Dynabook

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Alan Kay with a prototype of the Dynabook

The Dynabook was a conceptual computer system developed by Alan Kay at Xerox PARC in the early 1970s . It should be the merging of intuitive usability and programming with high-quality graphical output and high-performance, but inexpensive hardware.

After the October 1, 2018 Toshiba 80.1% of its PC and laptop division to the Foxconn owned subsidiary Sharp sold Dynabook was established early in 2019 as a new brand to life and the company Toshiba Client Solutions in Dynabook Inc. renamed.

Dynabook concept

Alan Kay planned that entries would be made using an integrated keyboard. However, the input options should not be limited to this, since it was also considered to take sensorimotor skills of the user into account, as is already a reality with many modern devices today. The screen should be integrated directly into the device. A graphical user interface was also planned. With a size of 12 "× 9" × 0.75 "(which corresponds to about 30 × 23 × 2 cm) the device should be no larger than a notebook so that it can always be carried. According to Alan Kay, the plan was to keep the selling price as low as possible ($ 500 maximum) to allow large numbers of people to access it.

In 1968, Kay met Seymour Papert , who at MIT had investigated the possibilities of the computer in the education of children and developed the programming language Logo , with which the children in an elementary school learned to program. Through Papert, Kay got to know the learning theories of Jerome Bruner and Jean Piaget . They pioneered a developmental and parenting theory based on cognitive psychology .

According to Kay, a computer should be unconditionally adapted to the abilities and needs of people and he concluded that a Dynabook should not only be able to be operated on the symbolic level, but also had to support the sensorimotor and iconic abilities of the operator (quote from Alan Kay: “Doing with Images makes Symbols”).

At Xerox PARC, Kay began designing a prototype for the Dynabook called miniCOM . From 1972 it became the starting point for the construction of a small interactive computer. The ideas behind the Dynabook concept led to the development of the Xerox Alto computer, a prototype that had all the elements of the graphical user interface (GUI) as early as 1972 . The trend-setting programming language Smalltalk was also developed.

The Dynabook concept shaped today's understanding of a portable computer.

literature

  • Michael Friedewald : The computer as a tool and medium: the intellectual and technical roots of the personal computer (= Aachen contributions to the history of science and technology in the 20th century, volume 3). GNT Verlag for the History of Science and Technology, Berlin / Diepholz 1999, ISBN 3-928186-47-7 (Dissertation Technical University Aachen 1999, 497 pages with illustrations, 21 cm).
  • Alan Kay: A Personal Computer for Children of All Ages In Proceedings of the ACM National Conference, Boston Aug. 1972
  • Alan Kay: A Dynamic Medium For Creative Thought - 20 things to do with a Dynabook . National Council of Teachers of English Conference (NCTE) Conference, 1972

Web links

Commons : Dynabook  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Toshiba Client Solutions Europe becomes Dynabook Europe. In: dynabook.com. April 2, 2019. Retrieved October 26, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Alan C. Kay's work: "A Personal Computer for Children of All Ages"
  3. ^ Rudolf Kellermann Prize for the History of Technology 1999