Way way ahead of their time.

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The whole idea of the Dynabook was very impressive and way ahead of its time. But the part of the article that blew me away was Alan Kay's spot on thoughts about what such a device would mean and be used for. I was trying to contemplate how such notions could be imagined with only the technology they had to go on at the time. When he talked of an architect wishing to simulate three-dimensional space or a doctor could have all of his patients records on file, a composer hearing his composition while in progress, etc. These where ideas and thoughts that were nowhere close to being plausible at the time. For Kay to be thinking about using these computers more as personal devices and much more than just number crunching machines is just astonishing to me.

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