The Dynabook concept, created by Alan Kay

Alan Kay

Alan Curtis Kay is an American computer scientist, known for his early pioneering work on object-oriented programming and windowing graphical user interface design, and for coining the phrase, "The best way to predict the future is to invent it."He is the president of the Viewpoints Research...

 in 1968, described what is now known as a laptop

Laptop

A laptop, also called a notebook, is a personal computer for mobile use. A laptop integrates most of the typical components of a desktop computer, including a display, a keyboard, a pointing device and speakers into a single unit...

 computer or (in some of its other incarnations) a tablet or slate computer

Tablet computer

A tablet computer, or simply tablet, is a complete mobile computer, larger than a mobile phone or personal digital assistant, integrated into a flat touch screen and primarily operated by touching the screen...

 with nearly eternal battery life and software aimed at giving children access to digital media

Digital media

Digital media is a form of electronic media where data is stored in digital form. It can refer to the technical aspect of storage and transmission Digital media is a form of electronic media where data is stored in digital (as opposed to analog) form. It can refer to the technical aspect of...

. Adults could also use a Dynabook, but the target audience

Target audience

In marketing and advertising, a target audience, is a specific group of people within the target market at which the marketing message is aimed .....

 was children.

Part of the motivation and funding for the Dynabook project came from the need for portable military maintenance, repair, and operations

Maintenance, repair, and operations

Maintenance, repair, and operations or maintenance, repair, and overhaul involves fixing any sort of mechanical or electrical device should it become out of order or broken...

 documentation

Documentation

Documentation is a term used in several different ways. Generally, documentation refers to the process of providing evidence.Modules of Documentation are Helpful...

. The paper

Paper

Paper is a thin material mainly used for writing upon, printing upon, drawing or for packaging. It is produced by pressing together moist fibers, typically cellulose pulp derived from wood, rags or grasses, and drying them into flexible sheets....

-form of the field repair documentation for a single tank was larger than the tank itself. Eliminating the need to move mountains of difficult-to-access paper in a dynamic military theater provided significant U.S. Department of Defense

United States Department of Defense

The United States Department of Defense is the U.S...

 funding.

Though the hardware required to create a Dynabook is here today, Alan Kay still thinks the Dynabook hasn't been invented yet, because key software and educational curriculum

Curriculum

See also Syllabus.In formal education, a curriculum is the set of courses, and their content, offered at a school or university. As an idea, curriculum stems from the Latin word for race course, referring to the course of deeds and experiences through which children grow to become mature adults...

 are missing. When Microsoft

Microsoft

Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...

 came up with its tablet PC, Kay was quoted as saying "Microsoft's Tablet PC, the first Dynabook-like computer good enough to criticize," a comment he had earlier applied to the Apple Macintosh.

Toshiba

Toshiba

is a multinational electronics and electrical equipment corporation headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. It is a diversified manufacturer and marketer of electrical products, spanning information & communications equipment and systems, Internet-based solutions and services, electronic components and...

 also has a line of sub-notebook computers called DynaBooks.

Later works

Since the late 1990s, Kay has been working on the Squeak

Squeak

The Squeak programming language is a Smalltalk implementation. It is object-oriented, class-based and reflective.It was derived directly from Smalltalk-80 by a group at Apple Computer that included some of the original Smalltalk-80 developers...

 programming system, an open source

Open source

The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...

 Smalltalk-based environment which could be seen as a logical continuation of the Dynabook concept.

Alan Kay is actively involved in the One Laptop Per Child project that uses Smalltalk

Smalltalk

Smalltalk is an object-oriented, dynamically typed, reflective programming language. Smalltalk was created as the language to underpin the "new world" of computing exemplified by "human–computer symbiosis." It was designed and created in part for educational use, more so for constructionist...

, Squeak, and the concepts of a computer for learning.

External links

• A Personal Computer for Children of All Ages, Alan C. Kay, Aug. 1972
• From the Dynabook to Squeak - A Study in Survivals
• The World in your Own Notebook. A scanned magazine article from The Best of Creative Computing Volume 3
• Sketchpad, Grail and the Interim Dynabook: Alan Kay QuickTime movie clip from a conference The History of the Personal Workstation, 27 May 1986 [Dead Link]
• Tracing the Dynabook: A Study of Technocultural Transformations, a Ph.D. dissertation about the Dynabook project and vision
• Toshiba's dynabook R - a lowcost (185$) tablet PC
• Did Steve Jobs Steal The iPad? Genius Inventor Alan Kay Reveals All. Wolfgang Gruener. Tom's Hardware. April 17, 2010.