Alan Kay in the world of computers
Alan Curtis Kay is an American mathematician. The creator of the principles on which the work of the personal computer is based. Surprisingly interesting person, mentor the founders of Apple.
Kay is concerned about a lot of what most of us have never thought about. He sees what we do not see. He is aware of the existence of certain possibilities long before they become apparent to others.
Alan Curtis Kay was born on May 17, 1940 in the city of Springfield. In the family of humanities and musicians.
His mother was a professional singer, so a significant place in his childhood was given to music. After graduation, he became a college student, but he was expelled for participating in a protest by Jewish students. For this reason, he was forced to get a job as a guitar teacher in the class of music.
Nothing foreshadowed that in the future he would become the forefather of the idea of ​​a personal computer.
Alan's life has changed dramatically after serving in the army.
During the passage of military service, he passed the test for the ability to programming. His further service was held in the US Air Force working on the computer IBM 1401.
Demobilized, Kay enters the University of Colorado with a degree in Mathematics and Molecular Biology, then in 1966 as a graduate student at the University of Utah.
There is his acquaintance with the works of Ivan Sutherland.
This pushes him to learn the language of Simul. The result is that he formulates the principle of biological analogy.
He argues that the ideal computer should be similar to a living organism, where each cell is individual, but together they can form a single system capable of regrouping and changing the structure.
In the fall of 1968, Kay had another significant meeting, which in many ways influenced his future. He met Seymour Peipert and spent some time working with him in artificial intelligence laboratories at Massachusetts Technological and Stanford Universities.
In parallel, Kay begins to develop software for the computer Flex, developed in the laboratory. Although Flex was not put into mass production, it essentially became the prototype of a personal computer.
In 1969, Kay defended his doctoral thesis, in which he developed the principles of creating a personal computer - a powerful but simple to manage. After defending his thesis, Kay went to work at the Stanford University Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, and in 1971 he moved to the Xerox research center in Palo Alto (Palo Alto Research Center), where he continued the theoretical development of a prototype of a personal computer named after him Dynabook. This computer, not exceeding the size of a notebook, was supposed to have capabilities for processing text and graphic information, as well as a means of communicating with remote databases. In addition, this computer was supposed to be inexpensive and accessible to a wide range of buyers.
In 1972, he became the leader of the Advanced Research Group (Learning Research Group) at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center.
The most important task set before Kay was as follows. Then it seemed that the end of paper technology was close. It should have been replaced by another — but which one? At that level of hardware, which was in the early seventies, it was only possible to build hypotheses, although it is clear that the basis should be a computer. Therefore, Xerox PARC created research groups that were given complete freedom to use the computers that existed at that time. Scientists could build astrological predictions or create word processing systems for printing anti-war leaflets. This is exactly what the group led by Alan Kay did.
The article was devoted to the group “Fanatic life and symbolic death among computer chatters”
One of the basic principles of managing a new computer was not to be to enter commands from the keyboard, but to select them using the “mouse” from the proposed menu.
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Historically, humanity has evolved in two directions. The first is the invention of tools that enhance its capabilities: wheels, telescopes, writing language, and mathematics. The second is the subordination of these processes to targets and the management of the activities of the individual person and the collectives (religion, culture, state, various forms of organization for joint work).
In the late fifties, scientists realized that a computer is not only an account tool, but also a carrier that can be used to interact with a person. The majority of people today imagine a computer in its external interface forms.
In 1971, microprocessors appeared, and Kay’s project was partially implemented in the Alto computer, introduced by Xerox in 1973. For Alto, Kay developed the visually oriented Smalltalk programming language, in which he laid the foundations of the graphical principle of organizing programs and files, allowing you to simultaneously display several programs in the form of "windows". Although Alto was not launched into mass production, it is considered the first personal computer to appear two years earlier than Altair. Subsequently, on the principles of Alto, Apple created the Lisa computer.
The results of the work of Alan Kay in Xerox PARC are most often associated with two names - Dynabook and SmallTalk.
Dynabook - device concept for learning.
The Dynabook concept described what is now known as a laptop, or tablet PC, or a computer with a writing surface with an almost perpetual charge of batteries and software that helps give children access to digital knowledge carriers.
For this, the Star GUI was designed and modeled, which absorbed all the elements familiar to us today - windows, icons, menus and much more. Star GUI is the prototype of the Macintosh interface.
The Dynabook project was never completed, but it had a significant impact on the future. True, there was one attempt to implement “in hardware” - under the name Alto on the basis of the Nova minicomputer, and then Dorado.
Smalltalk is an object-oriented programming language.
From the very beginning it was believed that Smalltalk as a programming tool Dynabook would be quite simple, accessible for children. Its first version was modeled by several thousand operators on Basic in October 1972, after four months the version in assembly language (Smalltalk-72) appeared. In 1974, when it was installed on Alto, one could begin experimental work with children. Until 1980, work on Smalltalk-72, and then Smalltalk-74, were exclusively local in nature. It was decided to make the Smalltalk-80 version public, for which it was supposed to issue several types of documents, from articles to books (sequentially, “Blue”, “Orange” and “Green”). Dan Ingalls played a significant role in this work.
In 1982, Kay moved from Xerox to Atari, and in 1984, he became a member of Apple’s science board.
In 1996, Kay left Apple for Walt Disney. In parallel, he participated in the experimental educational project The Viviarium. In 2001, Kay left Walt Disney, where he was engaged in the development of attractions for parks.
Winner of the 2003 Turing Prize for his work on object-oriented programming, the Kyoto Prize (2004).
Alan Kay - Performance at the ACM Awards Ceremony
Until mid-2005, he was a senior researcher at HP Labs developing new open source technologies for various devices.
Kay is concerned about a lot of what most of us have never thought about. He sees what we do not see. He is aware of the existence of certain possibilities long before they become apparent to others.
Alan Curtis Kay was born on May 17, 1940 in the city of Springfield. In the family of humanities and musicians.
His mother was a professional singer, so a significant place in his childhood was given to music. After graduation, he became a college student, but he was expelled for participating in a protest by Jewish students. For this reason, he was forced to get a job as a guitar teacher in the class of music.
Nothing foreshadowed that in the future he would become the forefather of the idea of ​​a personal computer.
Alan's life has changed dramatically after serving in the army.
During the passage of military service, he passed the test for the ability to programming. His further service was held in the US Air Force working on the computer IBM 1401.
Demobilized, Kay enters the University of Colorado with a degree in Mathematics and Molecular Biology, then in 1966 as a graduate student at the University of Utah.
There is his acquaintance with the works of Ivan Sutherland.
This pushes him to learn the language of Simul. The result is that he formulates the principle of biological analogy.
He argues that the ideal computer should be similar to a living organism, where each cell is individual, but together they can form a single system capable of regrouping and changing the structure.
In the fall of 1968, Kay had another significant meeting, which in many ways influenced his future. He met Seymour Peipert and spent some time working with him in artificial intelligence laboratories at Massachusetts Technological and Stanford Universities.
In parallel, Kay begins to develop software for the computer Flex, developed in the laboratory. Although Flex was not put into mass production, it essentially became the prototype of a personal computer.
In 1969, Kay defended his doctoral thesis, in which he developed the principles of creating a personal computer - a powerful but simple to manage. After defending his thesis, Kay went to work at the Stanford University Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, and in 1971 he moved to the Xerox research center in Palo Alto (Palo Alto Research Center), where he continued the theoretical development of a prototype of a personal computer named after him Dynabook. This computer, not exceeding the size of a notebook, was supposed to have capabilities for processing text and graphic information, as well as a means of communicating with remote databases. In addition, this computer was supposed to be inexpensive and accessible to a wide range of buyers.
In 1972, he became the leader of the Advanced Research Group (Learning Research Group) at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center.
The most important task set before Kay was as follows. Then it seemed that the end of paper technology was close. It should have been replaced by another — but which one? At that level of hardware, which was in the early seventies, it was only possible to build hypotheses, although it is clear that the basis should be a computer. Therefore, Xerox PARC created research groups that were given complete freedom to use the computers that existed at that time. Scientists could build astrological predictions or create word processing systems for printing anti-war leaflets. This is exactly what the group led by Alan Kay did.
The article was devoted to the group “Fanatic life and symbolic death among computer chatters”
One of the basic principles of managing a new computer was not to be to enter commands from the keyboard, but to select them using the “mouse” from the proposed menu.
')
Historically, humanity has evolved in two directions. The first is the invention of tools that enhance its capabilities: wheels, telescopes, writing language, and mathematics. The second is the subordination of these processes to targets and the management of the activities of the individual person and the collectives (religion, culture, state, various forms of organization for joint work).
In the late fifties, scientists realized that a computer is not only an account tool, but also a carrier that can be used to interact with a person. The majority of people today imagine a computer in its external interface forms.
In 1971, microprocessors appeared, and Kay’s project was partially implemented in the Alto computer, introduced by Xerox in 1973. For Alto, Kay developed the visually oriented Smalltalk programming language, in which he laid the foundations of the graphical principle of organizing programs and files, allowing you to simultaneously display several programs in the form of "windows". Although Alto was not launched into mass production, it is considered the first personal computer to appear two years earlier than Altair. Subsequently, on the principles of Alto, Apple created the Lisa computer.
The results of the work of Alan Kay in Xerox PARC are most often associated with two names - Dynabook and SmallTalk.
Dynabook - device concept for learning.
The Dynabook concept described what is now known as a laptop, or tablet PC, or a computer with a writing surface with an almost perpetual charge of batteries and software that helps give children access to digital knowledge carriers.
For this, the Star GUI was designed and modeled, which absorbed all the elements familiar to us today - windows, icons, menus and much more. Star GUI is the prototype of the Macintosh interface.
The Dynabook project was never completed, but it had a significant impact on the future. True, there was one attempt to implement “in hardware” - under the name Alto on the basis of the Nova minicomputer, and then Dorado.
Smalltalk is an object-oriented programming language.
From the very beginning it was believed that Smalltalk as a programming tool Dynabook would be quite simple, accessible for children. Its first version was modeled by several thousand operators on Basic in October 1972, after four months the version in assembly language (Smalltalk-72) appeared. In 1974, when it was installed on Alto, one could begin experimental work with children. Until 1980, work on Smalltalk-72, and then Smalltalk-74, were exclusively local in nature. It was decided to make the Smalltalk-80 version public, for which it was supposed to issue several types of documents, from articles to books (sequentially, “Blue”, “Orange” and “Green”). Dan Ingalls played a significant role in this work.
In 1982, Kay moved from Xerox to Atari, and in 1984, he became a member of Apple’s science board.
In 1996, Kay left Apple for Walt Disney. In parallel, he participated in the experimental educational project The Viviarium. In 2001, Kay left Walt Disney, where he was engaged in the development of attractions for parks.
Winner of the 2003 Turing Prize for his work on object-oriented programming, the Kyoto Prize (2004).
Alan Kay - Performance at the ACM Awards Ceremony
Until mid-2005, he was a senior researcher at HP Labs developing new open source technologies for various devices.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/77316/
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