Human Computer Interaction: Thinking with Computers Cogsci 126 Fall 2019-2020

Professor: Jim Hollan Email: [email protected] Web: hci.ucsd.edu/hollan Office Hour: Design Lab (Atkinson 1601), 9:30 am Wednesday

TA: Amy Fox Email: [email protected] Office Hour: Design Lab (Atkinson 1601), 3pm Wednesday

Class Website: piazza.com/ucsd/winter2019/cogsci126/home Exam

Good News … Bad News

Considering format changes

Advice General Magic “The most important company you have never heard of.”

“From the first smartphones to social media, e-commerce and even emojis, the ideas that now dominate the tech industry and our day-to-day lives were born at General Magic, a 1989 startup that most of us haven't heard of. General Magic, a documentary, is a tale of how great vision and epic failure can change the world.” (UCSD undergrad (Jeff Raskin prof here); QuickDraw, MacPaint, Menu bar, Hypercard), (primary architect of MacOS), Joanna Hoffman (Mac Guidelines, known for standing up to Jobs) Members of the original Apple team, co- founder of General Magic, Hetzfield goes on to Google.

Megan Smith Former U.S. Chief Technology Officer under the Obama Administration and VP at Google, co-founder of The Malala Fund and shift7.

Tony Fadell Joined General Magic as a young college apprentice, then continued on to co-invent the iPod and iPhone, found Nest (Google bought for $3.2B in 2014).

Kevin Lynch Former CTO of Adobe, creator of Dreamweaver, lead engineer on Apple Watch and current VP of Technology at Apple.

The Story So Far The Cognitive Design of Tools of Thought, Barbara Tversky What is the Meaning of The Medium is the Message?, Mark Federman Dynamicland, Bret Victor The Humane Representation of Thought, Bret Victor

The Birth of the Information Age: How Paul Otlet’s Vision for Cataloging and Connecting Humanity Shaped Our World, Paul Otlet , 50 Years After “As We May Think”: The Brown/MIT Vannevar Bush Symposium

Man-Computer Symbiosis, J.C.R. Licklider Computer as a Communication Device, J.C.R. Licklider and Robert W. Taylor Ivan Sutherland Sketchpad , The Demo @ 50 The Story Continues in 70’s

1973 Nixon president in second term, Vietnam War ending, supreme court rules on Roe vs Wade, Watergate scandal, Nixon resigns in 1974.

First handheld cellular phone call is made by Marty Cooper

Bill Gates just entering Harvard as a freshman

Steve Jobs is a college dropout wandering India searching for Zen master

Altair 8800 1974 Altair 8800 1974

Kit price $439 Assembled $631

The Altair 8800 from Micro Instrumentation Telemetry Systems (MITS) of Albuquerque, NM, is considered by many to be the first "" - a computer that is easily affordable and obtainable.

This is the machine that led Bill Gates to drop out of Harvard and move to Albuquerque to start along with Paul Allen. This Week: Parc and Alto Reading: The Time Machine, Introduction from Dealers of Lightning

606x808 2.5 MB

Today’s equivalent cost ~$100,000

96-126 kB

Chuck Thacker and colleagues at Parc develop the Alto Parc approach: hire the best researchers and leave them unburdened by directives, instructions, or deadlines. Stanford AI Lab Chuck Thacker

Started undergrad at Caltech but transferred to Berkeley, BS in Physics. Involved in Berkeley Computer Company, no PhD, early researcher at Parc, led design of Alto, co-inventor of , involved in designing first laser printer, known at Parc as “the engineers engineer”, moved to DEC 1983, and in 1997 to Microsoft to help start lab in Cambridge, designed the Microsoft Tablet PC, 2009, died 2017. Thacker recalled about the Alto, "We knew it was revolutionary. We built it with the very first semiconductor dynamic RAM, the Intel 1103, which was the first memory you could buy that was less than a tenth of a cent a . As a result, we realized we could build a display that was qualitatively better than what we had at the time. We had character generator terminals, and some of them were quite nice. But they were limited in various ways, whereas the Alto had the property that anything you could represent on paper, you could put on the screen. We knew that was going to be a big deal.” An Aside: Thacker Designed DEC Lectrice 1996 and Microsoft Tablet PC Bill Atkinson Microsoft Tablet PC Rand Tablet 1963 Andy Hertzfeld Prototype 2000 General Magic Lectrice 1989 Rand Tablet 1963

Kay 1972 iPad 2010

GridPad 1986 Palm Pilot MessagePadPalm 1997 GridPad1993 1989

Bob Taylor and Arpa Computer as a Communication Device, J.C.R. Licklider and Robert W. Taylor

Arpa founded in 1957 in response to Sputnik, Licklider had been tapped to head IPTO, Licklider broght his man-computer symbiosis ideas. Had a budget of $15M and launched the golden age of gov funding for computer science research.

Taylor received an MS in sensory psych at UT, Bounced around companies, joined NASA as a project manager, flight simulators, moved to Arpa to work with Licklider (also a perceptual psychologist).

Licklider succeeded at Arpa by Ivan Sutherland (was an Army 1st lieutenant), Lick left Ivan with a $15M budget and suggested Taylor as deputy; Sutherland left 18 months later and Taylor was then running IPTO; program focused on interactivity, time-sharing, graphics; started annual meetings always at interesting places; also established yearly meeting for grad students; no faculty allowed; get people together and make something happen; Kay, a young grad student from Utah, presents his Dynabook notions to this group. Peter McColough’s Folly

Peter McColough is CEO and Jack Goldman is chief scientist of Xerox. Goldman (from Ford) was sought out to help Xerox absorb modern technology and revitalize research.

McColough had acquired a computer company (SDS; Max Palevsky) for $918M in 1969.This was “his folly”. SDS had never made more than $10M in a year. Goldman, head of research, had not been consulted. Thinks it is stupid. After acquisition presents a plan for a new scientific facility. Xerox wants to be like IBM (Watson) and ATT (Bell Labs). Goldman gets go ahead to create a second lab that is on the scale of the current Xerox Webster lab.

McColough makes pitch that they will combine Xerox and SDS to build “the office of the future” and control the “architecture of information”. This was classic CEO- speak. Perhaps really important though in that no one knew what it meant, so could be used to justify pursuing a wide range of things. George Pake

Physicist and chancellor at Wash U. Goldman had known for 25 yrs. Pake was offered Goldman’s former job at Ford when he left but Pake turned down. Goldman takes corp jet to St. Louis and offers Pake a job.

Goldman had first thought new lab should be near Yale but that fell through. Consider other places (Princeton, Stony Brook;) wanted to not be too close to Xerox but also wanted something that would have the cachet of Bell Labs. Then decided to look to the West. Pake had taught at Stanford and places from Berkeley to San Diego were considered. Decide on Palo Alto. Found a two building site (25,000 sq ft., Encl Brittanica had just moved out of) bordering Stanford and leased from what then was a cash-strapped university. Main street Porter Drive (orchards and brown grass)

Pake trying to get up to speed on computers remembers he had met Taylor. Taylor in the interim had funded the work of the Arpanet. He made a brief 20 minute proposal to the head of Darpa about creating a network. How much will you need to get this off the ground? About a million. You got it.

In 1969 Taylor had a budget of $30M but this was a time of the Vietnam war. Support from Taylor helped with the information drowning associated with the war but became disillusioned. Budget is slashed and Arpa becomes Darpa, mission oriented rather than trying to make orders of magnitude impacts on science. Taylor heads to Utah to be a research coordinator for David Evans. Pake invites him to Palo Alto, not for a job but to pick his brain about computing research, tells him they bought a computer company (Taylor: “too bad, you bought the wrong one”). Pake decides to hire Taylor to help build a computer lab; not to head the lab but to recruit people and hire his boss. An Aside about George Pake

PLATO (Programmed Logic for Automatic Teaching Operations), the first generalized computer- assisted instruction system. Starting in 1960. By the late , it supported thousands of graphics terminals distributed worldwide. Many modern concepts in multi-user computing were developed on PLATO, including forums, message boards, online testing, e-mail, chat rooms, picture languages, instant messaging, remote screen sharing, and multiplayer video games. Continued for multiple decades. Last system shutdown in 2006.

Had a two week programming course in the air force. Kicked out of Bethany college, called a high school friend, Chris Jaffers, to tell him, Jaffers at University of Colorado, says so was I, when are you coming out? Finished BS at Colorado, math and molecular biology. Grad school at Colorado with David Evans, had become hotbed of computer graphics ($5M from Taylor at Arpa). Evan’s to Kay: take this and read it. This was Sutherland’s Sketchpad dissertation. Hears Minksy speak and very influence by Seymour Papert and Logo. Kay’s thesis 1969 outlined an interactive computer called FLEX. Thesis had many quotes such as Kahlil Gilbran ”You would touch with your fingers the naked body of your dreams”. Evans and Sutherland are on his committee. His FLEX machine fails. He imagined what he called a “KiddiComp” that became “Dynabook”. Accepted a temporary appointment at Stanford AI Lab but says he was depressed and was about to accept a job at CMU when Bob Taylor called to say that , Chuck Thacker, and others were joining Parc en masse from BCC. He knew them from Arpa grad conferences and thought no telling what these people could accomplish—even build his Dynabook. DEC PDP-10 MAXC: The clone

Not just clone () but improve DEC PDP-10.

Multiple Access Xerox Computer; MAXC but C silent Max Palevsky

Built in 18 months Spacewar Article Rolling Stone

http://wheels.org/spacewar/stone/rolling_stone.html

Ready or not, computers are coming to the people. Spacewar Article Rolling Stone Stewart Brand Alan Kay at Xerox Research Center (more on Parc shortly) has a line on it, defining the standard Computer Bum: “About as straight as you’d expect hotrodders to look. It’s that kind of fanaticism. A true hacker is not a group person. He’s a person who loves to stay up all night, he and the machine in a love-hate relationship... They’re kids who tended to be brilliant but not very interested in conventional goals. And computing is just a fabulous place for that, because it’s a place where you don't have to be a Ph.D. or anything else. It’s a place where you can still be an artisan. People are willing to pay you if you're any good at all, and you have plenty of time for screwing around.”

Bitmapped display

Dynamic graphics 606x808 2.5 MB

Mouse

Today’s equivalent cost ~$100,000 Ethernet

Laser printing 96-126 kB Object-oriented programming

Ethnographic work

Environment much like today’s: editor, email, network, … Seymour Papert You can’t talk about thinking without talking about thinking about something. Harold Cohen

Futures Day

1975 Xerox writes off SDS purchase $84.8M “McColugh’s Folly”

Lots of competition from Kodak and IBM introducing copiers as well as less expensive Japanese machines

Xerox World Conference November 1977. McColough wants to reinvigorate the company. Top 250 executives world wide and their wives (yes not spouses in those days), exclusive Boca Raton Country Club. One entire day of four devoted to Parc. Hollywood producers and screenwriters to do a two hour multimedia stage show, commandeered half of Parc’s Altos, rented two DC-10 cargo planes to transport. Henry Kissinger, recently retired sec of state, keynote speaker. Very impressive on stage demo, laser printers, email, Japanese text on screens, and then all moved to demo room for hands on (heat problem, get a refrigerated truck from Eastern Airlines to cool things). Only wives seem to get it.

McColough started with: “The problem is paper”. The attendees: “Where’s the click?” IBM PC 1981