
Alan Kay Thesis: The Reactive Engine (1969) - gjvc
http://www.chilton-computing.org.uk/inf/pdfs/kay.htm
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icc97
> Babbage owned what was probably the first instance of computer graphics, a
> woven portrait of Jacquard in silk done on the parametric loom whose
> resolution (1000 threads to the linear inch) approached that of the very
> best devices today.

The comparison still holds true. Plus I like the contrast with the modern
analogy of a thread.

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nurettin
Then it may as well be first instance of 3d printing.

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WorldMaker
Embroidery machines and automated looms absolutely are the first instances of
3D printing; they just don't get a lot of credit for it because we've been
doing it so long and textiles aren't an "exciting" field to a lot of people.

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jacquesm
Wow, that's a neat find, it's almost a book. FLEX was heavily influenced after
Alan Kay saw 'The Mother of All Demos' and a lot of the elements in FLEX made
it into Smalltalk.

[http://gagne.homedns.org/~tgagne/contrib/EarlyHistoryST.html](http://gagne.homedns.org/~tgagne/contrib/EarlyHistoryST.html)

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icc97
I think it was more everything that Engelbart stood for together with his
report on Augmenting Human Intellect rather than the demo alone.

> This was in early 1967, and while we were pondering the FLEX machine, Utah
> was visited by Doug Engelbart.

> ...

> An entire conceptual world and world view [Engelbart 68]. The impact of this
> vision was to produce in the minds of those who were “eager to be augmented”
> a compelling metaphor of what interactive computing should be like, and I
> immediately adopted many of the ideas for the FLEX machine.

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jacquesm
I don't think it is possible to see the Mother Of All Demos in any way
separate from the person of Doug Engelbart and what he stood for. Biggest
regret of my professional life, I had the opportunity to meet him in 2000 or
so and didn't.

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icc97
For the rest of us I agree, but I think Alan Kay was much closer to his work.
From the Smalltalk history he'd met Engelbart in 67 a year before the demo.

Probably my biggest regret is how long it took me until I realised how
important Engelbart was. I'm reading through his report now.

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jacquesm
A friend of mine was a friend of his, and gave Doug space to work. Both are
dead now so it's never going to happen but spending time on reading up on Doug
Engelbart is a very good investment.

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gjvc
Douglas Engelbart was a giant amongst giants.

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galaxyLogic
Great quotes, like I wish to God these calculations were executed by steam...
C. Babbage, The Analytical Engine

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toomim
Where's the Reactivity? The thesis is entitled "The Reactive Engine", yet I
don't see any reactivity in the system— at least not as I know the term now.
What am I missing? Or has "Reactive" changed its meaning over the years?

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refulgentis
If I understand correctly, the reactive part is the fact the user gets output
after providing input

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guelo
So what we would call interactive?

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dang
A bigger deal at the time than it is today.

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dzhiurgis
It’s amazing that such simple websites from 1969 survive modern browsers, yet
Facebook cannot fix zoom on Safari...

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cimmanom
The paper was written in 1969. HTML wasn't even conceived until the 1980s. The
paper could have been digitized as recently as this morning.

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j45
Something to be said for digital text that will last vs what is lost due to
evolving display standards

