Fwd: When was first campaign for computer users' freedom
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@gnu.org> Date: Aug 4, 2012 1:43 AM Subject: When was first campaign for computer users' freedom To: <dave@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/ Archives | Modify Your Subscription | Unsubscribe Now
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 I presented on this at SHOT and have an unpublished paper if anyone is interested.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@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@gnu.org> Date: Aug 4, 2012 1:43 AM Subject: When was first campaign for computer users' freedom To: <dave@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/ Archives <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now> <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/123955-4ecfd750> | Modify<https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=123955&id_secret=123955-17c900b8>Your Subscription | Unsubscribe Now<https://www.listbox.com/unsubscribe/?member_id=123955&id_secret=123955-25a8b439&post_id=20120812093556:A351DE3C-E482-11E1-AD11-96D88C620D99> <http://www.listbox.com/>
_______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members@sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you can change your subscription options at http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members
On 8/13/12 5:12 AM, "William McMillan" <wmcmillan@emich.edu> wrote:
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.
The original UCSD Pascal Environment which ran on the Terak is text-based. You are presented with a list of modes on the top line of the display and type a letter to drop down a level in the hierarchy. This same interface was used for the Lisa Pascal Workshop, which is built on top of SVS Pascal, a 68000 native Pascal compiler, instead of the P-Code interpreted UCSD system. The original Macintosh applications were built in the Pascal Workshop environment with Macintosh toolbox library extensions until the native tool chain was available. The most known Apple employee that came from the UCSD group is Bill Atkinson. Al Hoffman was another, who supported MPW Pascal compiler.
I have 8" floppy media for UCSD Pascal that runs on my MINC-11; I have not attempted to run it on other PDP-11s yet. It behaves as Al describes. -- Ian On Mon, Aug 13, 2012 at 7:46 AM, Al Kossow <kossow@computerhistory.org> wrote:
On 8/13/12 5:12 AM, "William McMillan" <wmcmillan@emich.edu> wrote:
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.
The original UCSD Pascal Environment which ran on the Terak is text-based. You are presented with a list of modes on the top line of the display and type a letter to drop down a level in the hierarchy. This same interface was used for the Lisa Pascal Workshop, which is built on top of SVS Pascal, a 68000 native Pascal compiler, instead of the P-Code interpreted UCSD system. The original Macintosh applications were built in the Pascal Workshop environment with Macintosh toolbox library extensions until the native tool chain was available.
The most known Apple employee that came from the UCSD group is Bill Atkinson. Al Hoffman was another, who supported MPW Pascal compiler.
_______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members@sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you can change your subscription options at http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members
-- Ian S. King, MSCS ('06, Washington) Ph.D. Student The Information School University of Washington
OK, now I realize what people are saying -- the menus in UCSD Pascal were not "drop-down." Sorry, I'm so used to letting the term trip from my fingers that I mistyped. Yes, they were single letter menu commands on a character-based "graphic" screen. They did influence the development of drop-down menus at Apple. - Bill On Fri, Aug 17, 2012 at 1:12 AM, Ian S. King <isking@uw.edu> wrote:
I have 8" floppy media for UCSD Pascal that runs on my MINC-11; I have not attempted to run it on other PDP-11s yet. It behaves as Al describes. -- Ian
On 8/13/12 5:12 AM, "William McMillan" <wmcmillan@emich.edu> wrote:
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.
The original UCSD Pascal Environment which ran on the Terak is text-based. You are presented with a list of modes on the top line of the display and type a letter to drop down a level in the hierarchy. This same interface was used for the Lisa Pascal Workshop, which is built on top of SVS Pascal, a 68000 native Pascal compiler, instead of the P-Code interpreted UCSD system. The original Macintosh applications were built in the Pascal Workshop environment with Macintosh toolbox library extensions until the native tool chain was available.
The most known Apple employee that came from the UCSD group is Bill Atkinson. Al Hoffman was another, who supported MPW Pascal compiler.
_______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members@sigcis.org, the email discussion
On Mon, Aug 13, 2012 at 7:46 AM, Al Kossow <kossow@computerhistory.org> wrote: list of
SHOT SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you can change your subscription options at http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members
-- Ian S. King, MSCS ('06, Washington) Ph.D. Student The Information School University of Washington _______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members@sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you can change your subscription options at http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members
Andrew I know that the users groups of the major vendors had resistance from members in the 60s and 70s, though I think it was slightly different from Stallmans movement. It was really a fight against vendors power in the early software age. IBM had announced that they would unbundle and that seemed to allow many options but the big vendors were slow to move. Especially when many believed that the hardware vendors would still provide tools such as compilers. My Dad faced a showdown in the Burroughs user group in the fall of 1969 or the spring of 1970. He was in touch with the IBM and Univac user groups an knew that they were having similar problems. The users would disrupt the meetings and demand that something be done about it. It lasted for about a year. Dad restructured the user group meetings to address it. This was also the time when the hardware vendors started to realize that they were not going control software. David _______________ David Alan Grier Fellow, IEEE 2013 President, IEEE Computer Society Assoc Prof, George Washington University Sent from my iPhone On Aug 12, 2012, at 10:49 AM, Andrew Russell <arussell@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@gnu.org> Date: Aug 4, 2012 1:43 AM Subject: When was first campaign for computer users' freedom To: <dave@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/ Archives | Modify Your Subscription | Unsubscribe Now
_______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members@sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you can change your subscription options at http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members
participants (5)
-
Al Kossow -
Andrew Russell -
David Alan Grier -
Ian S. King -
William McMillan