The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution by Walter Isaacson

Author:Walter Isaacson [Isaacson, Walter]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Industries, Computers & Information Technology, History, Technology & Engineering, Biography & Autobiography, Business & Economics, Computers, Nonfiction, Retail, Science & Technology
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2014-10-07T05:00:00+00:00

Alan Kay (1940– ) at Xerox PARC in 1974.

Kay’s 1972 sketch for a Dynabook.

Lee Felsenstein (1945– ).

The first issue, October 1972.

By keeping children (of all ages) in mind, Kay and his colleagues advanced Engelbart’s concepts by showing that they could be implemented in a manner that was simple, friendly, and intuitive to use. Engelbart, however, did not buy into their vision. Instead he was dedicated to cramming as many functions as possible into his oNLine System, and thus he never had a desire to make a computer that was small and personal. “That’s a totally different trip from where I’m going,” he told colleagues. “If we cram ourselves in those little spaces, we’d have to give up a whole bunch.”70 That is why Engelbart, even though he was a prescient theorist, was not truly a successful innovator: he kept adding functions and instructions and buttons and complexities to his system. Kay made things easier, and in so doing showed why the ideal of simplicity—making products that humans find convivial and easy to use—was central to the innovations that made computers personal.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.