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WorldWideWeb at CERN and Alan Kay’s Dynabook: The First Laptop Computer, Meta-Media, and Intercommunication

김재영 1

1이화여자대학교

ABSTRACT

From consideration of the historical context and the sociocultural aspects of the WorldWideWeb (WWW) and the early conceptual model of the laptop computer, I examine the nexus of intercommunication, writing (hyper-)text, and the concept of meta-media. WWW, which pervasively influences current ordinary social life and was first invented by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN (Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire ).CERN,foundedastheintegratedresearchinstitutefor European particle physics, had very complicated organization schemes and hence demanded a profoundly new way of intercommunication between physicists as well as between technicians in the 1980s. I discuss the effort of Tim Berners-Lee that resulted from that need for intercommunication. Also, I describe the effort toward realizing the new concept of the laptop computer, especially Dynabook, which was invented by Alan Kay at PARC(Palo Alto Research Center) in the 1970s. Based on the historical development of WWW and Dynabook, I examine critically the scheme of remediation and make clear the notion of meta-media.

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* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.