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Fascinating. It is indeed very easy to judge, with the benefit of hindsight, but - who could ever expect computer literacy to become mainstream? Especially sinc
by MrBuddyCasino 10y ago
Fascinating. It is indeed very easy to judge, with the benefit of hindsight, but - who could ever expect computer literacy to become mainstream? Especially since GUIs were bad and the command line still ruled, as you've pointed out. It still seems unlikely.
- kens 10y agoWell, Alan Kay expected computer literacy to become mainstream, or more accurately for computers to become easy enough for everyone to use. He was one of the driving forces behind the Xerox Alto. His 1972 paper on the Dynabook basically describes a vision of the modern laptop or tablet computer. (Starting around page 6, he describes exactly what technology improvements would be necessary, which is pretty interesting.) The Xerox Alto was the "Interim Dynabook", a system to try out his personal computing ideas before the technology was available. His paper is at http://history-computer.com/Library/Kay72.pdf http://history-computer.com/Library/Kay72.pdf
- e12e 10y agoAlso see the OOPSLA talk I've linked upthread.