Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
#22: That sounds really cool.

1. How does it get funded?
2. How do you protect it from infiltrators, governments, the cops,
people using it for nefarious purposes, spammers, etc.?
  

    
#24 <tex>: 

I figure that they can be piggybacked on the text substrate,
probably requiring a visible link to be clicked for display or play.
That seems easy enough to do without huge changes in the
architecture. Users could turn the "page" to a blank display screen
for the performance.

#25 <matisse>:

The user has no state in CMV4 - upon entry it's always lurker and it
changes depending upon what the user does. It's more a description
of what one os doing than any identifying quantity.

#26 <slf> There won't ever be funding if a prototype never exists.
Funders always have their requirements, whether expressed or silent.
I plan to test CMV4 within a closed group as a self-organization
tool, and I expect that they will pay the development costs at least
to the level for their use (which will not require much n the way of
a back end). 

1. I prefer to develop the concept and manifestation of the product
using little or no external money - then I can show it to
prospective funders and declare "this is what we'll get" - a large
fraction of prospective funders will walk away when they realize
they can't piss on it - it's the others I'll want to talk with. 

2. The system's protection will lie in the network of referents and
journalists drawn from its users. The problem of keeping them honest
and preventing pissing matches among them is an important function
of system management - one I don't believe can be automated. 
  

    
You've been an advocate for open source technology for decades. How
do you see the evolution of open source in today's world, especially
with large corporations now playing a significant role?
  

    
We're rooting for you to succeed with this Lee.
  

    
#28 <jonl>
I tried to think up some way the big boys could form a consortium to
take over open source to their advantage but failed to figure out
how they could suppress their competitive natures. Microsoft Open
Source would be a sad joke. Open source is freedom with
responsibilities - the only thing MS would be interested in is
responsibilities without freedom. 

IBM's original approach was to hoard the technological information
and grow their own programmers - unfortunately the technology got
away from them (with a big unintentional assist from IBM itself) and
today they rely on Red Hat Linux as the basis for their software
work (or so I'm told).

#29 <tex> 
Thanks. Be prepared for the point where I assemble a group to both
criticize my prototype design and to ponder the stages through which
to implement it. I will need advice on whom to invite (please don't
throw out names here - I don't want to frighten the natives).
  

    
#20 <tex>
The second-generation "activists" who flocked to Atlanta for the
second May Day gathering were mostly kids who had adopted the
outward trappings of radicals with no understanding of the politics
-- to them, politics was about affronting bourgeois sensibilities,
basically the whole Yippie approach without the media-seizing
strategy.  

There were a few actual radical activists there with whom I
identified and I tried to address them with a leaflet that I
mimeographed on the spot advocating a community-building approach
through lateral information exchange. It's on the web somewhere, but
I cannot figure out how to search for it. 

Regardless, it was totally irrelevant and ignored, and I was not
able to break through my defenses to rally the minority faction in
my condition. Everybody seemed a generation younger than me and
primarily interested in whooping it up in a great orgiastic
celebration of "revolutionary love".

Bisexuality and lesbianism seemed to be the main goals - I was
approached by a young woman who wanted to get me to cuddle with a
gay man - presumably that would break down my shell and bring out
the essential me. 

I engaged her in conversation for a while in which I laid out my
frustrations at what was - or was not - happening, about how we
ought to be concentrating on opposing the war instead of our own
deficiencies. I don't recall her talking about her own thoughts or
feelings except for some vague statements I cannot remember. 

The Atlanta May Day group had imposed upon Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth
(a pillar of the civil rights movement there) and occupied his
church buildings -- I recall sleeping on the gym floor (on mats, I
suppose) and awakening to find basketball games being played around
our people  (not by us). The head of the May Day group publicly
apologized to the Rev, who did not reply as I might have, being a
Christian minister.

I was in the final phase of my relationship with the Berkeley Tribe
and would occasionally mutter "wipe the ass of the hippy class" as
my benediction to their new generation - young folk who were
attracted to the idea of radicalism without the slightest
understanding of what was involved, and whose only skill seemed to
be organizing consumption. 

I had to be already in the process of re-enrolling at Cal to leave
behind that milieu - and so I did.
  

    
Let's talk about the Homebrew Computer Club.  How did its culture
influence your approach to technology and collaboration? Do you
think similar grassroots communities exist in today's tech
landscape?
  

    
#32 <jonl>:
The book lays out how the demand for personal computers developed
over years, beginning with timesharing in 1970 and following
Engelbart's historic Mother of All Demos. A growing group of users
experienced computer use that way and came to expect that personal
computer use would by definition include certain amenities such as
BASIC and secure file storage.

I was mucking around in the little computer underground that cohered
around Peoples's Computer Company (a tabloid periodical, not a
company), starting around 1973 when the problem of chaep, survivable
display terminals became significant for Community Memory and the
world was suddenly illuminated by the publication of DOn Lancaster's
DIY article "Build the TV Typewriter" in Radio-Electronics magazine.

No kit was offered for sale but the plans could be obtained by
sending in a self-addressewd stamped envelope with $
  

    
(#32 continued after being posted by accident)
(and the following text lost by a spurious logout):

...$2.00 to the magazine, who expected 20 responses but instead got
10,000! When I learned of this I realized that something big was
happening. It was not that the device was easy to build (it was not)
or to debug (it was NOT), or that it functioned well as a computer
timesharing terminal (the book describes why not), but because
access was being offered to two mythically powerful technologies -
digital and video.

The stampede of would-be geeks I came to call "the opening shot of
the personal computer revolution" and the responders would be the
shock troops in that episode, learning the hard way that progress
was only to be had by overcoming huge obstacles, learning many
unexpected things, and sharing that information with each other.

This was repeated in 1974 when a competing magazine, Popular
Electronics, published the announcement of the Altair 8800
"minicomputer kit". It resulted in the formation of what was to
become the Homebrew Computer Club, which grew exponentially under
the forced draft of the TV Typewriter and the growth of the personal
computer underground since then.

When I volunteered for a project in 1975 at listener-sponsored (and
heavily volunteer) KPFA radio the talk among the engineers was all
about the Altair.

Looking back, I can see how I became deceived into thinking that
such a concentrated and motivated pool of talent would always be at
hand to whip up software for whatever hardware I could design. I had
become the moderator (I called it "toastmaster) at the fourth
meeting after seeing how half the audience at the third meeting has
left the auditorium (of the alternative Menlo School) and were busy
meeting each other in the lobby. I worked out a way to bring that
process into the meeting and it was successful.

In a dinner talk in 1976 at the Albuquerque World Altair Convention
Ted Nelson, our Tom Paine (author of "Computer Lib / Dream
Machines") proclaimed "those unforgettable next two years" before an
audience heavy with attendees from Los Angeles, where they had
formed the 'Southern California Computer Society", whose meetings
were of the standard format as laid out in "Robert's Rules of
Order".

Homebrew operated in a format derived from my experience with
Community Memory (as explained in the book), which was optimized for
informal encounter of kindred persons based upon common and
complementary interests. Our membership swelled to the point in 1978
when the Teletype printout of the mailing list was unrolled across
the 274-seat auditorium - 3500 names were on it.

The SCCS became consumed by politics and factions and disappeared
after a few years, leaving behind only their magazine (Interface
Age). Silicon Valley was where the action was centered.
  

    
Wikipedia says you "played a central role in the development of
personal computers." How do you see your role, and what other people
would you see as most important to the creation of personal
computers? Also, was there any resistance to the idea of creating a
computer that anybody could buy and use?
  

    
(thank you for sharing, this is really wonderful)
  

    
#35 <jonl>
The most important name would be Gary Kildall, PhD, creator of CP/M
and co-owner of Digital Research (originally Intergalactic Digital
Research). He developed that OS under a contract with Intel in 1973
and came away with the right to the code (Intel only wanted it for
their development system product -- they were replacing silicon with
software and couldn't foresee the personal computer). Kildall was
very generous with licensing the technology out and helped anyone
who needed it. I believe that he got the credit due him in Harold
Evans' book "They Made America".

Next would be Ted Nelson, author of the dual flip-over book
"Computer Lib / Dream Machines" that was the standard text for
people who didn't even know they wanted a personal computer or what
they could do with one if they had it. 

"You can and must understand computers NOW" read the subtitle.
Composed in hand-printed and illustrated snippets laid out in homage
to the Whole Earth Catalog of the time, it provided the reader with
a store of knowledge, philosophy, and commentary that brought
readers through binary logic to elementary computer hardware and
software design, then through introductions to various minicomputers
(it was published in 1974), introductions to various important
figures in computer history, and the importance of realizing Ted's
vision of computers as "literary machines" that would facilitate
writing far beyond the manual technologies in current use. 

Flipping the book over one found "Dream Machines", giving a tour de
force of the world of computer graphics (as it was in 1974). Like
the Whole Earth Catalog, both sections gave contact information for
every example of technology then available (or pending) that was
pertinent to personal computing. 

The coffee-table-sized book brought a lot of people into personal
computing right at (and a bit before) the beginning, each hoping to
obtain equipment that would need a lot of their care and feeding as
they learned. The text and the hand-drawn cartoon illustrations
bespoke a wry sense of humor that helped the oft-confused acolytes
along in their trek to the dark interior of personal computing. 

My part lay in bringing a journeyman's knowledge of electronic
design forwarded by my holy grail quest - the possibility of a
non-hierarchical community-building information exchange utility  to
the party (this is the main theme of my book). I had just spent four
years learning all the skills involved in creating and moving a
hardware design into production at the Special Products Division of
Ampex, Inc., as well as supporting a mainframe computer for
counterculture use - it was there that I conceptualized the idea of
a computer terminal that was expandable to a full-fledged computer
at an affordable cost and designed to attract tinkerers.

Woz and Jobs came along about then and grasped the concept of a
"media machine" with color graphics to attract software hackers
through visions of virtual worlds in which to disappear. Woz was
(and still is) a masterful digital design engineer and Jobs was,
well - Steve Jobs, keeper of a vision of world domination (of
sorts). 

We were all wierdos in pursuing the concept of personal computing,
which had in fact been defined by Doug Engelbart's great demo of
1968 (using the very same mainframe computer for which I later came
to be responsible). Nelson's book had warned us away from trying to
work within the structure of the computer industry, in effect
teaching that permission would not be had but forgiveness was not
necessary. 

I recall Herb Grosch, a columnist highly regarded in the IBM user
world served by the Computerworld weekly tabloid, who in 1975 was on
a tour of the nation sending back columns telling of his
discoveries, when he hit the Homebrew Computer Club and witnessed us
sharing software (including Microsoft Basic, for which we had not
paid). This shocked him and he inveighed against the practice of
sharing software based upon his classical-economic view of the
world. 

He could not grasp the role played by our enthusiasm for discovery
and the triumph of virtuosity outside of a hard currency economy. He
implored us in his column to eschew this practice - clearly seeing
it s some form of communism (which it was).  

That was the only oppositional experience we had - 37 companies that
we could identify (including Apple) formed through the Homebrew Club
meetings in the first few years, and we who participated gladly
helped each other in learning the lessons of business and
manufacturing, mostly over Steam Beer and burgers at the Oasis after
the club meetings. 

This collegial environment produced the IEEE-696 bus specification
for the Altair 8800's problematic bus by devising different ways  of
defining signals that obviated all of the problems we had
encountered as well as expanding the data width to 16 bits
(optionally). The meetings of that committee were marked by a lack
of maneuvering to gain marketing advantage by skewing the
specification (a widespread problem with standardization efforts).
We were all richer in technological understanding when we completed
that standard, and it was a quite enjoyable experience as a group (I
participated in two of the meetings, which were organized by Robert
Stewart, PhD).

Good times, good times.
  

    
Did you (or anyone you knew) at that time foresee how transformative
personal computers would become for society, or did the rapid
adoption of computing technology surprise you?
  

    
I was not expecting the degree to which the "media machine" aspect
of personal computers would take over the delivery of audio-visual
content -- Jobs was prescient about that. I kept my vision focused
on the social media aspect, which remained text oriented for the
first ten years and, as the book describes, underwent little
structural and conceptual growth as the user interface became much
more elaborate.

Microsoft's dominance of the bulk of the market I saw as a
regrettable but predictable result of the growth of a
"low-information" user base, much of which was in pursuit of a
"media machine" but at lower cost and sophistication of the kind
Apple offered.

I was embittered by the treatment received by GeoWorks at the hands
of Microsoft - classical restraint of trade (MS threatened
manufacturers who loaded GeoWorks on their computers and drove
GeoWorks out of the PC market, though it found a home in smart
phones). I felt that GeoWorks' "object oriented machine code" proved
what could be done with the limited resources o f PCs while MS'
bloated Windows code showed the wrong way to do it.

I was positively impressed with the degree to which "vernacular'
users (see the book Chapter 13 for definition of this term from Ivan
Illich) learned the tiniest detail of the IBM system and taught
others. "Demystification" of computer technology was triumphant. 

It came as a bit of a shock to see the degree of addictive behavior
that came with the spread of computers (I have not been immune), and
I opposed it when I could (at one meeting where "addictive" was
flouted as a primary feature of new systems I vocally resisted the
concept). 

My ideal scenario was that of personal computers merging with the
environment of everyday life without seizing and dominating that
environment, though I still have to remind myself that,
pre-computer, people were still assiduously studying paperback
books, newspapers  and magazines in public in order to avoid
interacting with others. ASa children we hid behind studying cereal
boxes to avoid communication with our parents at the breakfast table
- this was pretty common behavior at the time. 

The restructuring of society's information channels and the
breakdown of relatively ordered practices of consensus formation,
while a predictable consequence of social media development,
occurred much more quickly than I had expected, validating my third
criterion for revolution (...having much greater consequences than
anticipated). 

Critical to this phenomenon's growth was the spread of PCs as
consumer items and their atomized use without incorporation into
communal structures as I had envisioned (the "Life House" concept --
see ch. 7). I still maintain hope that as society changes in
response to these new information structures that one outcome will
be the growth of "third places" (ch. 3) supplanting book stores and
cafes by combining them with cyber capabilities. As I try to make
clear in the book there is an inherent demand for the function of
the agora (ch. 28) which will facilitate convergence upon social, as
opposed to individual and isolating, uses.

I wrote the damn book to provide the conceptual and historical basis
for such future developments. As I say - it's not light reading.
  

    
Did you ever envision that we'd be carrying powerful computers in
our pockets, networked for access to all the world's knowledge and
information (and misinformation/disinformation)?
  

    
$40  <jonl>:
Not really - I was never captivated by Moore's Law because of its
implication that all we had to do was wait and the rising tide of
vootie new technology would rise and engulf us. I was always trying
to work out how to get something going right now with what we could
get. 

As I describe in the book I learned the hard way that trying to use
cast-off technology was a losing proposition, and by 1973 I was
working to get a little ahead of the crumbling edge of technology.
The Tom Swift Terminal was predicated on my understanding that while
microprocessors were expensive, they would become cheap in not too
long a time, so I had the opportunity to design a platform that
would be useful immediately as a terminal and then grow to a
complete computer system through bus-connected plugin cards. 

All that Moore's Law stuff is for business managers and high-level
planners - engineers trying to push the edge of the art forward
don't have the luxury of sitting back and letting others do the
work. We wouldn't earn our pay that way.

Now that I have started work in earnest on version 4 of Community
Memory (CM4) I've been a bit startled to realize how many of the
anticipated problems have been solved, giving me many fewer excuses
to put off doing the work. The back-end connectivity, identity,
billing and to a large extent the security issues have been
addressed by smart phones. Likewise the issues of graphic display
and touch-sensitive control. It's all there in the retail
marketplace. 

Likewise, as pointed out in ch. 29, the body of open-source software
has expanded exponentially so that development time has shrunk by
orders of magnitudes. And all this streamlining in the technosphere
still doesn't mean that my vision has been obsoleted, probably
because Moore's Law seems to have made the overview planners lazy
and no longer planners.

One of the books that Efrem and Jude circulated within our group
around 1973 was "Woman on the Edge of Time" by Marge Piercy, in
which a modern woman alternates between her experiences in today's
culture (as viewed through Piercy's sensibilities) and her
experiences in an alternate future utopian culture. That culture
makes heavy use of what can only be described as smart phones to
manage the daily functions of their socialist society. Even then I
could see that those handheld devices would not be long in coming -
the larger issue was who would structure and run the network behind
them, an issue that never arose in the book.

By the way, I'm still waiting for the holographic 3D data storage
technology that Efrem thought would soon arrive, when he read (in
1973) an over-optimistic announcement in an industry publication. 
  

    
Are you interested in retrocomputing? Either hardware, by getting
actual computers from back then running again, or software by
getting programs from back then running on tiny modern systems
like the raspberry pi, or an in-browser emulator? I remember
noting a while back that a web browser running JavaScript had
about the same computing power as an early IBM PC, and expecting
popular early PC games to show up in the browser. And they did!
  

    
Just an administrative note to remind that today is the last
"official" day of this two week confab. Big thanks to Lee for his
generosity in sharing so much of the history of this medium and his
insights into its future. And gratitude as well to <slf>, <tex>, and
<matisse> for their contemporaneous recollections and pertinent
questions, as they were among the earliest adopters and champions
for the Genesis of computer mediated communications Lee helped
evangelize to popular adoption.

Thanx, as well, to the many participants who shared in the
conversation, their probing questions, and their own insightful
observations about this technological evolution.

This topic will remain active, and as Lee and the panel are all Well
veterans, the conversation can continue for as long as there is
interest. Great discussion, everyone. We couldn't have done it
without you.