December 18, 2001
New beginnings (again)
Henry K van Eyken 2

The name Fleabyte has been associated with the intersection of  education, computing and societal concerns ever since I came up with it as a term of endearment for the pocket computer. That was nearly 15 years ago and the computer was a Radio Shack PC-4 scientific calculator with 250 bytes available for programming in BASIC. Programs and data could be stored on magnetic tape and printed to a 1-1/4-inch-wide role of thermal paper. Soon thereafter, once the computer's capacity was expanded to 1000 bytes, I developed a course about the potential of pocket computers in and after formal education. Content included programming and trying to fathom  that small device's future role.¹ The course was an offering in a program administered by the Université de Sherbrooke in Canada's Province of Québec for the professional enhancement of community college teaching staff. For a brief period, a flurry of improved versions of pocket computers  came to market, but then the supply dried up. It were electronic organizers (personal digital assistants) that came in vogue. Not being programmable they pelled the end of the course. 2A

A few years later, Fleabyte became also the name of a series of desktop command-line computing softwares that could output directly to editors and word processors and subsequently became the subject of a number of articles of a monthly column in Current Notes, a journal for afficionados of the Atari ST and Falcon computers.² The demise of the Atari Computer Company caused the demise of that magazine in 1995. 2C

Fleabyte began life as an e-journal in April of 1999. It was published for a group of people wishing to promote BeOS, a computer operating system marketed by Be Inc. This operating system seemed to me especially well suited for educational purposes, but I make no claim that this judgment is backed by expertise. BeOS was designed "from the ground up." It was considered especially suited for multimedia applications and programmers found it agreeable to work with it.³ 2D

We were not fanatics; in contrast to other BeOS Users Groups, ours was not primarily a BeOS advocacy group. A greater concern was the need for public computency. Just as common literacy is an essential tool for maintaining a functioning democracy, we believed that democracy will be even better served when computer literacy - or computency - becomes commonplace. 2E

We also shared a concern about Microsoft's nearly unchallenged dominance in the software market. This made us, as it made many others, look for an alternative to the corporation's ubiquitous DOS/Windows operating systems. Imagine if you will a commercial enterprise with a powerful influence on 90 percent of all printed information. Imagine how that would deteriorate the - already fragile - functioning of a democratic society! But here we are, with one single corporation, Microsoft, having a near stranglehold on the development of a potentially even more powerful form of literacy - computency. What thinking person wishes society to remain in that kind of a bind? ⁴ 2F

As alternative operating systems go, Linux then was and still is the best known candidate, but too intimidating for ordinary users. A lesser known option, the BeOS, looked to us far more suited for common use. As things stand today, the company that brought the BeOS to market has gone out of business and, hence, this system does not, at this time, appear to have a promising future. ⁵ 2G

The experience of publishing an e-journal showed a need for a continually rejuvenating archive. This corresponds to Douglas Engelbart's advocacy of a dynamic knowledge repository, or DKR. Becoming his student soon led to an invitation to join his Bootstrap Institute as a volunteer webmaster. ⁶ This was a great honor, of course, but quite aside from that, in view of Dr. Engelbart's high personal aims, which so much corresponded with my own, I put Fleabyte on indefinite hold in April of 2000. Joining a man like Dr. Engelbart, whose talents and devotion to the task at hand far exceed my own, gave my work a significant potential of success. And as an added benefit, it put me in touch with a fine group of highly intelligent and skillful professionals in computer science and technology. 2H

As a young man, Dr. Engelbart set himself as a worthwhile career goal the finding of ways of how to solve complex problems that needed attention urgently. It is in the course of this pursuit that he became a prominent pioneer in computing.⁷ Not satisfied, he is still pursuing some important technical goals, notably an open hyperdocument system for collaborative computing. 2I

The Bootstrap experience, including stimulating contacts with many high-caliber professionals in computer science and related fields, led to a shared belief that the Bootstrap Institute should be publishing an e-journal. First published under the name Engelbart in Context, but later changed to Fleabyte , its aim is to promote Dr. Engelbart's vision in the context of current developments in computing and its applicability to enhancing organizational intellect. 2J

Shortly after publication began, it was decided to give the journal a voice independent of that of Dr. Engelbart. In part this was done to permit him and a small number of Bootstrap volunteers to concentrate hard on the rejuvenation of an associated organization, the Bootstrap Alliance. One hoped-for benefit of this endeavor is the generation of funds to support other Bootstrap activities, including this e-journal, but especially de development of the open hyperdocument system and related software. 2K

The propagation of Engelbart's vision is very much at the heart of the new Fleabyte's editorial approach. We also like to attend to context, especially its human side, which tends to receive insufficient attention in a technical ambiance. It is only realistic to admit that our potential for success is very small. At this point in time, we have neither funding nor any staff to speak of. However, we are trying to attract a team of volunteers. Success is likely to depend more on this effort than on any writing we may be able to contribute. 2L

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Notes and references 3

1. The Very First Original Fleabyte Course (on the official lsit of course offerings more soberly named Pocket Computers in Education). For an analysis of why I considered the course important click here .3A

2. Current Notes from April 1993 to June 1995. Some of those articles or extracts from them are found in this e-journal's archive, as are two articles published by educational journals. 3B

3. Tom Hoke, Swimming with the big fish . June 16, 1999 (archived). 3C

4.  For an authoritative reference, see U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's Findings of Fact (Nov. 5, 1999).3D

5. Attempts are underway to give BeOS a new lease on life. We intend to keep track of progress here and report on it when warranted.  3E

Update Jan. 15, 2002:  BeUnited reports that they have not been granted a licence from PalmSource, Inc. for the further developmet and marketing of BeOS.  3E1

6. I became Dr. Engelbart's student by participating in the ten-week Colloquium, The Unfinished Revolution II , given at and webcast from Stanford University, early in 2000. 3F

7. A short history of Doug Engelbart's career is found here, in the Bootstrap Institute's Chronicle . Also found in the Chronicle are long lists of press articles and of his many awards. Also listed on the Bootstrap site are a number of Engelbart's own publications . 3G
 

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