4 ms·

[OLD VIDEO] Alan Kay on User Interface, The First Mouse & More

26 points by old_sound 15y ago

jaysonelliot 15y ago
Alan Kay makes reference to Doug Engelbart's 1968 "Mother of All Demos." I show that demo to all the new members of my UX team at work, to remind them of where we come from, and to show some brilliant ideas in computing that still don't work as well today. In it, he is able to manipulate data without "opening" and "saving" documents, he just writes data as naturally and seamlessly as one might jot a note on a pad of paper. Also, and this is what really floors me - he is able to share his screen with a remote user, and vice versa - it's built into the system. In 2011, we still need to install software on each machine to do this, and there's no universal standard for the action of simply sharing your dang desktop with someone else. Englebart, Alan Kay, Ivan Sutherland, Jef Raskin - all giants. I'm so happy to see their work continue to be studied and celebrated. Edit: I didn't say, but should have--thank you old_sound for sharing this, I would have never seen it otherwise.
- david927 15y ago
  And the irony is that I could only wish we were attempting to stand on the shoulders of these giants. We make little effort to move the industry forward and are quite happy just making our fortunes off of it. Alan Kay is still going strong: VPRI are a fantastic team and they are working hard in some innovative areas.
- old_sound 15y ago
  No problem man. I just found it on Reddit, but thought the title there wasn't telling enough about the contents, and thought sharing here might interest people as well. Cheers.
- malkia 15y ago
  Quote: "Also, and this is what really floors me - he is able to share his screen with a remote user, and vice versa - it's built into the system. In 2011, we still need to install software on each machine to do this, and there's no universal standard for the action of simply sharing your dang desktop with someone else." The tragedy of the commons? We learn our kid to share his toys with other kids, yet Olivia (a kid's show feauring a family of pigs) said it best - "Mommy why don't you share your car with granny" - something along the line. So the technical achievement was done already years ago! Or at least it's establishment. Since them we are fighting the social problem - access, passwords, protection, process isolation, boxing, etc - all that would've not been needed in early days of computing. I wish that would've been not needed today, yet as a human I know that we better have it.
rbanffy 15y ago
Note: All videos in the course are available in podcast-friendly version on http://webcast.berkeley.edu/course_details_new.php?seriesid=2011-B-26281&semesterid=2011-B http://webcast.berkeley.edu/course_details_new.php?seriesid=... A whole lot of them on http://webcast.berkeley.edu/courses.php http://webcast.berkeley.edu/courses.php
- leoc 15y ago
  In this case the video being shown in the lecture is Part 1 of "Doing With Images Makes Symbols" http://www.archive.org/details/AlanKeyD1987 http://www.archive.org/details/AlanKeyD1987 , while the video shown in the next lecture is Part 2 http://www.archive.org/details/AlanKeyD1987_2 http://www.archive.org/details/AlanKeyD1987_2 .
nkassis 15y ago
I've seen this demo before but had to watch it again. Alan Key's incredible. He invented the iPad before Star Trek did :) It also reminded me that I should really get on with learning smalltalk. Also Brian Harvey's full class is pretty good, haven't watched all of them yet but the guy is a good lecturer.
leoc 15y ago
Follow up with Kay's OOPSLA 1997 keynote http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2950949730059754521 http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2950949730059754521 , "The Computer Revolution Hasn't Happened Yet". "The Early History of Smalltalk" http://gagne.homedns.org/~tgagne/contrib/EarlyHistoryST.html http://gagne.homedns.org/~tgagne/contrib/EarlyHistoryST.html is background material for both talks.

26 points by old_sound 15y ago

Alan Kay makes reference to Doug Engelbart's 1968 "Mother of All Demos." I show that demo to all the new members of my UX team at work, to remind them of where we come from, and to show some brilliant ideas in computing that still don't work as well today. In it, he is able to manipulate data without "opening" and "saving" documents, he just writes data as naturally and seamlessly as one might jot a note on a pad of paper. Also, and this is what really floors me - he is able to share his screen with a remote user, and vice versa - it's built into the system. In 2011, we still need to install software on each machine to do this, and there's no universal standard for the action of simply sharing your dang desktop with someone else. Englebart, Alan Kay, Ivan Sutherland, Jef Raskin - all giants. I'm so happy to see their work continue to be studied and celebrated. Edit: I didn't say, but should have--thank you old_sound for sharing this, I would have never seen it otherwise.

david927 15y ago
And the irony is that I could only wish we were attempting to stand on the shoulders of these giants. We make little effort to move the industry forward and are quite happy just making our fortunes off of it. Alan Kay is still going strong: VPRI are a fantastic team and they are working hard in some innovative areas.
old_sound 15y ago
No problem man. I just found it on Reddit, but thought the title there wasn't telling enough about the contents, and thought sharing here might interest people as well. Cheers.
malkia 15y ago
Quote: "Also, and this is what really floors me - he is able to share his screen with a remote user, and vice versa - it's built into the system. In 2011, we still need to install software on each machine to do this, and there's no universal standard for the action of simply sharing your dang desktop with someone else." The tragedy of the commons? We learn our kid to share his toys with other kids, yet Olivia (a kid's show feauring a family of pigs) said it best - "Mommy why don't you share your car with granny" - something along the line. So the technical achievement was done already years ago! Or at least it's establishment. Since them we are fighting the social problem - access, passwords, protection, process isolation, boxing, etc - all that would've not been needed in early days of computing. I wish that would've been not needed today, yet as a human I know that we better have it.

rbanffy 15y ago

Note: All videos in the course are available in podcast-friendly version on http://webcast.berkeley.edu/course_details_new.php?seriesid=2011-B-26281&semesterid=2011-B http://webcast.berkeley.edu/course_details_new.php?seriesid=... A whole lot of them on http://webcast.berkeley.edu/courses.php http://webcast.berkeley.edu/courses.php

leoc 15y ago
In this case the video being shown in the lecture is Part 1 of "Doing With Images Makes Symbols" http://www.archive.org/details/AlanKeyD1987 http://www.archive.org/details/AlanKeyD1987 , while the video shown in the next lecture is Part 2 http://www.archive.org/details/AlanKeyD1987_2 http://www.archive.org/details/AlanKeyD1987_2 .

nkassis 15y ago

I've seen this demo before but had to watch it again. Alan Key's incredible. He invented the iPad before Star Trek did :) It also reminded me that I should really get on with learning smalltalk. Also Brian Harvey's full class is pretty good, haven't watched all of them yet but the guy is a good lecturer.

leoc 15y ago

Follow up with Kay's OOPSLA 1997 keynote http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2950949730059754521 http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2950949730059754521 , "The Computer Revolution Hasn't Happened Yet". "The Early History of Smalltalk" http://gagne.homedns.org/~tgagne/contrib/EarlyHistoryST.html http://gagne.homedns.org/~tgagne/contrib/EarlyHistoryST.html is background material for both talks.