Dream machines
by Ted Nelson · first published 1974
82% recommend18% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Double-sided book pairing Dream Machines with Computer Lib, offering an early vision of computing as narrative and media rather than pure mathematics; suits readers interested in personal computing history.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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…environment. But no one has gotten there yet. As far as envisioning today's world of computing in the 70s, I was a programmer in the 70s and we envisioned this and a lot more. Read Ted Nelson's book Dream Machines for an idea.
on “We expect too much of geeks” ↗…fuck. Thinking takes energy- calories -and so, as an evolved animal, if you can get by w/o it, you will. "The Internet is for porn.") I've known what I wanted to make ever since reading Ted Nelson's "Dream Machines" and that was twenty-odd years ago (it was published way earlier, that's just when I got ahold of it.) Engelbart's "Mother of All Demos" was even earlier. (I've been playing with a very simple UI demo…
on “How can we develop transformative tools for thought?” ↗…Nelson and we are on hacker news, and the OP passed a comment that showed they obviously already know how to use the internet, what would be the point of me linking to sources, Ted Nelson, Computer Lib and Dream Machines, if you've not read it, what have you read?
on “Ted Nelson on What Modern Programmers Can Learn from the Past [video]” ↗Ted Nelson was very explicit on this point in his visionary book "Dream Machines".
on “Video tutorials now on PeerTube” ↗Ted Nelson "Dream Machines"
on “Alan Kay's answer to ‘what are some forgotten books programmers should read?’” ↗To the confused HNers: Xanadu is a project by Ted Nelson. Ted Nelson is a fundamental figure of early computing (despite not being a computer scientist himself). His work (recommended: Dream Machines/Computer Lib, 1974; Literary Machines, 1981; Geeks Bearing Gifts, 2008) is about how computers touch us as humans, and how they affect our future, especially when it comes to communicating and using them…
on “Xanadu: we have a working deliverable” ↗I just finished reading Mitchell Waldrop's book The Dream Machines which is largely about J.C.R. Licklider and it has a lot of stories about the things Metcalfe is talking about during the 60's and 70's and into the 80's. It's a long, detailed book and I recommend it.…
on “The rise and fall of the industrial R&D lab” ↗…Haeberli -- Paul's brother) for lame reasons, when there were plenty of other perfectly valid things to rag the poor guy about. >Don't get me wrong -- I've got my own old worn-out copy of the double sided Dream Machines / Computer Lib, as well as Literary Machines, which I enjoyed and found very inspiring. I first met the Xanadu guys some time ago in the 80's, when they were showing off Xanadu at the MIT AI lab. >I…
on “Ted Nelson on What Modern Programmers Can Learn from the Past [video]” ↗thanks for posting this. I read his double-book "Dream Machines / Computer Lib" when it came out: it changed my perspective on the future of computing from numbers and mathematics to narrative and media. I heard him speak perhaps 15 years ago now at a Computer Literacy…
on “In Venting, a Computer Visionary Educates” ↗…Haeberli -- Paul's brother) for lame reasons, when there were plenty of other perfectly valid things to rag the poor guy about. >Don't get me wrong -- I've got my own old worn-out copy of the double sided Dream Machines / Computer Lib, as well as Literary Machines, which I enjoyed and found very inspiring. I first met the Xanadu guys some time ago in the 80's, when they were showing off Xanadu at the MIT AI lab. >I…
on “Project Xanadu” ↗Context matters to grok what he's saying. Read up on his "Subtext", go watch Engelbart's "Mother of all Demos", read Nelson's "Dream Machines". We are living in a shadow world compared to what might be... http://www.subtext-lang.org/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_of_All_Demos https://computerlibbook.com/
on “The Great Software Stagnation” ↗…circulating, and how many overlapped & reinforced on the way to building what ended up being the internet. There's more internet-centric accounts like Where Wizards Stay Up Late or Dealers of Lightning, but Dream Machines remains the favorite of many[2]. I just cant emphasize enough how much benefit I think there is to government granting good hard working big idea people, with not a lot of oversight or expectations.…
on “A growing number of governments hope to clone DARPA” ↗As one of my favorite books, I'm overdue for a re-read, but Waldrop's Dream Machines is a book about J.C.R. Licklider, but Engelbart definitely comes up again and again, and for sure, the Augmenting Human Intellect thread is highly present. At least we no longer reduce Engelbart to "the…
on “50th Anniversary of the Mother of All Demos (2018)” ↗Waldrop's Dream Machines (2001) feels like the definitive book to read about this era & the internet. It personalizes all these people a good bit, weaves the story. Nice to hear it again in short form from Bob Kahn.
on “Bob Kahn on the Birth of “Inter-Networking”” ↗Here here! There's a laundry list of emerging industrial-scale technologies. But your post starts with what ought be the star of the tech show: personal technologies, empowering technologies. Dream Machines. Places for imagination, exploration. Soft systems that are malleable to users, that let them unleash their own creativity & potential, explore the models & systems about them, devise new viewpoints,…
on “Computers Aren't Fun Anymore (2020)” ↗