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I’m always left amazed, confused and disappointed when I read about this. How did something so monumental get built and demonstrated, but then not get followed

I’m always left amazed, confused and disappointed when I read about this. How did something so monumental get built and demonstrated, but then not get followed up on for more than 30 years? Were there humongous caveats involved in the demo that made it impossible to leave the lab even for major corporations?

gumby 4y ago
The caveats were that 1 - you needed specialized research hardware that basically nobody had and 2 - people didn’t understand how revolutionary computers were.* Even in the late 80s the general consensus was that personal computers would be just used by specialists because “no executive can type, or would want to” And the labs in those days were pushing forward and “inventing the future”. We had network-native systems: not just computers with network adaptors, but cloud native software with mail, filesystem etc transparently available over the net. In fact where did the “cloud” concept come from? A TCP design document in the 70s. When you’d look outside the lab it felt like the past. DOS was the state of the art. And you’d visit your friends at different institutions and see different approaches to address the same problems. These days I never get that “this is the exciting future” feeling. The old nexus corporate labs (PARC, IBM, Bell Labs (RIP) and others) aren’t dominant as they used to be, but when I visit their successors (e.g. Google) the research doesn’t have that same jaw-drop impact. Not because I’m jaded, but because nothing appears to have come back through a time machine any more. Perhaps because computing went mainstream and then the constraints appeared? * and are: I think people still haven’t grasped how transformational they will be once we finally get computers to work and be useful. We’re still just puttering around at the base of the mountain.
- Hermitian909 4y ago
  You requested my thoughts here in a different comment :) > The caveats were that 1 - you needed specialized research hardware that basically nobody had and 2 - people didn’t understand how revolutionary computers were.* Even in the late 80s the general consensus was that personal computers would be just used by specialists because “no executive can type, or would want to” I agree with this completely. The teleconferencing, for example, required a big string of trucks with equipment to transmit the signal IIRC. An incredible tech demo but not even close to something that could be productized. > Not because I’m jaded, but because nothing appears to have come back through a time machine any more. Perhaps because computing went mainstream and then the constraints appeared? I think another way to frame this is that early computers offered a clear paradigm shift, the shift happened, and now everything on the near horizon is within that paradigm. This true even for some of the more exciting projects like Bret Victor's dynamicland (I'm not sure it will actually go anywhere, but I'm happy to see someone carrying the torch of the multimedia dreams that died in the 90s). Personally, I think biotech has the best potential for the next "it's the future!" style revolution.
- idontwantthis 4y ago
  I’m a big Arthur C Clarke fan, and because his future imagined maybe 80s computers flying in (hopefully) 2100s rockets. SpaceX is the company I look at as clawing the future back to us piece by piece.
jahewson 4y ago
I think it’s fair to say that a viable commercial market for these technologies was inconceivable. In 1968 the photocopier was only 10 years old, the Boeing 747 was brand new, the moon landings had not yet happened and the microprocessor did not yet exist, nor did Moore’s law. As for caveats, Sutherland was using a $1.3m computer (2022 money) of which only 50 existed, and two TV microwave links ($$$) which are impossible to scale. Still, we can dream.
- LargoLasskhyfv 4y ago
  https://firstmicroprocessor.com/ https://firstmicroprocessor.com/
blihp 4y ago
He was decades ahead of his time, as were the folks at PARC, in terms of something that could be turned into a profitable business or consumer product. The time horizon was just too long for the most powerful ideas to really take root in the industry. As a result, many of the 'big picture' concepts were discarded and shorter term goals that could be achieved in a few years time were developed instead. When management gets compensated in terms of quarters to a small number of years, that's the time-frame they tend to focus on.
moistly 4y ago
> How did something so monumental get built and demonstrated, but then not get followed up on for more than 30 years? Same as with moon shots. Abandoned.
- yesenadam 4y ago
  But the goal of that was fully achieved - to put a man on the moon and return him safely to Earth, before the Russians did.

gumby 4y ago

The caveats were that 1 - you needed specialized research hardware that basically nobody had and 2 - people didn’t understand how revolutionary computers were.* Even in the late 80s the general consensus was that personal computers would be just used by specialists because “no executive can type, or would want to” And the labs in those days were pushing forward and “inventing the future”. We had network-native systems: not just computers with network adaptors, but cloud native software with mail, filesystem etc transparently available over the net. In fact where did the “cloud” concept come from? A TCP design document in the 70s. When you’d look outside the lab it felt like the past. DOS was the state of the art. And you’d visit your friends at different institutions and see different approaches to address the same problems. These days I never get that “this is the exciting future” feeling. The old nexus corporate labs (PARC, IBM, Bell Labs (RIP) and others) aren’t dominant as they used to be, but when I visit their successors (e.g. Google) the research doesn’t have that same jaw-drop impact. Not because I’m jaded, but because nothing appears to have come back through a time machine any more. Perhaps because computing went mainstream and then the constraints appeared? * and are: I think people still haven’t grasped how transformational they will be once we finally get computers to work and be useful. We’re still just puttering around at the base of the mountain.

Hermitian909 4y ago
You requested my thoughts here in a different comment :) > The caveats were that 1 - you needed specialized research hardware that basically nobody had and 2 - people didn’t understand how revolutionary computers were.* Even in the late 80s the general consensus was that personal computers would be just used by specialists because “no executive can type, or would want to” I agree with this completely. The teleconferencing, for example, required a big string of trucks with equipment to transmit the signal IIRC. An incredible tech demo but not even close to something that could be productized. > Not because I’m jaded, but because nothing appears to have come back through a time machine any more. Perhaps because computing went mainstream and then the constraints appeared? I think another way to frame this is that early computers offered a clear paradigm shift, the shift happened, and now everything on the near horizon is within that paradigm. This true even for some of the more exciting projects like Bret Victor's dynamicland (I'm not sure it will actually go anywhere, but I'm happy to see someone carrying the torch of the multimedia dreams that died in the 90s). Personally, I think biotech has the best potential for the next "it's the future!" style revolution.
idontwantthis 4y ago
I’m a big Arthur C Clarke fan, and because his future imagined maybe 80s computers flying in (hopefully) 2100s rockets. SpaceX is the company I look at as clawing the future back to us piece by piece.

jahewson 4y ago

I think it’s fair to say that a viable commercial market for these technologies was inconceivable. In 1968 the photocopier was only 10 years old, the Boeing 747 was brand new, the moon landings had not yet happened and the microprocessor did not yet exist, nor did Moore’s law. As for caveats, Sutherland was using a $1.3m computer (2022 money) of which only 50 existed, and two TV microwave links ($$$) which are impossible to scale. Still, we can dream.

LargoLasskhyfv 4y ago
https://firstmicroprocessor.com/ https://firstmicroprocessor.com/

blihp 4y ago

He was decades ahead of his time, as were the folks at PARC, in terms of something that could be turned into a profitable business or consumer product. The time horizon was just too long for the most powerful ideas to really take root in the industry. As a result, many of the 'big picture' concepts were discarded and shorter term goals that could be achieved in a few years time were developed instead. When management gets compensated in terms of quarters to a small number of years, that's the time-frame they tend to focus on.

moistly 4y ago

> How did something so monumental get built and demonstrated, but then not get followed up on for more than 30 years? Same as with moon shots. Abandoned.

yesenadam 4y ago
But the goal of that was fully achieved - to put a man on the moon and return him safely to Earth, before the Russians did.