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I largely agree with you, and I share many of the same sentiments. Personal computing is supposed to be about user empowerment; the ability for users to not on

I largely agree with you, and I share many of the same sentiments. Personal computing is supposed to be about user empowerment; the ability for users to not only communicate with other people and to get work done, but to also automate their tasks through programming. Early personal computing was about achieving this vision, and while it may not have fully attained this vision, companies in the 1980s and 1990s at least made an honest effort toward this goal. Unfortunately the companies that got rich off of personal computing from the 1980s to the 2000s no longer care about user empowerment. Unfortunately they've discovered that building platforms that lock users in and restrict their freedoms is quite lucrative. It is clear to me that the future of commercial computing will be locked-down platforms similar to the situation for smartphones. The question I have is how can we reverse this trend? I've thought about this a few weeks ago and shared my thoughts at http://mmcthrow-musings.blogspot.com/2020/10/where-did-personal-computing-go-wrong.html http://mmcthrow-musings.blogspot.com/2020/10/where-did-perso.... I am trying in my small way to reverse this trend by building a new FOSS desktop environment that focuses on user empowerment through programmable, component-based software that is inspired by Smalltalk, the Lisp machines of the 1980s, and Apple's OpenDoc. However, user empowerment is more than just having access to software that empowers the user; the hardware must be open enough to allow users to run a wide variety of software without special permission. My dream is to start a company that is dedicated to preserving and improving general-purpose personal computing, as an alternative to commercial platforms. I'd like to pick up from where Apple left off in the 1990s, back when Apple had a lot of ideas about how to push the state of the art of personal computing through projects such as HyperCard, Dylan, Copland, and OpenDoc, yet sadly Apple at this time had a difficult time with project management, which led to the purchase of NeXT and Steve Jobs' retaking of the company. I also find the work of companies like System76 and Purism inspiring.

grawprog 6y ago
Thanks for that I enjoyed the read. Despite my original comment, I don't think things are entirely pessimistic. There is a push towards open computing. As far as software goes, the open front is doing well. It's hardware that worries me. Hardware is hard to do openly at a large scale it seems. Projects like purism and the pinephone stuff are a good start, but this is the direction I hope everything can start moving towards. It does seem like a battle, for every open project you hear about, there's 10 more proprietary giants pushing some new all inclusive platform, but I don't think the war is lost or even close to being over.
Zak 6y ago
Your mention of Hypercard is nostalgic for me. That was my first real introduction to programming. I had seen a BASIC prompt on an Apple II, but that lacked sufficient discoverability given my age and available resources at the time. Hypercard, on the other hand came with some example stacks (its name for a self-contained application), and it was just a couple clicks to see how anything worked. It was, of course too limited to be used for serious work without external tools, but the potential, had it remained bundled with every Mac and given a few more iterations was huge. It was a big step toward making the personal computer a bicycle for the user's mind as Steve Jobs once described it. Nothing has really replaced it, and Apples most popular current platform now would forbid anything with equivalent functionality.
- scroot 6y ago
  > Nothing has really replaced it, and Apples most popular current platform now would forbid anything with equivalent functionality. I think a lot of us will agree that it's a shame Apple allowed Hypercard to wither and die. What you might not know -- and what I only learned about a year ago -- is that there was an effort within Apple's Advanced Technologies Group (ATG) to make more of the whole system (and programming generally) "Hypercard-like" called SK8 [1]. It seems like it was received with confused stares from the more traditional developers in the company. And, as with much of the really interesting ATG work, it was tossed out eventually. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SK8 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SK8
  - Zak 6y ago
    I had not heard about that. It was written in Lisp, for extra awesomeness. I fear the opportunity to popularize such a thing has passed, though I suspect the discoverability not quite as valuable in an era where information is orders of magnitudes more available.
  - linguae 6y ago
    Wow, this looks amazing! Despite my knowledge of the "interregnum" years of Apple, this is the first time I've heard of SK8. This is further proof that Apple was a fountain of interesting research in desktop computing back in the 1980s and 1990s.

grawprog 6y ago

Thanks for that I enjoyed the read. Despite my original comment, I don't think things are entirely pessimistic. There is a push towards open computing. As far as software goes, the open front is doing well. It's hardware that worries me. Hardware is hard to do openly at a large scale it seems. Projects like purism and the pinephone stuff are a good start, but this is the direction I hope everything can start moving towards. It does seem like a battle, for every open project you hear about, there's 10 more proprietary giants pushing some new all inclusive platform, but I don't think the war is lost or even close to being over.

Zak 6y ago

Your mention of Hypercard is nostalgic for me. That was my first real introduction to programming. I had seen a BASIC prompt on an Apple II, but that lacked sufficient discoverability given my age and available resources at the time. Hypercard, on the other hand came with some example stacks (its name for a self-contained application), and it was just a couple clicks to see how anything worked. It was, of course too limited to be used for serious work without external tools, but the potential, had it remained bundled with every Mac and given a few more iterations was huge. It was a big step toward making the personal computer a bicycle for the user's mind as Steve Jobs once described it. Nothing has really replaced it, and Apples most popular current platform now would forbid anything with equivalent functionality.

scroot 6y ago
> Nothing has really replaced it, and Apples most popular current platform now would forbid anything with equivalent functionality. I think a lot of us will agree that it's a shame Apple allowed Hypercard to wither and die. What you might not know -- and what I only learned about a year ago -- is that there was an effort within Apple's Advanced Technologies Group (ATG) to make more of the whole system (and programming generally) "Hypercard-like" called SK8 [1]. It seems like it was received with confused stares from the more traditional developers in the company. And, as with much of the really interesting ATG work, it was tossed out eventually. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SK8 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SK8
- Zak 6y ago
  I had not heard about that. It was written in Lisp, for extra awesomeness. I fear the opportunity to popularize such a thing has passed, though I suspect the discoverability not quite as valuable in an era where information is orders of magnitudes more available.
- linguae 6y ago
  Wow, this looks amazing! Despite my knowledge of the "interregnum" years of Apple, this is the first time I've heard of SK8. This is further proof that Apple was a fountain of interesting research in desktop computing back in the 1980s and 1990s.