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Bill Atkinson allegedly came up with the idea for HyperCard during an LSD trip Makes me pause to think what innovations we missed out on for loss of creative i

Bill Atkinson allegedly came up with the idea for HyperCard during an LSD trip Makes me pause to think what innovations we missed out on for loss of creative inspiration from all of our anti-drug policies.

jazzyjackson 5y ago
the book “what the dormouse said” is an amazing retelling of this era detailing who tripped when and what they went on to invent IIRC photolithography and CPU architecture came out of this subculture, berkeley and harvard both had sanctioned LSD experimentation that grad students were happy to participate in, in the “center for advanced studies” it’s been a few years since I read it so my memory is hazy
- cmg 5y ago
  Your comment made me go search for a short article that I'd seen in the past [0] with a text version at [1]. "Use of LSD-25 for Computer Programming" "While stimulated by the LSD I was able to get the entire system wholly in my mind at the same time. I spent some time mentally visualizing various aspects of the compiler, the language and the processing which would take place. I did discover three or four design inconsistencies while being stimulated by the effect of the LSD, and I made notes for later checking." [0] https://maps.org/news-letters/v18n1/v18n1-MAPS_24.pdf https://maps.org/news-letters/v18n1/v18n1-MAPS_24.pdf [1] https://slidelegend.com/use-of-lsd-25-for-computer-programming_59cc52ad1723dd9ca4243d23.html https://slidelegend.com/use-of-lsd-25-for-computer-programmi...
  - rightbyte 5y ago
    He probably just felt like getting the whole system in his head? Shouldn't LSD trivially make people score higher on IQ test otherwise.
    - jazzyjackson 5y ago
      maybe “felt like” is the important part? just spit-balling here as a non-lsd-user, but I do have the experience of “writers block” when I feel a program I wrote is too complex, I feel like it would be better to scrap it and start over perhaps the effect of LSD is more anti-anxiety of approaching the problem despite its complexity, not improving your IQ, but lowering your inhibitions that otherwise prevent you from problem solving (I am on the side of things that drugs in general turn parts of the brain off, rather than somehow making you superhuman, but maybe there are parts of the brain we could do without from time to time)
      - tomc1985 5y ago
        I've said the same thing about smoking sativas, so to learn that others have capitalized on this sort of 'increased visualization capacity' of LSD is not surprising. > (I am on the side of things that drugs in general turn parts of the brain off, rather than somehow making you superhuman, but maybe there are parts of the brain we could do without from time to time) They do neither as a rule. They just twist thinking around as they mess with your brains chemistry. Sometimes that puts you in a better place for a given activity, sometimes it puts you in a worse place. I think that, as society wakes up to the lies promulgated by the War on Drugs, we will revisit these positive interactions that are otherwise collectively forgotten.
        Stratoscope 5y ago
        Agree on the sativa. Back when you had to use a code name if you mentioned it on the phone, I and my friends at Tymshare, Apple, General Magic, Grid, Tandem, etc. called it "programmer's fuel". Many here are familiar with the term "fire an event". I coined that in the late 1980s when I was at Cooper Software working on a program that would become Visual Basic. (Our team did the "Visual" part, and Microsoft added the "Basic".) Our system was event-driven just like pretty much any GUI app or system. Under the hood, of course, we used the Win16 SendMessage, PostMessage, GetMessage, and PeekMessage calls. But we had a habit of using creative names. In fact Alan Cooper once said that "one of my most important programming tools is a thesaurus." We had already decided to call them "events" instead of "messages" for whatever reason, and now I needed a way to talk about sending them. At my previous job we had "SQL triggers". I started thinking along that line but wasn't getting anywhere. So I turned to a trick I often used when I felt stuck: I started firing rubber bands against my computer screen. I kept a stack of them on my desk for just that purpose. (This was an IBM Monochrome Display with a sturdy glass front. Do not try this on your modern LCD/OLED displays.) I still wasn't getting anywhere, so I fired up a doobie. I flicked the lighter a few extra times and looked at the flame. And then it all fell into place: Fire a rubber band. Fire up a doobie. Fire an event!
- golemiprague 5y ago
  The question is how many of the LSD takers invented something in relation to all the other ones who just had some fun. Is it bigger percentage than in the general population?
- anthk 5y ago
  "Two things came out of Berkeley: LSD and Unix. We do not believe this to be a coincidence."
  - jazzyjackson 5y ago
    hah! somehow I never heard that one, and googling it points me to a 13 year old reddit thread discussing a book that’s new to me, “The Unix-Hater’s Handbook”, looks like a great read, so, Thanks!
hvgk 5y ago
Well the last dude I know who took LSD tried to call an ambulance for a pile of sacks of builders cement and pissed himself. YMMV on that one. There are probably more failures that are not romanticised and more successes that involved hard work.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

jazzyjackson 5y ago

the book “what the dormouse said” is an amazing retelling of this era detailing who tripped when and what they went on to invent IIRC photolithography and CPU architecture came out of this subculture, berkeley and harvard both had sanctioned LSD experimentation that grad students were happy to participate in, in the “center for advanced studies” it’s been a few years since I read it so my memory is hazy

cmg 5y ago
Your comment made me go search for a short article that I'd seen in the past [0] with a text version at [1]. "Use of LSD-25 for Computer Programming" "While stimulated by the LSD I was able to get the entire system wholly in my mind at the same time. I spent some time mentally visualizing various aspects of the compiler, the language and the processing which would take place. I did discover three or four design inconsistencies while being stimulated by the effect of the LSD, and I made notes for later checking." [0] https://maps.org/news-letters/v18n1/v18n1-MAPS_24.pdf https://maps.org/news-letters/v18n1/v18n1-MAPS_24.pdf [1] https://slidelegend.com/use-of-lsd-25-for-computer-programming_59cc52ad1723dd9ca4243d23.html https://slidelegend.com/use-of-lsd-25-for-computer-programmi...
- rightbyte 5y ago
  He probably just felt like getting the whole system in his head? Shouldn't LSD trivially make people score higher on IQ test otherwise.
  - jazzyjackson 5y ago
    maybe “felt like” is the important part? just spit-balling here as a non-lsd-user, but I do have the experience of “writers block” when I feel a program I wrote is too complex, I feel like it would be better to scrap it and start over perhaps the effect of LSD is more anti-anxiety of approaching the problem despite its complexity, not improving your IQ, but lowering your inhibitions that otherwise prevent you from problem solving (I am on the side of things that drugs in general turn parts of the brain off, rather than somehow making you superhuman, but maybe there are parts of the brain we could do without from time to time)
    - tomc1985 5y ago
      I've said the same thing about smoking sativas, so to learn that others have capitalized on this sort of 'increased visualization capacity' of LSD is not surprising. > (I am on the side of things that drugs in general turn parts of the brain off, rather than somehow making you superhuman, but maybe there are parts of the brain we could do without from time to time) They do neither as a rule. They just twist thinking around as they mess with your brains chemistry. Sometimes that puts you in a better place for a given activity, sometimes it puts you in a worse place. I think that, as society wakes up to the lies promulgated by the War on Drugs, we will revisit these positive interactions that are otherwise collectively forgotten.
      - Stratoscope 5y ago
        Agree on the sativa. Back when you had to use a code name if you mentioned it on the phone, I and my friends at Tymshare, Apple, General Magic, Grid, Tandem, etc. called it "programmer's fuel". Many here are familiar with the term "fire an event". I coined that in the late 1980s when I was at Cooper Software working on a program that would become Visual Basic. (Our team did the "Visual" part, and Microsoft added the "Basic".) Our system was event-driven just like pretty much any GUI app or system. Under the hood, of course, we used the Win16 SendMessage, PostMessage, GetMessage, and PeekMessage calls. But we had a habit of using creative names. In fact Alan Cooper once said that "one of my most important programming tools is a thesaurus." We had already decided to call them "events" instead of "messages" for whatever reason, and now I needed a way to talk about sending them. At my previous job we had "SQL triggers". I started thinking along that line but wasn't getting anywhere. So I turned to a trick I often used when I felt stuck: I started firing rubber bands against my computer screen. I kept a stack of them on my desk for just that purpose. (This was an IBM Monochrome Display with a sturdy glass front. Do not try this on your modern LCD/OLED displays.) I still wasn't getting anywhere, so I fired up a doobie. I flicked the lighter a few extra times and looked at the flame. And then it all fell into place: Fire a rubber band. Fire up a doobie. Fire an event!
golemiprague 5y ago
The question is how many of the LSD takers invented something in relation to all the other ones who just had some fun. Is it bigger percentage than in the general population?
anthk 5y ago
"Two things came out of Berkeley: LSD and Unix. We do not believe this to be a coincidence."
- jazzyjackson 5y ago
  hah! somehow I never heard that one, and googling it points me to a 13 year old reddit thread discussing a book that’s new to me, “The Unix-Hater’s Handbook”, looks like a great read, so, Thanks!

hvgk 5y ago

Well the last dude I know who took LSD tried to call an ambulance for a pile of sacks of builders cement and pissed himself. YMMV on that one. There are probably more failures that are not romanticised and more successes that involved hard work.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]