The Secret Father of Modern Computing

Two days later the Macintosh 128K introduced the graphical user interface, forever transforming our relationship with technology. Computers were cute. They were friendly, easy to use, no longer so challenging. Children went from being budding programmers to passive users. Separately, as Papert later lamented, the

In MIT lore, it’s generally believed that this haphazard combination of different disciplines, thrown together in a large reconfigurable building, led to chance encounters and a spirit of inventiveness that generated breakthroughs at a fast pace, innovating topics as diverse as Chomsky grammars, Loran navigational radars, and video games, all withi

This incongruous assortment of engineers, reminiscent of the diverse characters of a Passion play, had one thing that bound them together: a deep, almost spiritual conviction that a good idea and some hard work can make a difference. They believed in the power of a concept to change people’s lives for the better, and felt a moral imperative to make