The last time I was driving through Menlo Park, I showed Norma (I recently remarried) where magic happened a long time ago. I told her about how PCC created the concept of the personal computer (thanks, Bob for that one!) and published the first general user computer magazine,Recreational Computing. I told her of long nights after my "day job" at Xerox PARC working on my real love -- this rickety venture up a flight of stairs with piles of paper and access to some incredibly bright divergent thinkers. As you probably know, PCC lives in the hands of Jane Laidley, and I'm still on the board! It is a genuine treat to hear from you -- as you said, some of us seemed to have dropped off the radar screen. The fact is, PCC launched a revolution for which it has never received credit enough. I had the honor of giving a speech in Sebastapol a few years back and Bob was in the audience, so I started my speech by giving him the credit he deserves. Big hugs to you Bob... So, as for me, I have moved to Lake Barrington, IL but still keep a condo in SF since I come out fairly regularly. Actually, my residence is split these days between Lake Barrington and Recife, Brazil. Norma is Brazilian, and the bi-cultural lifestyle is amazingly rich and rewarding. In both countries, we consult on issues relating to the impact of emerging technologies on education, and are on the speaking circuit a lot. [See The Thornberg Center, http://www.tcpd.org for more information. -dra ] The funny thing to me is that the US is finally waking up to "project-based learning", something Bob was promoting back when Tandy was making the world's first handheld (model 100, right?) So it is a good thing we are living long lives, since it has taken ages for some of our visions to become reality! Dennis, what have you been up to all these years? And Bob -- where are you these days? Hugs to you both,
David Thornburg |
