Dynabook

The Dynabook's original illustration in Alan C. Kay's 1972 paper

The Dynabook concept, created by Alan Kay in 1968,^[1][2] described what is now known as a laptop computer or (in some of its other incarnations) a tablet PC or slate computer with nearly eternal battery life and software aimed at giving children access to digital media. Adults could also use a Dynabook, but the target audience was children.

Part of the motivation and funding for the Dynabook project came from the need for portable military maintenance, repair, and operations documentation. The paper-form of the field repair documentation for a single tank was larger than the tank itself.^{[citation needed]} Eliminating the need to move mountains of difficult-to-access paper in a dynamic military theater provided significant U.S. Department of Defense funding.

Though the hardware required to create a Dynabook is here today, Alan Kay still thinks the Dynabook hasn't been invented yet, because key software and educational curriculum are missing.^{[citation needed]} When Microsoft came up with its tablet PC, Kay was quoted as saying "Microsoft's Tablet PC, the first Dynabook-like computer good enough to criticize," a comment he had earlier applied to the Apple Macintosh.^[3]

Toshiba also has a line of sub-notebook computers called DynaBooks.

Later works

Since the late 1990s, Kay has been working on the Squeak programming system, an open source Smalltalk-based environment which could be seen as a logical continuation of the Dynabook concept.

Alan Kay is actively involved in the One Laptop Per Child project that uses Smalltalk, Squeak, and the concepts of a computer for learning.

References

1. ^ Richards, Mike (January 23, 2008). "Why the iPhone makes 2008 seem like 1968 all over again". Open2. http://www.open2.net/blogs/scitechnature/index.php/2008/01/23/why_the_iphone_makes_2008_seem_like_1968. 
2. ^ Steinberg, Daniel H. (April 3, 2003). "Daddy, Are We There Yet? A Discussion with Alan Kay". O'Reilly Media. http://openp2p.com/pub/a/p2p/2003/04/03/alan_kay.html. 
3. ^ Levy, Steven (April 30, 2001). "Bill Gates Says, Take This Tablet". Newsweek. http://www.newsweek.com/2001/04/29/bill-gates-says-take-this-tablet.html. 

External links

• A Personal Computer for Children of All Ages, Alan C. Kay, Aug. 1972
• From the Dynabook to Squeak - A Study in Survivals
• The World in your Own Notebook. A scanned magazine article from The Best of Creative Computing Volume 3
• Sketchpad, Grail and the Interim Dynabook: Alan Kay QuickTime movie clip from a conference The History of the Personal Workstation, 27 May 1986 [Dead Link]
• Tracing the Dynabook: A Study of Technocultural Transformations, a Ph.D. dissertation about the Dynabook project and vision
• Toshiba's dynabook R - a lowcost (185$) tablet PC
• Did Steve Jobs Steal The iPad? Genius Inventor Alan Kay Reveals All. Wolfgang Gruener. Tom's Hardware. April 17, 2010.