tobacco and caffeine, drug abuse should be considered a medical problem, not a legal one (except when like DUI it hurts or puts at risk others directly)).
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pag es/ frontline/shows/drugs/
http://www.drcnet.org/facts/

6. Teaching tolerance and compassion
http://www.splcenter.org/
http://www.splcenter.or g/t eachingtolerance/tt-index.html

7. Open source educational simulations and simulation construction toolkits (one of the most meaningful ways to use computers in the classroom).
http://www.gardenwithinsight.com/ http://riceinfo.ri ce. edu/armadillo/Simulations/simserver.html
http://www.creativeteachingsite .co m/edusims.html
http://www.workingmodel.com/
http://www.idsia.ch/~andrea/simtools.h tml

8. Preserving biodiversity (when it's gone, it's gone forever)
http://www.tnc.org/
http://www.environment.about.com/newsissues/enviro nment/library/weekly/aa091700.htm

9. Develop any specific sustainable technology in energy (e.g. solar), recycling (e.g. recycle computers), materials (e.g. plastics from starch), society (e.g. participatory democracy & social justice).
http://www.google.com/sear ch? q=sustainable+technology
http://www.edf.org/issues/Recycling.htm l
http://www.sustainable.doe.gov/

10. Make corporations more accountable to human needs
http://www.adbusters.org/inform ati on/foundation/
http://www.adbusters.org/c amp aigns/charter/death.html
Previous link vanished, try instead:
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:www.adbuste rs.org/ campaigns/charter/death.html+corporate+death+penal ty&hl=en
http://www.cwsl.edu/news/n_corpo rat e_death.html
http://monkeyfist.com/articles/340& lt;br> http://www.chaordic.org/

11. Reform the "Intellectual property" laws and their related organizations, perhaps so that copyrights are for a couple decades and most patents are for a dozen years and only for true innovations. Ensure that any IP developed with any government money is immediately put into the public domain.
http://danny.oz.au/fre e-s oftware/advocacy/against_IP.html
(Lots of other Slashot links!)

12. If you don't want to get you hands dirty volunteering your own time, look around and find good people (not organizations, although the people may be in organizations) already doing good things. Pick people with a track record of years of fighting for the common good or who have already made a major accomplishment demonstrating commitment and just anonymously give them $100K without strings attached. Example: Marty Johnson at Isles, Inc.
http://www.isles.org/mileston.html& lt;br> Find people just starting a career of public service or a charitable venture and struggling to do good things and give them $20K and tell them you believe in their promise and cause. Expect a bunch of the money to be wasted but give it anyway and learn how to give effectively. For ideas, look at the grantees list of any foundation. Then ask those people who they know who are just starting out and trying to do a good job.
http://www.beldon.org/grants2000_07.htm l

When I was about thirteen, I got about seven books out of the library on money thinking I wanted to become a millionaire. Six told me how to get rich (start a business and run it well.) One of them asked me "why do you want to be rich?" That is the one whose name I remember and the ideas in it have changed my life. For advice on setting a direction of what to do with wealth, read the Book "The Seven Laws of Money" by Michael Phillips and Sally Raspberry, especially the chapter on how foundations fail in their mission and how grants go to people who sound good but usually can't deliver (i.e. how hard it is to give money away).
http://www.seeingmoney.com/SevenLaws.ht m
http://www.hallbusi nes ses.com/biographies_primers/1420.shtml

My wife and I are working on a few of these issues ourselves (and a few example links are to our stuff). We make money contracting and spend it to "buy" our own time for making quality software the market can't or doesn't seem to want to pay for. Even without IPO riches, any competent software developer can make $75K-100K in today's market. Graduate students can live on $20K a year, and so can many software developers (kids make it harder) if they follow the path of Voluntary Simplicity. It's a question of priorities.
http://www.life.ca/subject/simplicity .ht ml
http://www.simpleliving.net/slj/ http://www.scn.org/earth/lightly/ http://www.thegarden.net/simplicity/

Voluntary simplicity leaves a lot of funds for doing good deeds - even if they are done on your own time by using your own money to take time off and develop open source software or do other worthwhile ventures. Or take a job that doesn't pay as well but involves helping an organization that you believe in.
http://www.idealist.org/

There are awesome things happening over the next twenty to forty years. According to Moore's law, desktop computers in twenty or so years will be a million times faster than today's. Already computers can drive cars somewhat well and identify vegetable better than humans.

http://www.research.ibm.com/resources/magazine/199 9/number_3/machine399.html ;

Other breakthrough innovations are happening in technological areas like energy, materials, nanotechnology, communications, agriculture, biotechnology, and robotics. Use your wealth to think deeply about what all this means and do something to ensure human survival with style.

It is saddening to see people spend so much money on less important stuff (another night club in this case). Now if it was a night club where these issues are discussed, then maybe it makes sense.

Capitalism without charity is evil, because capitalism only meets the needs of people with money.

1. Open source library of knowledge for developing nations (making the world's intellectual wealth available to all)
http://www.oneworld.org/globalp roj ects/humcdrom/
http://www.oneworld.org/globalprojects/& lt;/a>
http://www.oneworld .or g/globalprojects/humcdrom/copyrigh.htm
http://payson.tulane.edu:8888/
; http://www.globalprojects.org/
; http://www.humanitylibraries.net/ http://www.villageearth.org/
http://www.villageearth.org/ATLi bra ry/cdrom.htm

2. Open source knowledge management systems
http://www.bootstrap.org/
http://bootstrap.org/colloquium/ar chi ves.html
http://www.bootstrap.org/dkr/discussion /

3. Self-replicating space habitats (support trillions of humans in style without overrunning the earth)
http://members.aol.com/oscarcombs/s ett le.htm
http://members.aol.com/oscarcombs /sp acsetl.htm
http://www.permanent.com/
http://science.n as. nasa.gov/Services/Education/SpaceSettlement/
http://www.luf.org/
http://www.ssi.org/
http://www.ssi.org/alt-plan.html http://www.spacedev.com/
http://www.spacehab.com/
http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/oscomak/

4. Pursue the "Ecocity Berkley" vision in the book by that name by Richard Register and look for related visions of sustainable development
http://www.amazon.com/exec/ob ido s/ASIN/1556430094/
http://www.co-intelligence.or g/y 2k_commtyorgs.html
http://www.fuzzylu.com/greencenter/h ome .htm
http://www.ulb.ac.be/ceese/meta/sust vl. html
http://www.rmi.org/

5. Work towards ending the drug war and pardoning hundreds of thousands of Americans imprisoned on non-violent drug charges. (I believe drug use is wrong and should be avoided, and by all means as it is now illegal, so don't do drugs! But as with alcohol and tobacco and caffeine, drug abuse should be considered a medical problem, not a legal one (except when like DUI it hurts or puts at risk others directly)).
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pag es/ frontline/shows/drugs/
http://www.drcnet.org/facts/

6. Teaching tolerance and compassion
http://www.splcenter.org/
http://www.splcenter.or g/t eachingtolerance/tt-index.html

7. Open source educational simulations and simulation construction toolkits (one of the most meaningful ways to use computers in the classroom).
http://www.gardenwithinsight.com/ http://riceinfo.ri ce. edu/armadillo/Simulations/simserver.html
http://www.creativeteachingsite .co m/edusims.html
http://www.workingmodel.com/
http://www.idsia.ch/~andrea/simtools.h tml

8. Preserving biodiversity (when it's gone, it's gone forever)
http://www.tnc.org/
http://www.environment.about.com/newsissues/enviro nment/library/weekly/aa091700.htm

9. Develop any specific sustainable technology in energy (e.g. solar), recycling (e.g. recycle computers), materials (e.g. plastics from starch), society (e.g. participatory democracy & social justice).
http://www.google.com/sear ch? q=sustainable+technology
http://www.edf.org/issues/Recycling.htm l
http://www.sustainable.doe.gov/

10. Make corporations more accountable to human needs
http://www.adbusters.org/inform ati on/foundation/
http://www.adbusters.org/c amp aigns/charter/death.html
Previous link vanished, try instead:
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:www.adbuste rs.org/ campaigns/charter/death.html+corporate+death+penal ty&hl=en
http://www.cwsl.edu/news/n_corpo rat e_death.html
http://monkeyfist.com/articles/340& lt;br> http://www.chaordic.org/

11. Reform the "Intellectual property" laws and their related organizations, perhaps so that copyrights are for a couple decades and most patents are for a dozen years and only for true innovations. Ensure that any IP developed with any government money is immediately put into the public domain.
http://danny.oz.au/fre e-s oftware/advocacy/against_IP.html
(Lots of other Slashot links!)

12. If you don't want to get you hands dirty volunteering your own time, look around and find good people (not organizations, although the people may be in organizations) already doing good things. Pick people with a track record of years of fighting for the common good or who have already made a major accomplishment demonstrating commitment and just anonymously give them $100K without strings attached. Example: Marty Johnson at Isles, Inc.
http://www.isles.org/mileston.html& lt;br> Find people just starting a career of public service or a charitable venture and struggling to do good things and give them $20K and tell them you believe in their promise and cause. Expect a bunch of the money to be wasted but give it anyway and learn how to give effectively. For ideas, look at the grantees list of any foundation. Then ask those people who they know who are just starting out and trying to do a good job.
http://www.beldon.org/grants2000_07.htm l

When I was about thirteen, I got about seven books out of the library on money thinking I wanted to become a millionaire. Six told me how to get rich (start a business and run it well.) One of them asked me "why do you want to be rich?" That is the one whose name I remember and the ideas in it have changed my life. For advice on setting a direction of what to do with wealth, read the Book "The Seven Laws of Money" by Michael Phillips and Sally Raspberry, especially the chapter on how foundations fail in their mission and how grants go to people who sound good but usually can't deliver (i.e. how hard it is to give money away).
http://www.seeingmoney.com/SevenLaws.ht m
http://www.hallbusi nes ses.com/biographies_primers/1420.shtml

My wife and I are working on a few of these issues ourselves (and a few example links are to our stuff). We make money contracting and spend it to "buy" our own time for making quality software the market can't or doesn't seem to want to pay for. Even without IPO riches, any competent software developer can make $75K-100K in today's market. Graduate students can live on $20K a year, and so can many software developers (kids make it harder) if they follow the path of Voluntary Simplicity. It's a question of priorities.
http://www.life.ca/subject/simplicity .ht ml
http://www.simpleliving.net/slj/ http://www.scn.org/earth/lightly/ http://www.thegarden.net/simplicity/

Voluntary simplicity leaves a lot of funds for doing good deeds - even if they are done on your own time by using your own money to take time off and develop open source software or do other worthwhile ventures. Or take a job that doesn't pay as well but involves helping an organization that you believe in.
http://www.idealist.org/

There are awesome things happening over the next twenty to forty years. According to Moore's law, desktop computers in twenty or so years will be a million times faster than today's. Already computers can drive cars somewhat well and identify vegetable better than humans.

http://www.research.ibm.com/resources/magazine/199 9/number_3/machine399.html ;

Other breakthrough innovations are happening in technological areas like energy, materials, nanotechnology, communications, agriculture, biotechnology, and robotics. Use your wealth to think deeply about what all this means and do something to ensure human survival with style.

It is saddening to see people spend so much money on less important stuff (another night club in this case). Now if it was a night club where these issues are discussed, then maybe it makes sense.

Capitalism without charity is evil, because capitalism only meets the needs of people with money.

Shit.. URL is bad.. (See what I mean?)... Doug Engelbart's OHS site can be found here.

Sorry bout that,

Bowie J. Poag

He's probably spinning in his grave right now.

That'd be a neat trick, since Doug is still alive. As are most of the people who worked with him. Here's Doug's home page if you want to see what he's been up to lately:

http://www.bootstrap.org/

(Doug worked for my dad at SRI.)

See this interview in the Sept 2000 issue of Dr. Dobbs journal. Doug Engelbart has an amazing foresight into the future of computing. Even now he is innovating through his Bootstrap Institute and the items at his site is a must read for anyone interested in the field of computing and man-machine interfaces.

He invented the mouse and GUI. In Triumph of the Nerds, mention is made of xerox parc, but Engelbart doesn't get credited for singlehandedly inventing much of what we use today - the mouse, hypertext help and linking, groupware, video conferencing, display editing, etc.

Cringely's documentary is considered such a classic (I taped it and told people to watch the show every time it was broadcast), and could have for once given Engelbart credit for changing computer technology.

Scroll thru and check out his inventions. Today, he lives in silicon valley and is unreconized by the millionaires who live off his achievements. Logitech has granted him some research space for inventing the mouse (yes, that thing). But nobody else seems to know of him.

Even though the documentary delved in such depth, why did it fail to include the man who made it all possible?

Even today, few people have heard of him, and it's such a tragedy.

w/m

It's ironic that Doug Engelbart is most widely known as 'the inventor of the mouse', but specifically created it to be used in combination with a chord keyset so that you could (with practice) point, click with one hand, and type content or CLI commands very rapidly with the other.

On this subject, Alan Kay said:

Looking back I think that one of the paradoxes is that we made a complete mistake when we were doing the interface at PARC because we assumed that the kids would need an easy interface because we were going to try and teach them to program and stuff like that, but in fact they are the ones who are willing to put hours into getting really expert at things - shooting baskets, learning to hit baseballs, learning to ride bikes, and now on video games.

I have a four-year old nephew who is really incredible and he could use NLS fantastically if it were available, he would be flying through that stuff because his whole thing is to become part of the system he's interacting with and so if I had had that perspective I would have designed a completely different interface for the kids, one in which how you became expert was much more apparent than what I did. So I'm sorry for what I did. The Brown/MIT Vannevar Bush Symposium, Oct 1995

See

• Mouse Site's Augment demo page
• The chordset + mouse video clip
• A key Augment paper on its CLI
• Doug's work in context Much more than a 'mouse'

My primary consolation in watching you people handwave over this nonsense is that it's never going to amount to anything anyhow: file/folder is locked in, there's no room for you the way you're behaving.

I think that the original Macintosh team deserves a lot of credit for what they did, but they had to make a lot of compromises that probably don't make sense anymore

In this Alan Kay video tape, he demonstrates a great gestural user interface called Grail. In this environment, users interacted with the system by using a tablet. For example the user could delete objects by scratching them out, instead of selecting them and activating a menu.

The other system that really impressed me was Doug Engelbart's NLS and AUGMENT systems. His system allowed the user to enter commands using a chord keyboard while operating the mouse. This seems somewhat harder to learn but much more efficient than the Mac and Mac clone system that are in common use today.

For those of you interested in what Doug Englebart has to say, there is also a webcast available at Stanford. There was a Slashdot article on it a couple of weeks ago. You have to register and all of the info can be found here. http://www.bootstrap.org/colloquium/

Ok, you can get your webcasts now! :-) Have fun, I saw the first 10 mins before I had to go to class this morning and he seems to be very intelligent and funny.

Thank you for your message. I just checked. You are correct, the Stanford registration server seems to be down. The seminar-on-demand server is up and going, though.

Ordinarily, you are supposed to be registered first before they will provide you with the password for access. However, we have made it so that during these first few days, the colloquium content page is NOT password protected yet.
I'll give you that link right now (goto http://stanford -online.stanford.edu/engelbart/colloquium/index.ht ml), if you promise me two things: (i) that you go register when the registration server comes back up (if you haven't already done so), and (ii) provide us feedback on your access experience by doing the survey at http://www.bootstrap.o rg/colloquium/col_webcast_survey1.html after you have had a chance to access the webcast. [The former is serious, the latter is just kidding, but would definitely appreciate it nonetheless.]

Presently, the colloquium is not available in other formats (as it is not just video stream we are talking about here) and not mirrored anywhere yet. If demand keep building, we might have to do the latter.

Thanks for the encouraging word. Look forward to your participation.

Have fun, PPY

Earlier Slashdot article

Biographical Sketch

--

The third session will describe ways in which collective intelligence can be improved with appropriate methodologies and information technology-based tools. The primary focus of the session will be on processes for concurrent development, integration, and application of knowledge (CoDIAK), and their relationship to a dynamic knowledge repository [...]

[...] an Open Hyper-document System will be described [...]

Take slashdot as an example. Somone submits a story about software licenses. A bunch of us beat our heads together in public about the merits of the GPL, the BSD, and so on. Moderators work it over and make it easy to find the better written arguments. And then a day later, the information is effectively all dead, and we all get to go through the same scramble the next time software licenses come up.

Wouldn't it be better if we were working *toward* something here? Say if we were all trying to develop a document that summarizes the basic arguments, so we don't have to go through the same old stuff every time?

The trouble is that whenever anyone tries to perfect something like this, they run into some kind of difficulties. I tend to think of this as "The Curse of Xanadu" (now open sourced, but still apparently dead: www.udanax.com).

(And it doesn't bode well that he's using terms like "CoDIAK". Screwed up capitialization is is one of the marks of a doomed project.)

Anyway, I second the recommendation to check out The Bootstrap Alliance. It looks like they're going for it: http://www.bootstrap.org/alliance/dkr/.

From the biographical sketch of Douglas C. Engelbart:

Pioneering Firsts

1. the mouse
2. 2-dimensional display editing
3. in-file object addressing, linking
4. hypermedia
5. outline processing
6. flexible view control
7. multiple windows
8. cross-file editing
9. integrated hypermedia email
10. hypermedia publishing
11. document version control
12. shared-screen teleconferencing
13. computer-aided meetings
14. formatting directives
15. context-sensitive help
16. distributed client-server architecture
17. uniform command syntax
18. universal "user interface" front-end module
19. multi-tool integration
20. grammar-driven command language interpreter
21. protocols for virtual terminals
22. remote procedure call protocols
23. compileable "Command Meta Language"

I hate the "mouse" but in light of everything he's done, how can I complain? ;-)

Check out the Bootstrap Institute as well as a Biography of him and his accomplishments.

Check out the Bootstrap Institute as well as a Biography of him and his accomplishments.

The goal of the OHS Project is to build an open source Open Hyperdocument System (OHS) - the critical missing piece of the technology for enabling dynamic, distributed collective knowledge work. OHS is designed to be:

Open- provides vendor-independent access to hyperdocuments within and across work groups,
platforms, and applications
Navigable- provides flexible, bi-directional linking to any object in any multimedia file
Customizable- allows users to select and create views of data best suited to task or preference
Dynamic- end-user functionality automatically changes over time to accommodate new multimedia
object formats and methods for viewing them
Collaborative- enables users to synchronously and asynchronously create, use, and modify
hyperdocuments and dialog about them.
Platform-neutral- user interaction components are written in Java
Interoperable- provides a unifying framework within which (future) multi-vendor applications can
interoperate
Reusable- knowledge stored in it can be used and shared across time, and across knowledge and
organizational domains
Extensible- new multimedia object types, means to interpret them, applications, views, and features
can be added easily
Standards-based- content formats are based on W3C XML standards

$125