[SIGCIS-Members] Fwd: When was first campaign for computer users' freedom

[William McMillan]

Andy et al.,

In the late 1970s, Ken Bowles and students at UC San Diego produced UCSD
Pascal, which was largely an attempt to escape from the strictures of
mainframe computing.

There are a lot of good web sites out there on this and I had an informal
piece in IEEE Spectrum featuring Bowles and UCSD Pascal.
http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/software/javas-forgotten-forbear/0

The emphasis is on this system as a forebear of the Java virtual machine,
but also mentioned is Bowles's push to free computer users from the
centralized computing world, partly because his own research had been cast
adrift when UCSD dumped Burroughs machines for IBM.

Bowles, who was a big user of programmed instruction in his own teaching,
envisioned a kind of marketplace for educational and other software through
which people would distribute their (soft)wares.

UCSD Pascal, BTW, likely embodies the first use of such features as
drop-down menus and had a large influence on Apple, which distributed UCSD
Pascal as Apple Pascal.  Apple employed many of Bowles's students.

I presented on this at SHOT and have an unpublished paper if anyone is
interested.

- Bill


On Sun, Aug 12, 2012 at 10:49 AM, Andrew Russell <arussell at stevens.edu>wrote:

> Hello everyone -
>
> This question (via Dave Farber's list) seemed like a good one for SIGCIS
> members to think about.  My first thought is that answers would depend on
> one's definition of each of the operative terms (campaign, computer, user,
> freedom) :-)
>
> Andy
>
> PS you might cc Stallman and Farber on any responses that have examples of
> earlier 'campaigns.'
>
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> *
> *
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: "Richard Stallman" <rms at gnu.org>
> Date: Aug 4, 2012 1:43 AM
> Subject: When was first campaign for computer users' freedom
> To: <dave at farber.net>
>
> The free software movement, a campaign for computer users' freedom,
> started in 1983.
>
> Do you know of any other campaigns for computer users' freedom prior
> to that?  I don't mean the same specific issue (free vs proprietary
> software), I mean any issue of freedom from unjust power, specifically
> in regard to computer users or computer use.
>
> The reason I'm asking is that the free software movement might have
> been the first such campaign, but I can't sure yet.
>
> --
> Dr Richard Stallman
> President, Free Software Foundation
> 51 Franklin St
> Boston MA 02110
> USA
> www.fsf.org  www.gnu.org
> Skype: No way! That's nonfree (freedom-denying) software.
>   Use free telephony http://directory.fsf.org/category/tel/
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