Ted Kaehler

Last updated

Ted Kaehler
Born
Edwin B. Kaehler

1950 (age 72–73)
Palo Alto, California
CitizenshipUnited States
Education Stanford University (B.S., 1972)
Carnegie Mellon University (MSc, 1976)
Known forWork on Smalltalk, Squeak, HyperCard
Scientific career
Fields Computer science
Institutions Xerox PARC, Apple Computer, Walt Disney Imagineering, Hewlett-Packard, Viewpoints Research Institute
Academic advisors Donald Knuth
Website tedkaehler.weather-dimensions.com/us/ted

Ted Kaehler (born 1950) is an American computer scientist known for his role in the development of several system methods. He is most noted for his contributions to the programming languages Smalltalk, Squeak, and Apple Computer's HyperCard system, [1] and other technologies developed at Xerox PARC. [2]

Contents

Background

Kaehler is a son of a mechanical engineer and grew up tinkering with mechanical toys. During the 1960s, he built a computer on his own following an article published in Scientific American . [3] He went to Gunn High School, a public school in Palo Alto, California. He graduated in 1968. [3] While in high school, Kaehler was accepted to a summer job at then named Fairchild Industries. During this work, he learned the programming language Fortran. [3] During his high school days, he was introduced to his first computer, an IBM 1620, operated by the Palo Alto Unified School District. Kaehler then attended Stanford University to study physics, studied programming under Donald Knuth, learned the language APL, and met Dan Ingalls. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) in physics in 1972. Later, Xerox began a pilot program with Gunn High School, loaning them a Xerox Alto.

Xerox PARC

Ingalls introduced Kaehler to PARC when he secured a contract with Xerox. They formed a team that included George White, who was already with the company working on speech recognition software. [3] During his early years at PARC, he attended Carnegie Mellon University. He graduated with a Master of Science (MSc) in computer science in 1976. By the 1980s, he was reportedly demonstrating a virtual reality (VR) technology that involved a user in Maze War 3D game. This depiction successfully voiced a response in-world to another user in the real world. [4] The development has been touted as the first avatar-centric reference to this kind of VR technology. [4]

Kaehler was also documented as one of the researchers at PARC who briefed Steve Jobs about the company's three innovations: the graphical user interface (GUI) of the Xerox Alto computer, Smalltalk, and Ethernet network at PARC. [5]

Smalltalk

Kaehler was part of a group led by Dr. Alan Kay who refined the concept of network computing through Smalltalk. This is a system that drew from John McCarthy's language LISP and from simulation programming language Simula, versions 1 and 67, which were developed by the Norwegian Computing Center. [6] In Kay's account of Smalltalk's early development, he cited key milestones attributed to Kaehler. According to Kay, along with Ingalls, Dave Robson, and Diana Merry, for instance, Kaehler successfully implemented the Smalltalk-76 system from scratch within a period of seven months. [7] It constituted 50 classes that composed 180 pages of source code. [7] Kaehler was also credited for designing the virtual memory system named Object-Oriented Zoned Environment (OOZE). [8] This system gave Smalltalk more speed, and the development of a system tracer used to clone Smalltalk-76 since the technology can write out new virtual memories from their prior iterations. [7]

With Smalltalk, Kaehler worked closely with two future Turing Award winners. He began a lifelong professional association with Alan Kay, as described herein. Kaehler also co-authored a book, A Taste of Smalltalk, with University of California, Berkeley professor David Patterson, [9] future leader of the RISC-V movement.

Apple

Squeak's EToys EToys on OLPC-dual mode display.jpg
Squeak's EToys

In March 1985, Kaehler moved to Apple as a researcher. [10] He became involved in the development of Macintosh computers, primarily providing technical support. [11] However, Kaehler was more noted for improving other technologies such as the company's HyperCard system from 1985 to 1987. This is a tool that allows users to create entertainment and instructional content. Kaehler added an interface that made it possible to control videodiscs. [1]

In 1996, while at Apple, Kaehler received a US patent for co-inventing user interface intermittent on-demand (pop up) halos around objects, with buttons to manipulate that object. [12]

Squeak

Kaehler also became part of the open-source software community-supported Squeak Central Team in 1996, which also included Ingalls, John Maloney, Scott Wallace, and Andreas Raab. It was initially developed out of the Smalltalk-80 at Apple Research Laboratory [13] and was later continued at Walt Disney Imagineering. Squeak was developed as an open and highly-portable language that is written fully in Smalltalk and included the EToys system, which allows children to see the software operation. [14] The use of Smalltalk technology allows Squeak to be easier to debug, analyze, and change. [15] Kaehler was credited for writing the code of the platform's painting system, Squeak Paintbox, and other EToys pilot versions.

Personal life

In 1982, Kaehler wed Carol Nasby, who also worked at Apple for several years, wrote the first Macintosh Owners Guide, built the HyperCard Help System for version 1.0, [16] and wrote the book HyperCard Power. [17] In 1991, she died from complications of Type 1 diabetes. [10]

In 1998, he wed his second wife Cynthia. She was a former preschool teacher for 25 years, and an artist who made fused glass pendants for necklaces and broaches. [18] They lived in Las Vegas, Nevada and had three children. In 2020, she died from cancer.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alan Kay</span> American computer scientist (born 1940)

Alan Curtis Kay is an American computer scientist best known for his pioneering work on object-oriented programming and windowing graphical user interface (GUI) design. At Xerox PARC he led the design and development of the first modern windowed computer desktop interface. There he also led the development of the influential object-oriented programming language Smalltalk, both personally designing most of the early versions of the language and coining the term "object-oriented." He has been elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Royal Society of Arts. He received the Turing award in 2003.

The graphical user interface, or GUI, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicators such as primary notation, instead of text-based UIs, typed command labels or text navigation. GUIs were introduced in reaction to the perceived steep learning curve of command-line interfaces (CLIs), which require commands to be typed on a computer keyboard.

Mesa is a programming language developed in the mid 1970s at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center in Palo Alto, California, United States. The language name was a pun based upon the programming language catchphrases of the time, because Mesa is a "high level" programming language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Smalltalk</span> Object-oriented programming language first released in 1972

Smalltalk is a purely object oriented programming language (OOP), created in the 1970s for educational use, specifically for constructionist learning, at Xerox PARC by Learning Research Group (LRG) scientists, including Alan Kay, Dan Ingalls, Adele Goldberg, Ted Kaehler, Diana Merry, and Scott Wallace.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">PARC (company)</span> Research and development company

PARC is a research and development company in Palo Alto, California. Founded in 1969 by Jacob E. "Jack" Goldman, chief scientist of Xerox Corporation, the company was originally a division of Xerox, tasked with creating computer technology-related products and hardware systems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Squeak</span> Object-oriented programming language

Squeak is an object-oriented, class-based, and reflective programming language. It was derived from Smalltalk-80 by a group that included some of Smalltalk-80's original developers, initially at Apple Computer, then at Walt Disney Imagineering, where it was intended for use in internal Disney projects. The group would later go on to be supported by HP labs, SAP, and most recently, Y Combinator.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Xerox Alto</span> Computer made by Xerox

The Xerox Alto is a computer that was designed from its inception to support an operating system based on a graphical user interface (GUI), later using the desktop metaphor. The first machines were introduced on 1 March 1973, a decade before mass-market GUI machines became available.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Xerox Star</span> Early GUI-based computer workstation from Xerox

The Xerox Star workstation, officially named Xerox 8010 Information System, is the first commercial personal computer to incorporate technologies that have since become standard in personal computers, including a bitmapped display, a window-based graphical user interface, icons, folders, mouse (two-button), Ethernet networking, file servers, print servers, and e-mail.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adele Goldberg (computer scientist)</span> American computer scientist

Adele Goldberg is an American computer scientist. She was one of the co-developers of the programming language Smalltalk-80 and of various concepts related to object-oriented programming while a researcher at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), in the 1970s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Model–view–controller</span> Software design pattern

Model–view–controller (MVC) is a software design pattern commonly used for developing user interfaces that divides the related program logic into three interconnected elements. This is done to separate internal representations of information from the ways information is presented to and accepted from the user.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Desktop metaphor</span> Concept used on desktop computer graphical user interfaces

In computing, the desktop metaphor is an interface metaphor which is a set of unifying concepts used by graphical user interfaces to help users interact more easily with the computer. The desktop metaphor treats the computer monitor as if it is the top of the user's desk, upon which objects such as documents and folders of documents can be placed. A document can be opened into a window, which represents a paper copy of the document placed on the desktop. Small applications called desk accessories are also available, such as a desk calculator or notepad, etc.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dynabook</span> Early portable computer concept

The KiddiComp concept, envisioned by Alan Kay in 1968 while a PhD candidate, and later developed and described as the Dynabook in his 1972 proposal "A personal computer for children of all ages", outlines the requirements for a conceptual portable educational device that would offer similar functionality to that now supplied via a laptop computer or a tablet or slate computer with the exception of the requirement for any Dynabook device offering near eternal battery life. Adults could also use a Dynabook, but the target audience was children.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Larry Tesler</span> American computer scientist (1945–2020)

Lawrence Gordon Tesler was an American computer scientist who worked in the field of human–computer interaction. Tesler worked at Xerox PARC, Apple, Amazon, and Yahoo!.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Taylor (computer scientist)</span> American computer scientist

Robert William Taylor, known as Bob Taylor, was an American Internet pioneer, who led teams that made major contributions to the personal computer, and other related technologies. He was director of ARPA's Information Processing Techniques Office from 1965 through 1969, founder and later manager of Xerox PARC's Computer Science Laboratory from 1970 through 1983, and founder and manager of Digital Equipment Corporation's Systems Research Center until 1996.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dan Ingalls</span> American computer scientist

Daniel Henry Holmes Ingalls Jr. is a pioneer of object-oriented computer programming and the principal architect, designer and implementer of five generations of Smalltalk environments. He designed the bytecoded virtual machine that made Smalltalk practical in 1976. He also invented bit blit, the general-purpose graphical operation that underlies most bitmap computer graphics systems today, and pop-up menus. He designed the generalizations of BitBlt to arbitrary color depth, with built-in scaling, rotation, and anti-aliasing. He made major contributions to the Squeak version of Smalltalk, including the original concept of a Smalltalk written in itself and made portable and efficient by a Smalltalk-to-C translator.

Gypsy was the first document preparation system based on a mouse and graphical user interface to take advantage of those technologies to virtually eliminate modes. Its operation would be familiar to any user of a modern personal computer. It was the second WYSIWYG document preparation program, a successor to the Bravo on the Xerox Alto personal computer.

The Xerox NoteTaker is a portable computer developed at Xerox PARC in Palo Alto, California, in 1978. Although it did not enter production, and only around ten prototypes were built, it strongly influenced the design of the later Osborne 1 and Compaq Portable computers.

Etoys is a child-friendly computer environment and object-oriented prototype-based programming language for use in education.

Diana Merry-Shapiro is a computer programmer who had worked for the Learning Research Group of Xerox PARC in the 1970s and 1980s, after having been hired originally as a secretary. As one of the original developers of the Smalltalk programming language, she helped to write the first system for overlapping display windows. Merry was also one of the co-inventors of the bit block transfer (BitBLT) routines for Smalltalk, subroutines for performing computer graphics operations quickly which were pivotal in the evolution of user interfaces from text-based user interfaces to graphical user interfaces.

References

  1. 1 2 Ferster, Bill (2016). Sage on the Screen: Education, Media, and How We Learn. Baltimore, Maryland: JHU Press. p. 86. ISBN   978-1-4214-2126-1.
  2. ↑ "Vivarium History". Worrydream. Retrieved September 26, 2019.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Markoff, John (April 21, 2005). What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry. Penguin. ISBN   978-1-1012-0108-4.
  4. 1 2 Grimshaw, Mark (2014). The Oxford Handbook of Virtuality. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 22. ISBN   978-0-1998-2616-2.
  5. ↑ Dormehl, Luke (2012). The Apple Revolution: Steve Jobs, the Counterculture and How the Crazy Ones Took over the World. New York City: Random House. pp. 155–156. ISBN   978-0-7535-4062-6.
  6. ↑ "PCAD – Xerox Corporation, Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), Palo Alto, CA". pcad.lib.washington.edu. Retrieved October 10, 2019.
  7. 1 2 3 "Smalltalk.org: smalltalk: TheEarlyHistoryOfSmalltalk_V.html". Ramix.org. Retrieved September 27, 2019.
  8. ↑ "Folklore.org: The Grand Unified Model (1) – Resources". Folklore.org. Retrieved October 10, 2019.
  9. ↑ Kaehler, Ted; Patterson, Dave (May 1, 1986). A Taste of Smalltalk. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN   978-0-3939-5505-7.
  10. 1 2 Dormehl, Luke (2012). The Apple Revolution: Steve Jobs, the Counterculture and How the Crazy Ones Took over the World. New York City: Random House. pp. 249–250. ISBN   978-0-7535-4062-6.
  11. ↑ Langton, Christopher (1989). Artificial Life: Proceedings of an Interdisciplinary Workshop on the Synthesis and Simulation of Living Systems. New York: Routledge. pp. xxiv. ISBN   978-0-3670-0290-9.
  12. ↑ USpatent 5515496,Kaehler, Edwin B.; Kay, Alan C.& Wallace, Scott G.,"Computer System with Direct Manipulation Interface and Method of Operating Same",issued 1996-05-07, assigned to Apple Computer
  13. ↑ Aksit, Mehmed, ed. (May 28, 1997). ECOOP '97 – Object-Oriented Programming: 11th European Conference, Jyväskylä, Finland, June 9–13, 1997, Proceedings. Berlin: Springer Science & Business Media. p. 316. ISBN   978-3-5406-3089-0.
  14. ↑ Lee, Newton (2014). Digital Da Vinci: Computers in the Arts and Sciences. New York: Springer. p. 141. ISBN   978-1-4939-0964-3.
  15. ↑ Ingalls, Dan; Kaehler, Ted; Maloney, John; Wallace, Scott; Kay, Alan (1997). "Back to the future: The story of Squeak, a practical Smalltalk written in itself". ACM SIGPLAN Notices. 32: 318–326. doi: 10.1145/263700.263754 .
  16. ↑ Kaehler, Ted (March 29, 2014). "Ted Kaehler". Weather Dimensions: Weather on Display. Retrieved July 13, 2020.
  17. ↑ Kaehler, Carol; Atkinson, Bill (April 1, 1988). HyperCard Power: Techniques and Scripts. New York: Addison-Wesley. ISBN   978-0-2010-6701-9.
  18. ↑ Kaehler, Cynthia. "Fused Glass Pendants by Cynthia Kaehler". Weather Dimensions: Weather on Display. Retrieved July 13, 2020.

Official website

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.