The Dynabook was:
designed to have a flat screen display . . . and a graphic
interface, and would be capable of handling large quantities of text. It
would be a read/write medium for children, with an easy to use "development
environment" (or programming language) called "Paintbrush"
that children could use to create and animate pictures. Kay proposed that
the Dynabook would link (via telephone lines and wireless) to other Dynabooks
and to library resources, and should be produced for under $500, so that
it could be made available to every schoolchild.
Kay sees the Dynabook as a culmination of the process that began with Gutenberg's
invention of printing, progressed with the idea of the portable, legibly
printed book (such as those designed by Aldus Mantius in the late fifteenth
century), and gave us the modern paperback . . . And just as the availability
of mass-produced books helped to create the individualism and personal
perspective that spurred the Renaissance, so the Dynabook and "intimate
computing" will initiate profound social changes that will make a
serious impact on the next century.
(Cotton, Bob & Oliver, Richard, Understanding Hypermedia, Phaidon
Press Ltd, London, 1993, p25)
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