
In product lore, high profile gadgets that get killed are often more interesting than the ones that succeed. The Kin, the HP TouchPad, and the Edsel are all case studies in failure - albeit for different reasons. Yet in the history of those killings, nothing compared to the Apple Newton MessagePad. The Newton wasn't just killed, it was violently murdered, dragged into a closet by its hair and kicked to death in its youth by one of technology’s great men. And yet it was a remarkable device, one whose influence is still with us today. The Ur tablet. The first computer designed to free us utterly from the desktop.
'First' is debatable, but this was definitely an interesting product. It was far too complex though, and the simpler, more focussed Palm Pilot then showed the market how mobile computing ought to work - something Apple took to heart a decade later with the iPhone.
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As you confirm, you did not watch before

See you in couple of years. Research and learn.
Btw if Ted Nelson ideas were honored than we would not need separate projects as web.archive.org ...
And we probably would not need goverments as we have today. Thing is prety big, and "fight" about Apple (or Google or MS) inovations is quite irrelevant. Somebody (Bob Taylor) choose wrong path for humanity 30 years ago. Everything that happened after is irrelevant.
I do not have time for explanation, i can only give you hints and you need to explore for yourself.
E. G. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/business/11stream.html
2009.
"Consider Zig-Zag, Mr. Nelson’s foray into the world of databases. When I saw it years ago, it seemed to offer only an impossibly baroque interface. Only recently did I realize that he had simply anticipated the emergence of the semantic Web, now viewed by many computer researchers as the next step past Internet search."
aka NoSQL.
Or Ted Nelson on PC and "Internet" BEFORE PC (pre 80s):
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Kasu0BhRFGo
Edited 2013-08-10 01:29 UTC
And Google Ballons project:
"Ted Nelson proposed ( a giant electronic library in satellites that would be available to any terminal on earth connected by radio and telephone lines. He named it Xanadu after the mythical country. It would serve as a global database. Hypertext eventually made this idea reality."
http://austinyoder.wordpress.com/tag/web-nets/
Member since:
2006-11-12
I think that you should try to make a lucid point, so that your argument can be understood.
What? You're dismissing all of the innovation of the last 30 years with the notion "Everybody copy 'S**T?'"
It would look pretty much the same after Xerox's initial work, as there were other GUI players who were on the same track and selling GUI systems, before Apple and Microsoft entered the fray. Your boy Ted doesn't mention that fact.
I am not ranting. I am merely stating fact in a concise and orderly fashion. The only time I stray from that mode is when I have to respond to aimless posts such yours.
Huh? Would you care to explain that remark?
No need for the dramatics.
Okay. I searched Ted Nelson. He is responsible for "the longest-running vaporware project in the history of computing": http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.06/xanadu.html
Early on, it sounds like he had some good, visionary ideas -- which are actually inventions. The fact that he usually doesn't complete projects he starts is actually not that relevant.
However, the most important thing in regards to this discussion, is that he doesn't have his facts straight when it comes to computer progress in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Please make a point here in writing. I'm not watching anymore linked videos.