![[IMAGE of a Handy Dandy Pocket Daemon]](hdpd.gif)
That Would Be Cool
The Personal Computer brought computing from industry into the household. The Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) allows us to bring computing with us.
The ` ubiquitous PDA ' already exists. If you go five years into the future you'll find plenty of them. The only difficulty is determining who makes them, and from this perspective it's a little hazy figuring out some of the functionality. But much of the functionality is discernible.
A few years ago I described the Handy Dandy Pocket Daemon or `hdpd'. The premise was that you could be anywhere in the world and still have a small computer on which to take notes, access information, control any other devices you might have, and be networked (wirelessly) to the `net'.
And then Apple came out with the Newton (1992/1993), but for all its niftyness it seemed lacking. (I think a combination of its relative isolation from other computers (especially unix and DOS) and extremely weak networking).
Then there was rumors that HP was working on a PDA, followed by rumors of its cancellation.
And then HP (calculator division) was moving to Singapore. But the new boss (Kheng Joo Khaw) was well received at the Amsterdam conference and seemed enthusiastic about new products in line with our general desires.
So it seemed that we ought to tell him that an HP PDA is not just a good idea - it's the law!
Well, just a few months ago (April 1995) we all learned of Jedi (HP's GEOS-based PDA due in August 1995).
Hence, everything was, after all, moving according to plan, and we could sit back and patiently wait till we could run down to the store and get a Jedi.
But I found myself compulsively writing notes to HP, and when gathered and sorted they said:
o PDA is the next obvious thing, the `correct' paradigm, the `Right Thing'.
o We are now at (the threshold of a new era) that point where no longer is it: What can we do? Let's make it, but What do we want? Let's make it!
o People don't know what they want, but they know it when they see it.
o Therefore, don't make what people want (market driven), take charge and create what the PDA is to become (paying close attention to the market).
o Go into the future, create an ideal world, reverse engineer the PDAs, and come back and announce to the world that that's what HP is now going to make.
PDAs will become as ubiquitous as the telephone and TV. The obvious PDA is, to me, the hdpd with its four aspects of functionality (Idea collection, information source, device controller, communications). There may be more than four.
Why is this the next obvious thing? I don't know, but I have a gut feeling. People are excited about the possibility. Current PDAs, cellular phones, powerful calculators, and the necessary infrastructure are all on the increase and are parts of this `ultimate' PDA.
`Obvious' things are rarely planned. The Mosaic program as used with the World Wide Web is taking over the world. The HP 38, and then the HP 12c, became the ubiquitous finance calculator in the real estate world. The HP 48 is in that position as the premier engineering students calculator.
There will never be an HP 49. The HP 48 is the ultimate handheld calculator. It could be improved (speed, power, ease of use, color screen, etc) but it will still be an HP 48.
The Apple Newton, a powerful little handheld computer that could be toted around anywhere, was not the expected run-away success because it didn't fulfill the user expectation, which was to communicate anywhere (in the US!).
If Jedi has links to data communications it will contribute greatly to its success. My feeling is that it should have the capability to support all the current wireless networks, rather than just the best 2 or 3, because wireless networks are too new to count on any one of them becoming the de facto standard.
Why the dawning of a new era? Because we now have all the pieces to put together things that we've dreamed about, things that didn't exist ten years ago. Admittedly, much of what is now available is still very experimental, but it does exist. For instance we now have wireless data communication networks, and can do multimedia over the internet. We have color LCDs. We now have grammar checkers and language translators.
The technology now exists to create whatever kind of computer we want.
In the creation of a new thing there is a development stage, a functional stage, and finally an obsolescent stage. The whole process follows from an idea. The quality of the idea is related to the environment in which it occurs ("chance favours the prepared mind").
functional
___________
/ \ obsolescence
____/ development \
idea
Gramophone records illustrate this. At first a nerd created it (Thomas Edison, 1878), then it became the de facto method for folks to listen to music, and (after 100 years of functionality) it has been virtually replaced by tapes, and now CDs. Automobiles are long into the obsolescence stage. TV made a different choice.
PDAs are at the beginning of the development stage. Much research is being done: Infopad at Berkeley (a portable multimedia terminal - HP is involved); Xerox is developing the ubiquitous computer (see below), with PDA being a big part of it. It doesn't get in the way.
HP has the handheld computer environment in which ideas can flourish. HP is in a position to lead with PDAs, which are at the beginning stages.
Computing in general is making the transition from the developmental to the functional. Even though computers are all over the place they are still developmental (Windows - we're all beta testers!), but computers are everywhere and here to stay (functional stage).
(The obsolescent stage of computers is probably a long way off (measured in generations). To embrace computing is to intuit what their obsolescence might be.)
It is human nature, when coming to a fork in the road, to blindly take the left or the right, rather than do nothing until the correct one is apparent. (Or go back, or dart off into the surrounding terrain.)
There are hundreds of PDAs out there, and it seems that from that fork they have taken every random direction.
Some companies make them because they're cool (Apple), others make them for money. Some seem to be short sighted, some as if they're trying to appease some clique.
People don't know what they want, but they know it when they see it. Positioned at that same fork in the road, in regards to buying a computer, people also seem haphazard in their direction.
You cannot determine the next cool thing by asking folks what they want because they don't think about it and, unfortunately, they'll buy anything you make.
But if you make the next cool thing they'll recognize it. The World Wide Web is the hottest thing on the planet but Tim Berners-Lee didn't intend that as he developed it.
Essentially, the PDA makers are selling the latest possible technology in a PDA shell, rather than designing a PDA and making the best possible. This is giving people what they want - market driven - better, cheaper, faster.
Therefore, don't be driven by the market. Pay close attention, but don't be driven. You can drive the market, but only effectively if it's effortless.
Design PDAs 50 years ahead, ignoring technological considerations. Slot in the technology as it becomes available, and when enough of it is there, it is a product.
What do people need and how does a handheld facilitate that? What is the ideal world, the ideal society? What kind of machine fits into that? If you build that machine, and unleash it, the world will move towards that society.
In hdpd I described what I felt were milestones {HP 41, the first Toshiba laptop, HP 71, Poqet computer, Apple Newton}. Why were these milestones.
In a sense those were `what I wanted'. But I also feel that they were stepping stones to the kind of computer that doesn't get in the way. Xerox is making the ubiquitous computer and the parctab. They are good at inventing the future - laser printers, networked offices, ethernet.
Printers still get in the way. They are happily evolving; the technology satisfies 300 dpi color output at an affordable price. But the conclusion will only be revealed when we can use printing technology to readdress a used envelope and scribble personal notes on the back, when we can autograph a book, when we can bomb (graffiti) a public bathroom, when we can give our phone number on the back of a napkin, all without having to feed any of these to the printer. I know HP does make a printhead device incorporated on a flexible stalk, for printing parcels. I've seen it used on eggs. I am thinking of a kind of pen with a print head in the end. It would be a PDA peripheral. A pen scribbles on anything; a printer only prints on pieces of paper.
Who are these humans, ourselves, for whom we wish to build PDAs?
Humans are described as perceivers, expressers, modellers. Our perception of our internal and external universe is our reality within which we operate. We continually model in order to deepen our understanding, which includes our basic sciences. (How much computing is modelling?) We express ourselves thus becoming part of each others reality. We are all different and group ourselves by many criteria. The psychological personality types is one set of criteria that may be useful in determining the design of different types of PDAs or different functionalities of a PDA. A chef, lawyer, scientist, nurse, will have different needs of a PDA, and will use them differently (a lawyer may throw it, a chef stir his cake mix, a nurse...). The ideal machine (impossibly) facilitates the highest expression of each kind of person.
How do you travel to the future? Science fiction journeys to the future in that a lot of what engineers make is inspired by science fiction. Are not PDAs some form of Douglas Adam's `Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy', and the cellular phone an aspect of a Dick Tracy watch?
My trip to the future is documented in hdpd.
It's not that I believe we should create a utopia. I believe each individual must do that for themselves. It is that you create a tool which an individual can use to empower themselves if they so choose.
Computers affect our lives explicitly, which is obvious, but also in subtle ways. How often do we use the computer paradigm in our daily affairs? I think of everything in terms of objects; in the past things were more continua. For instance, a space is no longer an indeterminate gap (spatial or temporal) between two words, it is a specific character just like any other character. You can't have half a hole - a hole is a hole - but you can now have a half space or two spaces. Another example is my financial life: I treat my savings, checking, credit cards and bills as files in hierarchies with (or without) contents. I'm even trying to automate my finances so that it's fully computer like, computer driven, and computer accessible.
In the design process we all need to be involved. We already are, in that HP does pay attention to users rumblings, but it needs to become a two-way process. The net can facilitate this greatly. Any system is three part: hardware-software-user. Include the user; we feel left out.
Education: actually teach subjects. Have files on all subjects. Consider Mosaic's help: when you click the help button it actually connects to Mosaic's remote database and access the help files.
It's a bit like HP not only selling the HP 48 with its manual but also teaching all the subjects that the HP 48 is used for (math, engineering, etc.). At the very least the ultimate PDA comes with a complete set of (pointers to) online Cliff notes for all pertinent subjects.
Again, all of this does already sort of exist. HP is an integral part of standards bodies. Sparcom and such do cater to the educational market. However, for instance, why hasn't Sparcom taken over the Cliff notes business or the Schaum's outline series; become ubiquitous?
Detail: - a quick plug for `The PDA Keyboard' - which not only plugs into this PDA but everyone else's. Not optional - but thrown in with the machine such that they're everywhere.
This is really a philosophical statement in which I'm saying to HP:
o Make PDAs.
o Have an open mindset during design.
o Consider total humanity during design.
Why do I care so much about HP?
HP innovates, and fails often enough to succeed well, often enough.
HP consistently makes quality product: robust software (like Casio - even unexpected operation give sensible results), long lasting hardware, well finished packaging (unlike TI - you press a key and zero or more characters show up on the screen).
I would also care about Sony and Casio if I had gotten involved with them as I have done with HP. I doubt I would have with, say, Sharp, and probably not with, say, TI and Tandy.
HP is in an unusual position! An unsuspected watershed event is about to happen. Have your surfboard ready!
Jeremy |-) Smith jeremy at peak.org July 1995