[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22379275
[1] The Dream Machine" by M. Mitchell Waldrop
I've added Dream Machine to my reading list (but will wait a year, as I just finished Dealer's Lightning early 2024).
Xerox did shrink a bit since then.
[1] https://youtu.be/NdSD07U5uBs?t=1828 [2] https://youtu.be/1e8VZlPBx_0?t=975
How much is computer interface restricted by the little window (even a 4k TV) we get as the view into the computer? The promise to me of a VR headset UI is having an arbitrary amount of real estate to display information (and not just 2D!)
And here's the thing about a good VR UI: it wouldn't just be the visible! Your brain can track the location of things subconsciously, so the log tailing window, the metrics window, that upload/download/file copy status window, can all be in some area you turn your head to glance at to get occasional information on.
Because the PARC UI's windowing system is designed to help out with the "limited viewport": it already recognized that people will do more applications/tasks than there is visible screen space, so you need an overlaid windowing system.
But right now, facebook is the sociopaths in control of VR headsets, so ... we'll be waiting for a while.
The talk is so refreshing, so indicative of research in the 1960s. I think in retrospect from listening to the talk is that all researchers had to do was the possible. What they didn't have to think about was the consequences of technology.
That is not the world we live in now. It is apparent that we are a civilization facing the Fermi Paradox/Great Filter. He alluded to it in the human evolution and human organizations part of the intro, but it is fundamentally structured around post-WWII viewpoint, not the modern view where literally every person's consumption is a step towards collective destruction.
>the modern view where literally every person's consumption is a step towards collective destruction.
This is just one POV. From a fiat capitalist POV, consumption is essential to prevent collective destruction... although I agree more with your POV.
Thanks for the great comment.
This follows Alan Kay (as well as dozens of others) through their groundbreaking research at Xerox's research lab in Palo Alto, primarily during the 70s.
You will learn how these visionaries and personalities were largely at war with themselves, while HQ (2,000 miles away) largely ignored any of their marvelous outputs... until it was too late.
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I just checked this morning, and was shocked to see that XRX's total market cap is "only" $2B, when they could have been Apple computer [today ~$2,600B].
An interesting tidbit that many don't know about the Xerox/Apple relationship was that Steve Jobs was allowed into the facility, on two separate tours, because he offered Xerox preferred stock in the then-upcoming Apple IPO — which they then held on to for less than a few years.