Thanks for answering! I hope my question's phrasing didn't seem too negative (which wasn't my intent at all, even thought I could now see why it could be understood that way), I was genuinely interested in knowing why it isn't as it widespread as it would seem to deserve.
Mohamed Samy On Tue, Mar 20, 2012 at 5:01 PM, Alan Kay <alan.n...@yahoo.com> wrote: > This just came up recently on the IAEP and fonc lists via Scott Ananian's > request for comments on his Nell proposal. > > Moore's work continues to be impressive today (at least to me). Moore's > thinking was wide deep and rich -- and much of it is quite relevant and > useful today. There was a lot more to it than you suggest below. > > IBM and John Henry Martin did "Writing to Read" in the mid-60s using the > PC -- a very similar approach but with little or even no attribution to > Moore's ideas. > > From the technological standpoint, both of these ideas were very early and > expensive. But they fact that they were both quite successful should have > made them more memorable, and to be picked up in the last decade where > these ideas (and more) can be propagated quite inexpensively. > > Of your reasons, "2" is the closest. One you didn't give was > > 4. Things get easily forgotten in a pop-culture > > Cheers, > > Alan > > ------------------------------ > *From:* Mohamed Samy <samy2...@gmail.com> > *To:* Fundamentals of New Computing <fonc@vpri.org> > *Sent:* Monday, March 19, 2012 8:48 PM > *Subject:* [fonc] O. K. Moore's talking typewriter: where is it now? > > In Alan Kay's original paper "A personal computer for children of all > ages" in 1972, he described an experiment by Omar Khayyam Moore; the > talking typewriter: it was a device that spoke the words typed on it, but > remained silent for whatever entered that isn't a word. > > The experiment was to leave the typewriter in a play area populated by > toddlers (about the age of 3) and eventually the devices taught them - more > precisely enabled them to teach themselves - reading and writing. > > My question is: why isn't everyone doing this now? You'd expect those > results would influence schools, nurseries, and parents. You'd expect tons > of such electronic devices to be for sale since decades ago. If there's > something that would sell to parents, it would be 'instant reading > teacher'. So why didn't this just *spread*? > > I have 3 guesses: > 1- The experiment was discredited for some reason or disproven by another > later experiment. > 2- It was scientifically sound, but no one simply cared. That's perfectly > possible since social and cultural aspects have much more influence than > expected. > 3- No one of the scientific community cared, so no further work was done > to prove or disprove it. It remains a hypothesis. > > I've tried to search online for papers or articles about the experiment, > but most of what I found was news about it from the 60s...I thought I'd ask > here :) > > _______________________________________________ > fonc mailing list > fonc@vpri.org > http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc > > > > _______________________________________________ > fonc mailing list > fonc@vpri.org > http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc > >
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