5 ms·

Everything old is new again. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laApNiNpnvI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laApNiNpnvI (Xerox EuroParc 1991)

__initbrian__ 8y ago
my jaw literally dropped at 3:12. https://youtu.be/laApNiNpnvI?t=192 https://youtu.be/laApNiNpnvI?t=192 I still can't figure out how they managed to get the camera quality/resolution in '91. I'm guessing that it's just an image rather than conversion to text if it's a paragraph. [edit] what happens is copy and paste from a book on the desk to the computer clipboard. where the opposite corners of the physical screenshot are defined by two fingers creating a rectangle screenshot area
skadamat 8y ago
It's funny you say that. This is something Alan Kay talks about at length. For example, watch the first 20 mins of this talk - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvmTSpJU-Xc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvmTSpJU-Xc Essentially, he asserts that computing (or computer science even) isn't a real field (like biology or physics). Most people can't name the early computing pioneers whose work they build on (not true in Physics or Biology, we celebrate the pioneers) nor are they familiar with the work that was done in the Xerox PARC days. It's gotten so bad that a lot of computer science research just assumes that what we have now is what's going to remain forever. In the 70's, all kinds of interesting ideas and experiments were tried. Hardware implemented VM's, direct manipulation programming, OS-free computing environments, highly re-configurable computing a la FPGA's, and hundreds more. Nowadays, we think that creating custom ASIC to run machine learning algorithms quicker is innovative and novel. All this to say that many of the ideas in Dynamicland aren't new. They're rooted in ideas that are decades old. If you look at Bret's papers he uses as references frequently, you'll notice how many of them are over 10 years old - http://worrydream.com/refs/ http://worrydream.com/refs/
- m_mueller 8y ago
  Just a personal anecdote, I gave a talk about D. C. Engelbart last week to my research group and none of them knew him beforehand.
  - skadamat 8y ago
    Then you'd especially love Alan's talk!

__initbrian__ 8y ago

my jaw literally dropped at 3:12. https://youtu.be/laApNiNpnvI?t=192 https://youtu.be/laApNiNpnvI?t=192 I still can't figure out how they managed to get the camera quality/resolution in '91. I'm guessing that it's just an image rather than conversion to text if it's a paragraph. [edit] what happens is copy and paste from a book on the desk to the computer clipboard. where the opposite corners of the physical screenshot are defined by two fingers creating a rectangle screenshot area

skadamat 8y ago

It's funny you say that. This is something Alan Kay talks about at length. For example, watch the first 20 mins of this talk - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvmTSpJU-Xc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvmTSpJU-Xc Essentially, he asserts that computing (or computer science even) isn't a real field (like biology or physics). Most people can't name the early computing pioneers whose work they build on (not true in Physics or Biology, we celebrate the pioneers) nor are they familiar with the work that was done in the Xerox PARC days. It's gotten so bad that a lot of computer science research just assumes that what we have now is what's going to remain forever. In the 70's, all kinds of interesting ideas and experiments were tried. Hardware implemented VM's, direct manipulation programming, OS-free computing environments, highly re-configurable computing a la FPGA's, and hundreds more. Nowadays, we think that creating custom ASIC to run machine learning algorithms quicker is innovative and novel. All this to say that many of the ideas in Dynamicland aren't new. They're rooted in ideas that are decades old. If you look at Bret's papers he uses as references frequently, you'll notice how many of them are over 10 years old - http://worrydream.com/refs/ http://worrydream.com/refs/

m_mueller 8y ago
Just a personal anecdote, I gave a talk about D. C. Engelbart last week to my research group and none of them knew him beforehand.
- skadamat 8y ago
  Then you'd especially love Alan's talk!