Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!ucsd!sdcsvax!ucsdhub!hp-sdd!hplabs!hp-ses!hpcuhb!hpda!hpdslab!hpdsla!garye
From: garye@hpdsla.HP.COM (Gary Ericson)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: DynaBook
Message-ID: <400014@hpdsla.HP.COM>
Date: 27 Jan 89 00:22:38 GMT
References: <8901170418.AA08546@multimax.encore.com>
Organization: HP - Pacific Technology Park
Lines: 39

> This month's CD-ROM Review Magazine has an ad and an article for a new
> product called "Dynabook".

I haven't been able to get my hands on this article yet, but I have seen an ad
for the Dynabook.  It looks to me like it's simply a high-tech CD reader - a
"DYNAmic BOOK".

> -Barry Shein, ||Encore||


>       That's awful.  

I think what's awful is that, although the name Dynabook makes literal sense
with this product (it's a dynamic book), the name Dynabook carries a lot of
history and hopes within the computer industry for a revolution in personal
computing power.  It's too bad that Alan Kay didn't copyright the name and then
wait to release it to the company that came closest to his original idea.  Now
that the name is being used on this "lesser" product, the name kinda loses its
significance. 8^(

> The hardware exists for Alan Kay's vision ...

I think the only thing here that gets close to Kay's idea is the portable
screen with touch input, but the thing is tethered to a desk-bound box.  The 
real Dynabook will be completely self-contained in a notebook-sized box with 
the display on top.  It would also (probably) have a higher resolution screen,
and a stylus (as well as touch) input on the screen for more precise inputs 
and for hand writing text.

> ... it comes out as an MS-DOS machine.

If a real Dynabook were built, I wouldn't mind if the first version came out
with MS-DOS.  That would open the door for a large number of people to write
application code to exploit the new interface.

> John Nagle

Gary Ericson - Hewlett-Packard, Workstation Technology Division
               phone: (408)746-5098  mailstop: 101N  email: gary@hpdsla9.hp.com