Giant Ginkgo

I've been reading Steven Levy's Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution, which is a history of the computer programmers and hardware tinkerers which helped shape computers into the form that they are in today, the people with the vision to see that everyone could and should have their own machine. It's a great book, especially for those who aren't aware of the real meaning of what it is to be a 'Hacker.' (A term which was coined in the late 50s at MIT, a 'hack' was "a project undertaken or a product built not solely to fulfill some constructive goal, but with some wild pleasure taken in the mere involvement." )

One of the fascinating things about computer history is just how much of our current computing environment and the origination of the different software ideas is actually quite old. (As well as computer jargon!) One classic example of this is the research done by Douglas Englebart, his 1968 technology demo showcased the mouse, hypertext, video conferencing with interactive document collaboration, object addressing, and dynamic file linking. It wasn't until the 80s and 90s that the vision shown during that demo would become a part of daily life for millions of people.

And then there is the first video game, Spacewar. It was developed in 1961 at MIT, using one of the first micro-computers. The game originated with the idea of creating a good demo, the original group decided on using the space warfare scenes in E. E. Smith's "Lensman" series as a start. Spacewar spread like wildfire through the computer complexes around the country, and inspired amazing amounts of tweaking and coding to add new innovations to the game.

Spacewar continued to turn people onto computers into the 70s. This in-depth article from a 1972 Rolling Stone does a great job of summarizing the history and gameplay of the game. The article also takes a look at what was going on in the computer world around that time, including the original development of the Dynabook. (There is even a picture of an early prototype in the article.)

The Dynabook was developed by Alan Kay, who wanted "a portable interactive personal computer, as accessible as a book." It was going to be a true multimedia machine that would be wirelessly networkable, and very easy to use. It was going to be a slate design, with a built-in keyboard and a stylus controlled touch screen. It was intended as a tool, or instrument for children to use. Unfortunately it was never actually produced. The Apple Newton was the first real machine to embody many of the concepts from the Dynabook, which isn't surprising since Alan Kay had been working for Apple at the time. (The Newton also drew heavily from this amazing 1987 concept video of the "Knowledge Navigator") Today Microsoft's Tablet PC is slowly heading in the Dynabook direction.