Alan Kay's tribute to Ted Nelson at "Intertwingled" Festival

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ryukafalz · 2023-03 · Strong recommendation

The Alto did things that even modern computers don't do as well. There's a demo I like to point at for this: [VIDEO] Look how programmable this is by the user! Today's OSes and their division of software into "applications" erect barriers to software composition that don't need to be there.

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kennethfriedman · 2017-09 · Strong recommendation

OP here. Definitely some improvements... but (at least in my eyes) incremental. Notebooks are pretty sweet, but in the hands of very few. They're definitely growing in popularity, which is great. But even the "notebook" concept is a very limited "low pass filter" version of the visions of Engelbart, AKay, TN, etc. The video that AKay has been sharing around in the post than @dang linked to[0] is a great example of what's not-even-close to possible on today's systems. [0] [VIDEO]

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seltzered_ · 2025-06 · Recommendation

In the 'Tools, not Apps' part of the article they reference Michel Beaudouin-Lafon's talk 'A World Without Apps' which goes back in time and shows the Xerox Star operating system: [LINK] Another reference I usually bring up is Alan Kay's talk on smalltalk: [VIDEO] My related comments on this, just to show other stories along this theme: - [LINK] - [LINK] - [LINK]

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