A Personal Computer for Children of All Ages Alive
A Personal Computer for Children of All Ages
KindPaper
Published1972
StatusAlive
AuthorsAlan Kay
FieldHCI
Sourcewww.mprove.de ↗
The Dynabook memo — a notebook computer for every child, imagined years before the Alto that partially built it. Smalltalk was designed to be its software.
1960198020002020
Created by Alan Kay
Kay's 1972 Xerox PARC memo described the Dynabook: a notebook-sized personal computer, usable by children, holding all its owner's media — written when computers filled rooms and cost more than houses. Kay designed a cardboard model in 1969; the memo made it PARC's informal charter.
The interim Dynabook became the Alto; its software became Smalltalk, whose overlapping windows and icons defined the GUI. The memo's test — 'does it empower its user?' — remains the standard the industry periodically rediscovers.