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06 – Paper #1
Yodit Reinhold
Eng 302
Professor Thompson
June 13 2015
“The Best Way to Predict the Future is to Invent it”
Did Alan Kay invent the future and predict our today? Some might argue the other way but we all can agree that the mother of all invention of our time is the computer development. It is one of the most significant technological developments of our time. It became part of everyday life and plays a big role in a way no other machine does. From its birth to where it is now many scientists contributed to its development. This machine was invented originally to calculate numbers. Now due to the efforts put in by many engineers and the layers of development that has been made this machine can do unlimited things. From the many engineers who contributed to the development of today’s computer, Alan Kay is one of them. Kay is known for his push on personalized computer as well as the use of computer in the education system. He thought children will learn better when they are free to be creative and manipulating machines like computer. Kay was born in 1940 in Massachusetts.Kay grew up in a house hold where ideas, creativity, and inventions where a big part of learning. He was influenced by both his father who is a Physiologist and his mother who was an artist that developed love for both sciences and art. Describing his childhood Kay said “Since my father was a scientist and my mother was an artist, the atmosphere during my early years was full of many kinds of ideas and ways to express them. I didn’t distinguish between “art” and “science” and still don’t” (P 282). This made Kay’s learning experience exceptional.
His computer programming tanning started when he was enlisted in the Air Force. Later when he went to University of Utah for graduate school to study electrical Engineering where he met the computer sciences pioneer David Evans and He exposed Kay to Ivan Sutherland doctoral dissertation. Then he learned about Sketchpad graphical communication system that created interaction between human and computer by drawing lines to display graphics on the screen. This experience confirmed to Kay that combining both of his background of sciences and art can make future learning experience fun and that is where his passion to create a personal users friendly computer begin. In 1967 he went to Engelbart’s lecture about his online system, Kay’s passion was impacted once again to peruse the idea of creating a personal computer that is simple enough even a school kid can use it. He also heard Minsky’s how schools are killing creativity by not teaching them how to deal with imaginative complexity (284). This was important for Kay because his own childhood learning experience was an environment where creativity and invention are encouraged and he wanted to give that experience to young learners of his time.
In 1968 Kay first met Seymour Papert who created the programming language LOGO at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and became interested in the LOGO language. When he watched Papert and his colleagues teaching children how to program in LOGO, his whole idea of the function of the computer in society took another level. After visiting Seymour Papert, Kay began thinking about a book-sized computer that could be used in place of paper. Kay realized such a device would be especially useful for children. His vision of seeing the future with personal, portable computer became more clear to him. The idea encouraged him to draw a model of a laptop computer (284).
In 1971 Key was recruited by Bob Taylor who have been impressed by Kay to joined Xerox PARC as a researcher. During one of his formal interview Kay was asked what he hoped his biggest contribution and achievement there will be he answered, “a personal computer”. p287 When he was asked what might look like, he picked up a note book open its cover and showed them where the display and the keyboard will be and he also said how powerful it will be to store files and artworks. They weren’t convinced but he got the job. Then he continued to work on his project and couldn’t rest until he introduce this amazing idea. He came up with catchy names Daynabook and smalltalk for the personal computer and the software to convince and push Xerox to fund it. He wrote the description of the Dynabook and he presented his proposal to Xerox to build thirty of them so that they could be tested in a classrooms. Unfortunately, Xerox management was not onboard with Kay’s insight, and was not willing to commit major resources to the project. When Steve Jobs, Jeff Raskin, and some other Apple pioneers visited PARC in 1979 they even recognized immediately that Kay’s ideas were the way where the future is heading. They were impressed with the Alto and they were also amazed with the flexibility of the Smalltalk language. Kay’s work at PARC was a direct inspiration for most today’s Apple Microsoft products. Behind today’s laptop computer that we are carrying around there is a big contribution of Key. I wonder how many people know this?
In conclusion, Kay’s most remarkable contribution to the world of computer science was that of a shifted model, he changed the way both the industry and the world thought of computers. The idea of personal computer and using computer in the education system was brand new. No one saw computer could be developed in the not book size and it can be made inexpensive enough anyone can own it.That computer needs to be So simple that even a school kids could interact with it. If you wanted to interact with this machine you had to learn to speak its language. Kay, because of his personal experience as a child, his love of education, his diverse interests, and because of the people he was influenced by he recognized that users can and should interact with a computer in different ways and should not be limited to only text. He was among the first to represent objects in a computer as pictures and that he further extended by developing the concept of object orientation. Steve Jobs and others might take the credit for the development of today’s personal computer, However, Alan Kay should be known as the grandfather of personal computer because this is the future he predicted and Xerox couldn’t let him invented.
Work Cited
Isaacson, Walter. “The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution.” New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014. Print.
“The Machine That Changed the World.” Great Brains.WGBH Television, The BBC, 1992. Film.
Clara Monica Espinel
Dr. Kenneth C. Thompson
ENGH 302-SN2
14 June 2015
The New Electronic Interaction between Computers and its users.
Alan Kay was one of the most influential people to have worked on the development of the personal computer. He, alongside with Doug Engelbart and Steve Jobs, could probably be seen as the fathers of the modern computer era today. For it was these remarkable people that pioneered many of the things which we take for granted today. Where men like Alan Turing and Doug Engelbart (Isaacson 281) really took the idea of the computer and make it possible, Alan Kay is a very interesting case, Kay might not have worked on the development of computers from the very beginning, much like how Doug Engelbar did not work on ENIAC, but his contributions are remarkable.
Kay is special in that he helped to develop the idea of the sketchpad. In the early days of the computer it was an extremely difficult machine to use for the majority of people. The sketchpad changed all of that when Kay helped Doug Engelbart with his “Mother of all Demons” (Isaacson 283) presentation. It worked in conjunction, or rather was the start of what was known as the graphical user interface. It was a system of icons which helped to simplify the user experience, much like in the way that the Windows operating system does today. The sketchpad was really the first ever cursor that ever existed. The basic concepts of sketchpad and the graphical user interface have changed and since evolved almost everything as we know it today. Everything from modern computers, to smartphones and tablets, all use some type of a graphical user interface. Phones which use a pen to be able to write text can be seen as the new versions of sketchpad.
Kay had gone on record saying that, “I was almost frightened by the implications” (Isaacson 284). This of course is in reference to what could be done with sketchpad in the future. He was actually one of the first people to realize that computers would need to become easier to use with time. This was where Engelbart’s fatal flaw was, as he felt that as they became more sophisticated, they would need to be more complicated.
Due to the fact that Alan Kay saw such potential in the personal computer, he became impatient because he wanted to see the future come to pass. I think it is safe to say that, without the innovation of sketchpad, then the graphical user interface would not have worked as well as it did. Sometimes it is the simplest twist to an invention that can make all of the difference. What would the computer be like today if it was not for sketchpad. Since the mouse is what controls the cursor, would even the mouse have become as successful as it did? These are all questions which when looking at the modern era one must stop and think about.
Works Cited
Isaacson, Walter. The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks
Created the Digital Revolution. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014. Print.
06 – Paper # 1 – Yosuf Z.
Zual 1
Engelbart: Ambitious Yet Excessive
The computer is the most important invention of the 20th century. It has changed every single aspect of our lives over the past 50 to 60 years. Several people have done their part in helping to create the modern computer, others being more successful than some in their endeavors to do so. If there is one person who I feel began the idea of the modern computer as we know it now, it would be Doug Engelbart. Doug Engelbart came up with the ideas for several modern accessories we now use to aid in the computer experience. The NLS and the mouse are just a few of these. These ideas did help to make the computer a much easier instrument to use, but why then is he not as well recognized as people like Steve Jobs? The answer is simple.
Engelbart played a key role in the development of the modern computer. According to the Doug Engelbart Institute, he is known as the “Father of the Mouse.” It is because of this that one would think he would have earned much more credit than he has for his other ideas, but that is not the case. The institute also credits him with a number of other computer firsts such as, “display editing, windows, cross-file editing, outline processing, hypermedia, and groupware. Integrated prototypes were in full operation under the NLS system, as early as 1968.”
Unfortunately for Engelbart, though he has a wealth of ideas which we all take for granted now in the modern age, his greatest flaw was that he simply did not know when to stop. During
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his demo of the NLS online system on December 9, 1968, he showed that many of his ideas did indeed work, but it was already seen as too complicated for many by that point. He clung to the idea that the computer should be able to do an ever expanding variety of things and therefore set out to continue improving the formula. How he went about achieving this was his problem.
What other people like Steve Jobs understood, was that the computer needed to be as simple to use were it intended for commercial and personal use for everyone. This is part of the reason why Apple and Microsoft has been largely successful, because of their easy to use interfaces. Engelbart on the other hand wanted a machine that was as close to perfection as possible. The NLS online system was a great system, particularly because it was able to do as much as it did. However since Engelbart kept trying to improve it, he therefore “missed the boat” so to speak. Several of his ideas were carried over to the first modern personal computers in the 1970’s, but he would not receive as much credit for them as he should have. Had he known when it was time to stop and make the NLS system practical instead of impractical, I feel that the debate over who invented the computer would be very different today.
Engelbart’s version of the computer was really the first template for the personal computer in my opinion. Since computers can now do so many different things like he envisioned, that’s why we use them on such a huge scale. Had he gone into it with the mindset of variety and simplicity he could have definitely made it work. It is unfortunate that it took so long for his
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achievement to be recognized. Thankfully today because of the Doug Engelbart institute and others, he has finally earned a somewhat rightful place in the history of computers, though I still feel in some ways that it should have been higher up.
One can only wonder though just how much things would have been different, had he simply been able to live with his inventions at the time. Had he done so, would people like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates have made as big of an impact as they did? Would Engelbart have received more recognition instead of just being known as, “The father of the mouse”? I suppose in some ways we’ll never really know, but it is interesting to thing about how the history of the modern computer might have been vastly different.
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Works Cited
The Innovators – How a Group of Hackers Geniuses and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution, Walter Issacson
http://www.dougengelbart.org/ – The Doug Engelbart Institute
06-Paper Tom C
My paper
06 – Ahmad O – Paper 1
Ahmad Oryakhil
Professor Kenneth C. Thompson
ENGH – 302 –SN2
June 12, 2015
Douglas Engelbart
In the beginning Computers were not personal in anyway, they were enormous and hugely expensive machines. It needed team of engineers and specialists to keep it running. In fact one of the first computers called ENIAC was built in the University of Pennsylvania to do ballistic calculation for the US military. ENIAC took almost 2000 square space and weighed 30 tons. However, many creative thinkers proved that computer could be personal and interactive. One of the people who paved the way for humans to interact with computer was Douglas Engelbart who invented the Mouse.
Douglas EngelBart was an engineer, who served his life in finding ways that computers could augment human intelligence. His goal was how to create a technology that could expand human intelligence and human interaction with computer, so they could use to manipulate, store and share information. He invented the concept of augmented Intelligence and in to order to fully understand it, he went to Berkeley to study computer science and earned his doctorate in 1955. Later in October 1966, he published a paper titled “Augmentating Human Intellect”, where he explained how human mind and computer capabilities would work together (275).
Engelbart has many remarkable contributions to the computer revolution, but the most notable and important one is the invention of the mouse. He invented the Mouse in 1961 that changed the way we interact with each other and with the computer. His idea did not come from trying to find any problem, however he was trying to find the simplest way for users to interact with computer. He used multiple options like light pens, joysticks, trackballs, and tablets with styli and users that control it with their knees but he invented the concept of the mouse from a device that he used in high school called perimeter (276). Perimeter was used to calculate the area of a space by rolling it around and he used that concept to replicate the concept of the mouse (277). Walter Isaacson describes that Engelbart shows the functionality of the mouse in his sketch that “the device could roll around a desk top and its two would register lower and higher voltages as they turned in each direction.” As a result of that voltage the cursor on the computer screen would move up and down. It was due to Engelbart genius inventions that the computer revolution began. And Innovations like “Graphical user Interface” start allowing users to select icons on the computer screen instead of writing complicated commands.
In conclusion, Engelbart was one of the first people who realized the accelerating power of the computer and the impact it would have in the society. His invention of mouse “ made use of the human talent of mind- hand – eye coordination (something robots are not good at) to provide a natural interface” (277) and made personal computers even more convenient and user friendly. That is why one of the important questions is that what are some other devices or machines that could be combined with the intuitive talents of humans and how could we combine the intuitive talents of humans with other machines or devices?
Works Cited
Isaacson, Walter. The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created The Digital Revolution. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2014. Print.
06-Paper #1-Ki.L
06-paper#1
Keshav Koirala
Professor Dr. Thompson
English 302
11 June 2015
“Douglas Engelbart and his Inventions”
Today’s computer plays the important role in people lives. Around four decades ago this modern technology was not part of people lives. Now, we cannot do anything without computer. The invention of computers changed the people lives in many ways. The history of modern computing is not more than 100 years ago. There was no any particular person given credit for the invention of the computer. It was the group effort of all of engineers and scientists, whose collaboration help to develop the today’s computer. Computer not only does one thing, the combination of hardware and software does unlimited things. In the history of the computer, it has been many scientist and computer genius contributed the developing process of the computer and this process is ongoing. Douglas Engelbart one of many scientists who changed this industry in the different level. His inventions of the mouse and his other ideas were the most important steps of the personal computer industry.
Engelbart was not able to invent mouse and NLS (online system) without a big influence of Vannervar Bush article “As We May Think”. On his article he explained “Consider a future device for individual use, which is a sort of mechanized private file and library, A memex is a device in which an individual stores all his books, records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility. It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory” (263). This was a great idea that bring together human and machine which Engelbart later fall in love with Bush concept. Engelbart read this article when he was in Navy. He was so inspired by Bush article that helping the people by using computer. After that he went to Oregon State University and got an Engineering degree.
In 1950, Engelbart come the idea that Bush proposed on his article that someday people owned the machine which they can control and manipulated whatever and whenever they want. Even though he came with this idea but he could not have any further solution, so he decided to join the Berkeley University and got a PHD degree in computer science. In 1957, he started working in Stanford research Institute, to work on the magnetic storage system that related to the neural network of the human brain. He was not excited about this researched so he focused on the machine that human can actually interact that purposed by Bush on his article. He was so fascinated about Bush ideas and looking for the grant to research on further. Finally, he got the fund from NASA and able to create his own research center called Augmentation Research Center at Stanford Research Institute.
During the researched time, Engelbart got helped from Bill English. They worked together and tried many ways to how the user can control the computers screen. They tried many things including pen, joysticks, trackball, and trackpad. After all Engelbart came with the idea of the mouse from a small mechanical device that he saw in high school. The machine was planimeter, used for calculated by the area of the space. It used the two perpendicular wheel and one vertical, one horizontal wheel that rolled on the space and measured the distance. He applied the same concept and finally able to sketch the mouse. At the first he used to put the wire on the front of the mouse but later he decided to put back of the mouse. That makes easier and convenient to the user. After the wire put on the back of the device he and his friend English gave the name of this device called “Mouse”. Now still we used the almost same mouse that Engelbart invented long time ago.
Engelbart not only invented the mouse but also revolutionize the personal computer era. He researched on more sector in the computer area such as; multiple windows on the computer, email, file sharing, video conferencing. All of his ideas demonstrated at Augmentation research center in December 1998. This show was called “The Mother of all Demos”. After this event many people and companies were fascinated about his invention and take his ideas for further computer developing. In today’s computer industries still follows his ideas. According to Walter Isaacson on his book the Innovators, Alan key said “I don’t know what Silicon Valley will do when it runs out of Doug’s ideas” (278). This indicates that most of computer industries are still running his ideas.
Engelbart was a pioneer computer scientist in the history of the computer. His inventions of the mouse, hypertext, and graphic interface are the most important thing for the development of the personal computer. This technology not only help to develop the personal computer, but it also help to develop the Internet. His ideas that sharing the file and connecting and communicate like skype were truly remarkable. Now most of big computer companies including Silicon Valley are such powerful because of his ideas. It is the always big question that does Engelbart invention of the mouse and NLS changed the entire person computer industry?
Works Cited
Isaacson, Walter. “The Personal Computer.” The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers,
Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution. New York: Simon &
Schuster, 2014. Print.
“The Machine That Changed the World: The Paperback Computer.” The Machine That Changed
the World: The Paperback Computer. Waxy.org, 21 Nov.2014
Web.12 June 2015.
Pap 1, David F.
David Flores
ENGH 302
Professor Thompson
09 June 2015
A poor “Imitation Game” of Alan Turing
Was Alan Mathison Turing portrayed properly in the 2014 PG-13 drama film “The Imitation Game”? Alan Turing was a mathematician that actually built a machine capable of computing and being programmed. He envisioned it in 1936 and 10 years later in 1946 would make the worlds first electronic Computing Machine. Turing was able to re-shape and define the word “Computer”. Prior to the digital electronic computing machine the definition of a computer was a person that handled heavy mathematical problems and was able to compute (Hodges 105). Turing took a task that might have caused a person several hours and turned it into a task that could be handled by a machine and solved within minutes.
Alan Mathison Turing was born June 23, 1912 in Paddington, England within London, United Kingdom (Hodges 5). At age thirteen he attended the Sherborne boarding school. His parents traveled often and where always away. He was described as a student who kept to himself and didn’t interact with others much. Alan was found at least once a year trapped underneath some loose floorboards in the house day room by the other boys. His housemaster reported in 1927 “Undeniably He’s not a ‘normal’ boy; not the worse for that, but probably less happy” (Isaacson 41). Alan met Christopher Morcom in 1927 and the two shared interest in math and philosophy. Alan felt an attraction to Christopher and often wrote thing such as “I so enjoyed Chris’ company there”, “That ever since I always used to go to the library instead of my study” (Hodges 35). Alan viewed Christopher as a smarter person. In a math class Christopher obtained a mark of 1436 compared to Alan’s 1033 (Hodges 38). In 1930 at the age of eighteen Alan’s best friend and first love, Christopher Morcom died of tuberculosis. Christopher’s death seemed to draw Alan away from society a little more and he was left with a lonely intensity to him. Alan loved long distance running and biking. Alan was awarded a Kings scholarship and from 1931 thru 1934 he was an undergraduate student at King’s College, Cambridge University. While at Cambridge he devoted himself to mathematics. He continued to devote his time to group theory until 1935. In 1935 Turing had set out to answer Hilbert’s third question also known as the Entscheidungsproblem. Hilbert’s third question was, was there some procedure that could determine whether a particular statement was provable, rather than allowing the possibility that some statements were destined to remain in undecidable limbo? Turing started by asking the question: Is there a “mechanical process” that can be used to determine whether a particular logical statement is provable? Turing saw that the answer to Hilberts’ question was “no”. There could exist no definite method for solving all mathematical questions. For an uncomputable number would be an example of an unsolved problem (Isaacson 44). Turing was on to something new. Keeping the Cantor process in mind he envisioned a logical Computing Machine. In theory this machine could handle any mathematical computation using a 1 and a blank. Turing had thought up an idea of a mechanical machine that would be able to compute later to be known as the computer but first he needed to work on the technical aspect of it. In 1937 Turing published “On Computable Numbers, With an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem.” At the time Turing did not know if the “Universal machine” was buildable or if it was a real possibility (Leavitt 56). According to Turing this machine would be able to act depending on its configurations. This meaning it would be programmable. From 1936 – 1938 Turing attended Princeton University and received his Ph.d. He wrote his thesis on “a practical goal—a Logical system to formalize mathematical proofs so they can be checked mechanically” (Appel Web). In 1938 Turing returned to Cambridge and shortly after on September 4, 1939 he joined a team of mathematicians at Bletchley Park that would try to find a solution to breaking Enigma rapidly (Hodges 170). Enigma was the state of the art cipher machine the German military used for virtually all of their communication (Leavitt WEB). In 1939 they were able to build the “Bombe” and break Enigma messages on an industrial scale (Hodges 171). In March of 1946 Turing produced a detailed design for what he called the Automatic Computer Engine (ACE) (Hodges BBC). The ACE was a fully programmable digital computer capable of storing programs in its memory (Hodges BBC). Turing went on to the University of Manchester and decided to start studying the field of Artificial intelligence. Turing was interested and focused on the power of the computer to rival human thought. In 1952 Turing was convicted of homosexuality and had his security clearance revoked. On June 8, 1954 Alan was found dead by his bed on a suspicious account of cyanide poising later ruled as suicide. A partly eaten apple lied next to his bed and his mother argued that the apple was mistakenly injected with cyanide during a lab experiment. Others argue his controversial death and have gone to the extent of saying Turing was harassed and possibly murdered. In December 2013 Turing was granted a posthumous royal pardon cancelling his formal criminal conviction (Hodges BBC). This followed by a four-year campaign supported by thousands of people to include scientist such as Stephen Hawking and Richard Dawkins in an attempt to shed light on gay men that had previously been criminalized.
“The Imitation Game” is a film directed by Morten Tylum and screen written by Graham Moore. In the film Turing is played by Benedict Cumberland. Alastair Denniston who was the Naval officer in charge of the Royal British signals intelligence is played by Charles dance. The film portrayed Turing as a mythological, whiney, weak, homosexual that didn’t like people (Caryl WEB). He was indeed homosexual however; the film had a bias approach to it. In several scenes it shows Denniston disagreeing with Turing’s ideas but contrary to what the film shows Denniston supported Turing’s work and in fact had been a cryptologist himself working on a machine to break Enigma code prior to Turing’s arrival (Hodges 151). The film goes to the extent of showing Denniston firing Turing and wanting him arrested for espionage. The film also shows Turing only being able to work with a small group of people but in all reality by the end of the war there where over 9,000 people working on the project and processing thousands of intercepts per day (Caryl WEB). When the project started it was authorized to start with thirty civilian assistants and fifty typist (Hodges 146). Turing was popular with children and thoroughly found charming by those he cared about (Caryl WEB). The film doesn’t show this side of Turing because it only wants to focus on his homosexuality and him being a lonely individual. The film concludes and raps things up with Turing being questioned on a suspicious burglary account of his home and finally being arrested on homosexual charges. What the film failed to account for was that Turing disclosed his homosexuality to the Royal British police officers and had told them about an X boyfriend possibly being the intruder (Caryl WEB). This film takes the audiences attention away from his contributions to mathematics, computation, and the war. Andrew Hodges writes all about Alan Turing’s contributions and depicts him for the smart and innovative individual he truly is.
In conclusion “The Imitation Game” does not properly portray all of Turing’s work and accomplishment. This paper doesn’t come any where near to explaining all of his major accomplishment and contributions to the Computer science community however, it does shed light to who he really was. Turing’s accomplishments are now coming to light within the Computer Science community and Princeton University has published a book on his thesis.
Work Cited
“Alan Turing’s Systems of Logic:The Princeton ThesisEdited and Introduced by Andrew W.
Appel.” Appel, A.W., Ed.: Alan Turing’s Systems of Logic: The Princeton Thesis. (Hardcover). 10 May 2015. Web. 11 June 2015.
Caryl, Christian. “A Poor Imitation of Alan Turing by Christian
Caryl.” A Poor Imitation of Alan Turing by Christian Caryl. The New York Review of Books, 14 Dec. 2014. Web. 9 June 2015.
Hodges, Andrew. Alan Turing : The Enigma (Centenary Edition). Princeton, NJ, USA: Princeton
University Press, 2012. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 9 June 2015.
Hodges, Andrew. “Alan Turing: Creator of Modern Computing.” BBC News. BBC, 2015. Web.
11 June 2015.
Isaacson, Walter. The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers,
Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution. Simon & Schuster, 2014. Print.
Leavitt, David. The Man Who Knew Too Much: Alan Turing and the Invention of the Computer.
New York: W.W. Norton, 2006. Print.
ENGH 302-SN2 Course Blog Summer 2015 