User:Laurier Rochon/readingnotes/personal dynamic media
Alan Kay & Adele Goldberg > Personal Dynamic Media
Interesting paper originally published in 1977 that dissects the functional capabilities and theoretical motivations that fueled the vision of a personal computer, the Dynabook. I enjoyed the way solid communication theory foundations were laid before building over it an argument of new medium - the enumerations of the actual capabilities, not so much.
Some key points from (mainly) the first part :
- Dynabook used Smalltalk as a programming language
- "Although one's thinking goes on in one's head, external media serve to materialize thoughts and, through feedback, to augment the actual paths the thinking follows."
- "Every message is, in one sense or another, a simulation of some idea."
- "a metamedium". true - computers are copying machines usually at their best when they handle metadata.
- important point (relating to Bootstrapping in many ways) even though the technology was not readily available at the time, the standards were very high in terms of what was expected from the Dynabook. It's envisioned characteristics are similar to the ones found in today's portable laptops, more than 20 years later. "Audio output should adhere to similar high-fidelity standards."
- Using children as the main 'user community' - "If the 'medium' is the message, then the mesage of low-bandwidth timesharing is 'blah'."
- The rest of the article goes to lengths in describing the many functional attributes of the Dynabook
- Output modes
- Fonts
- Editing capabilities
- Filing
- Drawing/painting
- Animation and music
- Simulation
- And some case studies of extension by means of the Smalltalk language
- Drawing and painting system
- Hospital simulation
- Audio animation system
- Musical score capture system
- Electronic circuit design