Someone in the comments section recently asked me to post the link to the inventor of the mouse, hypertext, etc. It is actually a whole team, led by a visionary, Doug Englebart, that came up with the idea of the mouse (and another weird device that did not remain, the chord keyset), cut-copy-paste, computer-assisted team work, a screen that can display graphics, and more.
And all this was demonstrated... in 1968! When you watch his complete demo, you just cannot stop thinking how much all of this still applies to what we have gotten to expect from our computers today.
The YouTube video above is just the first part of the demo (since YouTube limits the size of uploads). You may go to this page on YouTube for to have the other parts shown in succession automatically, or to that one on Google Video for the whole enchilada (but it does not always work).
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Friday, October 12, 2007
OK, OK, OK!
OK is probably one of the most widely used term (and not only in English). But where does it come from?
The official word is that it appeared in 1839, in some Boston newspapers, as an abbreviation for Oll Korrect (they liked to play with words in Boston then). But it really became popular during the 1840 American election, as one of the candidate's nickname, Martin Van Buren, was Kinderhook (since he was born in the town of Kinderhook, in the state of New York): he was then called Old Kinderhook.
But there are many, many more theories about the etymology of OK.
The official word is that it appeared in 1839, in some Boston newspapers, as an abbreviation for Oll Korrect (they liked to play with words in Boston then). But it really became popular during the 1840 American election, as one of the candidate's nickname, Martin Van Buren, was Kinderhook (since he was born in the town of Kinderhook, in the state of New York): he was then called Old Kinderhook.
But there are many, many more theories about the etymology of OK.
The story of the Amiga
If you are old enough to remember the Amiga, you might be interested in that very good write-up of the history of that astonishing computer, brought to us by Ars Technica:
- Part 1: Genesis
- Part 2: The birth of Amiga
- Part 3: The first prototype
I am eagerly waiting for more on this...
By the way, if you are interested in what Carl Sassenrath does these days, check out Rebol.
The twilight zune?
The new Zunes are coming out in November. If you have a Mac, this is of no interest to you. But if you have a PC, and don't like iTunes, it seems to me that these players are a good competition for the iPods (excluding the iPod Touch and iPhone).
In particular, I like the flash-based Zunes (just as I like the iPod Nano). Zunerama gives us a nice feature-by-feature comparison of the two.
One thing that striked me actually (and that did not show up in the early videos of the Zune) was the actual size of the beast: the iPod Nano and the flash-based Zunes are both really small.
In particular, I like the flash-based Zunes (just as I like the iPod Nano). Zunerama gives us a nice feature-by-feature comparison of the two.
One thing that striked me actually (and that did not show up in the early videos of the Zune) was the actual size of the beast: the iPod Nano and the flash-based Zunes are both really small.
Good series on Leopard features
AppleInsider is currently running a good series of articles on Mac OS X Leopard features (including some bits of history about them, which is what makes them really interesting). The series is called The Road to Mac OS X Leopard:
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