/.article on touch interface has a link to a good plato page:(wiki)2010 @50 th.

platohistory.org UI wiki

update, now in emu 1st-LMS cyber1 *

Just like Lotus-founder, this MS-dir talks makes mention in the NYT ;acm .
[Hopefully this gives you an idea why I have always had high expectations for computing, starting as a child.]

Here are a few links about the networked computer system I first used in grade-school for class instruction, but then as a way to learn how to program. Along w/purchasing a Vic-20*when it 1st came out.. . . . ..,display a.kay

ahh,old friend;)

[During undergrad I dialed into work w/a TexasInstruments w/thermal-primer(instead of screen)and 2cups for old style phone to hook to acoustic modem.(hey it was sitting around;)
In grad school, for awhile I had another old (barrowed)PC a compaq_portable;]

My next computer purchase was a sun ipx about the time that java came out, so I could play w/it, and keep a unix platform outside of work (I had used unix at least 10yrs by this time).

My last computer I had to purchase, was the very 1st fully loaded Ti-Powerbook. I used the os-x beta on a loaner before this. The Ti-book was upgraded after board failuers to an Al-Powerbook, which I still use today.

I knew I had to get that vs. the problems w/linux on a laptop at the time, and I liked NeXTdev env.

-now back to my earliest (eg.3rd grade) computer experience:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PLATO_System
http://www.coe.uh.edu/courses/cuin6373/idhistory/plato.html
http://www.plato.com/community/roadmap/2003/01/research2.html
http://www.platopeople.com/whatsnew.html
http://www.ibiblio.org/cmc/mag/1994/jul/plato.html
__ math-games_iPlayed http://www.platohistory.org/about/
_ 

_..

Later I worked for NCSA when Mosaic was being made, and on my 1st visits to the Bay area, saw people I knew, now w/ Netscape biz-cards;)
More of a history of this.

Most of the old archives of net-news votes etc, have me w/emails that start w/ mbobak.

A little more history I was both around for and participated in a bit.
nn

If I didn’t mention it before, I got my plato 'Authour' account via computer explorers, just as I was also attending engineering/(sci)explorers, which helped get my 1st lab job, in high-school. (Go explorer-scouts:)

The internet circa 1971: (w/ UIUC in the middle;) I was online w/email in grade school b4the 1st bbs.

(and I didn’t even know where I was playing games w/people back around then;)
and again circa 1975:
..77, and now:

ps. I'm seeing moreposts that incl recolections of using HP calculators; and I must say I had an HP-15C, and also used to write programs w/it; and like RPN in general:)

More history here.&here.