Engelbart and Kay --was: Back to the Future with Hypercard

[Jim Ault]

On 12/31/07 1:14 PM, "j downs" <downs.david.j at gmail.com> wrote:

> If all you want to do is sell Rev to that small niche (perhaps even
> smaller than the potential niche of the ed market!) of savvy
> programmers who aren't afraid to use something other than the
> commonly-accepted programming languages of C/++/#, Java etc., then
> fine; but if you want to open up Rev's installed user base into other
> areas, these HC-like stacks are a must have.
> 
> About two billion school-age children worldwide.  More than 120
> million students in higher education.  These markets have been
> neglected‹strike that, completely ignored‹by those who create the
> tools to develop software since the late '90s.  Why no one wants to
> tap this enormous revenue stream is beyond me.
> 
> J. 

In my very limited experience,
... you could start with a plethora of legacy equipment and operating
systems, then move to a demand for volume discounts and a very low per
student cost, moving to buy-once-use-for-decades, and factor in that most
educators are not good tech support personnel.

I think much of the software is purchased by administrators for school-wide
use thus you would have to be part of a program or package.
And of course, language (localization) would become a factor.

There are several people on this list who are very knowledgeable in the area
of education hardware and software, so they will be able to comment much
more intelligently than I would on the subject.
------------
Devin Assay, BYU

Wilhelm Sanke, Prof.
<http://www.sanke.org/MetaMedia>

Mark Talluto
http://www.canelasoftware.com/education/products.html

Richard Mathewson, to name a few.
-----------------

Jim Ault
Las Vegas