Kay's Vision Shaped Early Concept of Personal Computing

SOFTWARE TAKES
COMMAND
By Lev Manovich

Presented by Inês Rodolfo in “History and Tendencies of Media”
Digital Media PhD - UT | Austin Portugal Program

Software Takes Command

Part I: “Inventing Cultural Sofware”
1st Chapter: “Alan Kay’s Universal Machine”

By Lev Manovich - presented by Inês Rodolfo


Summary
1. Manovich aims to understand the present and the future of media history by
analyzing the origin of new media and of the computational culture;

2. Aims to understand “what is media after software” and what are the
consequences of our culture after the media have been “softwarerized”;

3. Is interested about the process of remediation of old media into new media;

4. Evaluates what are possibilities of the Media in what concerns to languages,
techniques and concepts of the XX century after computation;

5. Manovich shares the vision of Alan Kay;

6. This presentation of “Software Takes Command” rests in the discussion of the
article published in 1977 by Alan Kay and Goldberg where is discussed the
concept of “Metamedium” and the launch of Dynabook, the ﬁrst personal
computer.



Manovich focus on Alan Kay
For introducing the new paradigm of computers as “personal dynamic
media”;

For stimulating diﬀerent types of media in a unique personal machine
through a remediation process which converted already existing artistic
languages, introducing the concept of “Metamedium”;

For evolving all type of users in a two way conversational system
relationship e.g. through edition tools.

For Kay facing the computers as a mean of artistic expression.

For enabling free programming tools and by defending the democratization
of software development within a shared community.



Kay’s vision

“To provide users with a programming
environment, examples of programs, and already
written general tools so the users will be able to
make their own creative tools”



1940 - 1980
Digital Computer was
mostly used for military,
scientiﬁc and business
calculations as well as data
processing.
It was not personal.
It was not Interactive



1950’s

Artists, Filmmakers,
musicians and architects
use computers since the
1950’s with computer
scientists working in
research labs:
Bell Labs, IBM Watson
Research Center...



1970 - 1980

Work developed at Xerox
PARC introduced the
concept of computers as
personal machines (CRUD)
New Praradigm of media
computing.



1991

Computer as personal
media
+ World Wide Web
Computers as Cultural
Mainstream



2000

Expansion of computer
networks and www. + Social
Software Products = Digital
revolution (production,
distribution and access)
Digital Culture



Sketchpad 1962
By Ivan Sutherland

MIT PhD thesis

First interactive media authoring
Create and modify line drawings



Ted Nelson 1965
Hypertext concept

Article “A File Structure for the
Complex, the Changing, and
the Indeterminate”

“Let me introduce the word
“hypertext” to mean a body of
written or pictorial material
interconnected in such a complex
way that it could not be
conveniently be presented or
represented on paper”

www - “Chunk Style”



Ted Nelson 2007
Hypertext, Hiperﬁlm, Hypermedia

“with the computer-driven display
and mass memory, it has become
possible to create a new, readable
medium”

“It (computer text) need not be
treated as a simulated paper book
since this is a new medium with
new properties”



Engelbart 1968
View Control

Computer Conference Demo
San Francisco

@ Research Center for Augmenting
Human Intellect
“Computer supported collaborative
work.”


SuperPaint 1972 - 1973
By Richard Shoup

@ Xerox PARC

“From a larger perspective, we
realized that the development of
SuperPaint signaled the beginning
of the synergy of two of the most
powerful and pervasive
technologies ever invented: digital
computing and video or television”

“Videographic medium”
Grabbed frames from video



Xerox PARC 1970 - 1981
Research Center at Palo Alto

Alan Kay - Head of Research
Based on previous work made by:
Sutherland; Nelson; Englebart, Licklider,
Seymour Paper

Personal Computers
GUI (overlapping windows, icons,
bitmapped display, mouse...)

WYSIWYG
Smalltalk language
Word Processor; File System; Drawing
and Painting Program; Animation and
Music edition Programs

Paradigm of media computing



Xerox PARC 1970 - 1981
Research Center at Palo Alto

Star User Interface



Remediation 2000
By Jay Bolter @ Richard Grusin’s book of remediation

“Understanding the Media”

“GUI -based software turned digital computer
into a remediation machine”

“The representation of one medium in another”

“What is new about digital media lies in their
particular strategies for remediating television,
ﬁlm, photography, and painting”



Dynabook 1977
By Alan Kay @ Xerox PARC

1997 Article of Alan Kay
co-authored with Adele Goldberg:

“To create a personal dynamic
medium the size of a notebook
(the Dynabook) which could be
owned by everyone and could
have the power to handle
virtually all of its owner’s
information-related needs.”



Dynabook 1977
By Alan Kay



Dynabook 1977

Metamedium Concept

A Platform for all the already existing
artistic media

“Simulation is the central notion of Dynabook”

Mapp old media to generate
new media



Dynabook 1977

Metamedium Concept

“Meta” = “Hypper”

Ted Nelson Hypertext & Hipermedia

Engelbart Automated external symbol
manipulation

Kay Metamedium



Dynabook 1977

“A personal Computer for Children of All Ages”



Apple 1984
First Macintosh

Brought the vision of Xerox to
consumers

128 K
US$2,495

Included:
Word Processing (Mac Write)
Drawing Application (Mac Draw)



Apple 1979
Steve Jobs visit to Xerox

when Steve was 24 years old


Pioneers and
Personal
inventors of Metamedium Dynamic Media
computational
media

Englebart
Alan Kay
Ted Nelson
Shutherland Developers
Negroponte Designers
Add more Properties Architects
Programmers


Processing 2000
By Ana Oliveira in “Generativismos”

“Especulações semi-codiﬁcadas; Aleatoriedade como regra”


Conclusion
The computer seen as a cultural tool framework

Dynabook has introduced a new paradigm in computer history by being
established on the “Metamedium” concept and “Universal Media Machine”;

The new media are considered to be new when the add new properties to
an existing one as all media live in a process of remediation;

According to Manovich, the semantic of the media didn’t followed the
revolution of digital development and growth;

Mentions Apple as being responsible for closing the open source software
democratization in the beginning of the 80’s, however allowing later the
sharing of new languages to come forward.


Kay's Vision Shaped Early Concept of Personal Computing

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