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C00002 00002	∂22-Jan-81  1435	Adele at PARC-MAXC 	Re: grumble,grumble 
C00010 00003	scu and money and notetaker
C00011 00004	christians: 0 lions: 1
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∂22-Jan-81  1435	Adele at PARC-MAXC 	Re: grumble,grumble 
Date: 22 Jan 1981 14:32 PST
From: Adele at PARC-MAXC
Subject: Re: grumble,grumble
In-reply-to: Your message of 22 Jan 1981 1002-PST
To: John Allen <JRA at SU-AI>
cc: adele

Your grumbling was surprising.  Your original message asked about giving a
talk.  I answered with my message saying a talk without paper because we could
not write any papers given all our other writing commitments.  I said we did not
have time to prepare anything special, just our usual presentation.  I said we
would like to participate and that still stands.  Then you sent me a very long
description of requirements, mostly having to do with doing writing.  I said I
could not do that.  Your message of Jan 12 seemed to indicate that you had to
hassle with the organizers into making some special arrangements for us because
what we were able to do did not fit into their categories.  My message today was
simply to say that I didn't want you to have to go out of your way just to
accommodate us.  If you had arranged something that seemed appropriate and
only involved showing up, fine, but none of your messages indicated this. 
Sigh--so much for electronic mail.   
--------------------------------------------
down with electronic mail! my apologies.

sorry, adele, i  over-reacted. I  agree, you did  make it  clear that  you
wouldn't be able to write a paper very early on in this wccf thing.

my problem is the  three sets of  people who said  they were writing,  but
didn't.  even up to jan 5 --deadline was jan 1-- someone who'd advertized,
moused.  i'm  getting "shell-shocked"  and tired,  and a  bit pissed  off,
mostly at myself for  volunteering to do  another conference; you'd  think
the lisp conference would have taught me something.

anyway i interpreted your "really not concerned about wccf" incorrectly;

i apologize.

the wccf  organizers have  set up  nothing special,  the arrangemment  are
totally open so  far.  i'm doing  a tutorial on  lisp and  object-oriented
stuff --probably two half-day  session.  i'm borrowing  money to buy  some
machine for a  course at  santa clara  i'm teaching  and hope  to use  the
equipment at  the faire.  also there  will be  a few  presented papers  on
lisp-related matters.   i've done  nothing about  demos or  anything  else
related to the seesion, except hack the papers.

the session committee actually consists of three other people, "but, john,
since you know all the people on  the net, why don't YOU contant  them"...
and sigh, i said  "sure". that took care  of thanksgiving, christmas,  and
most of the time since then.

i thought i'd get things moved faster, by hacking the mail system.  as you
said, "so much for electronic mail"!

john

--------------------------------------------
∂23-Jan-81  0839	Adele at PARC-MAXC 	WCCF 
Date: 23 Jan 1981 08:36 PST
From: Adele at PARC-MAXC
Subject: WCCF
To: JRA at SU-AI
cc: 

Let me ask the legal-beagles what they think of our bringing a NoteTaker to the
faire--no advertisement, just to be there as part of your object-oriented tutorials. 
A NoteTaker is an Alto packaged in a briefcase--about 35 lbs--has a bit-mapped
display, 128K words memory, Intel 8086 processor, and a battery (making it
possible to have 2-hours worth of sitting outside working).  I will ask Dan
Ingalls what it thinks of this first because someone hardware-knowledgeable will
have to accompany the very experimental NoteTaker I.  We designed NoteTaker II
(to get rid of some weight and human factors problems) but the Xerox capital
freeze last year cancelled the NoteTaker project.

Oh, forgot to say--it runs Smalltalk-76 very nicely.

And I realize now that I do not know the dates of the Faire, but especially of
your tutorials.

Adele
--------------------------------------------
wccf
the dates are april 3-5 (fri-sat-sun) with open season (fri-sat) 
and  restricted attendance on sunday. i haven't been before, but understand
the fri-sat is a zoo! i expect to to two half-day tutorials fri and sat
and perhaps an advanced tutorial on sun (when i volunteer i really go
whole hog). 

i wccf folks are up to their ears in papers now so i'm waiting
a bit before settling details of demos and tutorial locations. if there's
really a mess of people milling around, i worry about equipment. so
either i have to get a controlled area for hands-on experiments,
have only canned no-touch demos, or restrict the hands-on stuff 'til
sunday, or some combination of the above.

adele, thank you for your patience!
scu and money and notetaker

re: visit to notetaker
i'll see how the first of next week goes maybe set a date.

scu and money:
well... i got this wild hair after the sigsmall harrangue, much too
late to get money from scu. money's in the budget for next year, but
that's not good enough. initially, i'd expected to get funds from
a certain "far-sighted" corporation "committed to education and ai".
a long story ... but they finally moused. since then there've been a
few nibbles, but no results.

btw: i got idries shah's "the sufis" --elegant.
christians: 0; lions: 1

well, plans are stalled temporarily at SCU: they decided to rework the two
schools --arts and sciences-- into the humanitites school. the effect  was
to table my proposal  for a no-bullshit literacy  course --based on  "duck
soup".  they will form  a committee to study  the proposal "sometime  this
fall"; unfortunately the dean of engineering won't let me do the course in
his school --seems it's "philosophy,  not computer science".  logo,  lisp,
and smalltalk are philosophy? they're not computer science? sigh!

even more unfortunate, the "temporary"  setback may indeed be  "permanent"
since i was counting  on those funds  to keep me and  The LISP Co  afloat.
i've been living on  promises of contracts that  people don't live up  to,
and the string has run  out. i've been trying  to get book publishers  and
manufacturers interested in supporting  curricula development, but "if  it
ain't basic,  we don't  want it"  is the  prototypical response.   so  two
points:

1. do you have any suggested contacts for even slightly visionary  funding
of quixotic ventures like mine? if  i can't find something soon, it's  the
end of TLC. i've watched lmi  and symbolics take the high-end market,  and
logo inc. take  the low  end; the stuff  i was  doing at scu  sits in  the
middle:  a book --a cross between mindstorms and godel,escher, bach, but a
hell-of-a-lot better, and an iteractive programming lab, based on logo and
lisp (smalltalk someday).  unfortunately,  the development takes time  and
money.  for example, i could get  access to prototype systems for the  new
national chip,  but development  takes funds  (hum, what  about TLC  doing
smalltalk on the 16000? did you ask you husband what he disliked about that
machine? a single stack is a loss --what else?)


2. don't underestimate the resistance of  the world as you move  smalltalk
out among the primitives. there are  some real turkeys out here, and  they
will resist change down to their last gobble.

oh, well; have  to write some  lectures for the  summer lisp course  --yet
another zero-profit missionary venture; will i ever learn!  

					
						john

p.s.
please, thank glenn  for bringing  the notetaker  and himself  down to  my
class.