40th anniversary of the dynabook

Alan Kay, Chuck Thacker, Mary Lou Jepsen and Steve Hamm (moderator) at the Computer History Museum (one hour 45 minutes), 5th November, 2008

Alan Kay outlines the history from 1958 (John McCarthy) through the personalities and inventions to circa 1972

The Dynabook plan (not yet realised):

1. What are powerful ideas?
2. How can they be learned with the aid of computing media?
3. Can this work with human mentors?
4. Can it work with computing mentors?

Alan Kay at 1:15
Points 1, 2 and 3 above have been solved partially but not yet point 4. Hence, there is a problem in deploying to the third world, since the teachers are not there in sufficient quantity or quality

"The person who only knows his own generation remains forever a child"
- Cicero