Hi Ron, Well, "the field" itself really doesn't have a good overview of the strongest ideas it has had since 1950. So I certainly don't get upset when anyone randomly isn't aware of something that happened 40 years ago.
But researchers and engineers need to be a lot more careful about checking out prior art. The lack of this has led to the odd phenomena since the 1980s of "reinventing the flat tire". Some of these that were really done badly (like the web browser, various bad scripting languages and UIs) have held things back for decades (and still are). I predict that you will be amazed by Dave Reed's thesis. We implemented it a few years ago and it is now both an open source foundation (Croquet) and a startup (Teleplace). Cheers, Alan ________________________________ From: Ron Teitelbaum <[email protected]> To: Alan Kay <[email protected]>; Chunka Mui <[email protected]> Cc: voluntarios y administradores OLPC para usuarios docentes <[email protected]>; squeakland.org mailing list <[email protected]>; [email protected]; Carlos Rabassa <[email protected]>; Maho 2010 <[email protected]>; olpc bolivia <[email protected]>; IAEP SugarLabs <[email protected]>; OLPC Puno <[email protected]> Sent: Mon, February 7, 2011 8:32:40 AM Subject: RE: [squeakland] [IAEP] Plan Ceibal y/and General Electric Thank you for humoring me. I stand corrected. I haven’t read David’s thesis. Just downloaded it. Thanks for the suggestion. Ron From:Alan Kay [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Sunday, February 06, 2011 11:21 AM To: Ron Teitelbaum; Chunka Mui Cc: voluntarios y administradores OLPC para usuarios docentes; squeakland.org mailing list; [email protected]; Carlos Rabassa; Maho 2010; olpc bolivia; IAEP SugarLabs; OLPC Puno Subject: Re: [squeakland] [IAEP] Plan Ceibal y/and General Electric Hi Ron, I've already played this game ad nauseum with many groups on the web. So I urge everyone to rise above the temptation to name your favorite idea that seems "new". But do you really think there were no peer to peer and cloud computing systems already deployed before 1980? (Hint: I used both quite a lot back then, and for a short time actually was in charge of an ARPA task group to define an AI "cloud resource" for the already running ARPAnet -- the one that got built was a multiple processor system (C.mmp) designed by Gordon Bell) For much larger issues and inventions than DHT, let me refer you to the 1978 PhD thesis of David Reed (popularly known as "the '/' in TCP/IP") at MIT.1978. If you haven't heard of David or read this thesis, then this helps make my main point. Since it would be really improbable for me to be aware of all developments after 1980 (and even some before), I don't claim there have been none. I simply asked for 3 (or even one) since 1980 comparable to personal computing, GUIs, the Internet, Engelbart's notion of "online system", etc. Previous essays into this yielded many suggestions, but I was able to identify prior art for all such. For example, Tim Berners-Lee was suitably embarrassed when he found out about Engelbart - first for the web not doing as well in the design, goals and execution, and secondly, because as a physicist he would have been drummed out of Physics if he had not tried to "stand on the shoulders of giants" (as Newton said), and he had assumed falsely (and I think partly because our field is so careless about its historical great steps up) that computing had no Netwons, and the Internet had somehow just appeared without thought out purposes, and he failed to look for them. Best wishes, Alan ________________________________ From:Ron Teitelbaum <[email protected]> To: Alan Kay <[email protected]>; Chunka Mui <[email protected]> Cc: voluntarios y administradores OLPC para usuarios docentes <[email protected]>; squeakland.org mailing list <[email protected]>; [email protected]; Carlos Rabassa <[email protected]>; Maho 2010 <[email protected]>; olpc bolivia <[email protected]>; IAEP SugarLabs <[email protected]>; OLPC Puno <[email protected]> Sent: Sun, February 6, 2011 7:28:18 AM Subject: RE: [squeakland] [IAEP] Plan Ceibal y/and General Electric Hi Alan, One thing that comes to mind right away is DHT research. I could be wrong but it seems to me that the 90’ saw the birth of DHT, P2P and Cloud Computing. Ron Teitelbaum From:[email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Alan Kay Sent: Saturday, February 05, 2011 2:12 PM To: Chunka Mui Cc: voluntarios y administradores OLPC para usuarios docentes; squeakland.org mailing list; [email protected]; Carlos Rabassa; Maho 2010; olpc bolivia; IAEP SugarLabs; OLPC Puno Subject: Re: [squeakland] [IAEP] Plan Ceibal y/and General Electric Hi Chunka, I've been challenged on this point more than once, and have challenged back to come up with one invention that was done after 1980 that matches up to the top 10 done before 1980. This has not happened. I've been able to show the prior art for all suggestions. Essentially everything in the last 30 years has been commercializations and other forms of "innovation" based on what was funded by ARPA, ONR, and by extension, Xerox in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. The important point here is that there are many new inventions needed, and they can be identified, but no one has been willing to fund them. It's not that the early birds got the worms, but that most of the needed worms out there are being missed. Cheers, Alan ________________________________ From:Chunka Mui <[email protected]> To: Alan Kay <[email protected]> Cc: Carlos Rabassa <[email protected]>; "[email protected]" <[email protected]>; squeakland.org mailing list <[email protected]>; Maho 2010 <[email protected]>; IAEP SugarLabs <[email protected]>; voluntarios y administradores OLPC para usuarios docentes <[email protected]>; olpc bolivia <[email protected]>; OLPC Puno <[email protected]> Sent: Sat, February 5, 2011 10:53:44 AM Subject: Re: [squeakland] [IAEP] Plan Ceibal y/and General Electric On Jan 30, 2011, at 9:21 AM, Alan Kay <[email protected]> wrote: GE is being congratulated for recognizing that the iPhone and iPad are pretty good ideas and technological realizations. But isn't this like the congratulations Bill Gates got for finally recognizing the Internet (about 25 years after it had started working)? > >Seems as though Apple had a lot more on the ball than Bill Gates or GE here >(they used to do computing in the 60s, but couldn't see what it was). > >And most of the ideas at Apple (and for personal computing and the Internet) >came from research funding that no company or government has been willing to >do >since 1982. Alan -- Could you say more about this point? Surely there's been tons of CS and IT funding since '82, both govt funding to universities and massive research budgets at msft, hp, Regards, Chunka Cheers, Alan ________________________________ From:Carlos Rabassa <[email protected]> To: [email protected]; squeakland.org mailing list <[email protected]>; Maho 2010 <[email protected]>; IAEP SugarLabs <[email protected]>; voluntarios y administradores OLPC para usuarios docentes <[email protected]>; olpc bolivia <[email protected]>; OLPC Puno <[email protected]> Sent: Sun, January 30, 2011 4:11:49 AM Subject: [IAEP] Plan Ceibal y/and General Electric We try to learn from those who have succeed for a long time: https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1XWm2q8nQ-l5KUJ_PWkQruLDx-nZ7nsKDfg4idDlsU50 Carlos Rabassa _______________________________________________ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) 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