(2002-10-02) Smalltalk Vivarium

I always thought the "V" in SmallTalk/V was a roman 5 (without caring too much), but it really stood for Vivarium (an Apple/Alan Kay project). The goal of the Vivarium program is to do for the next generation of personal computers and human interfaces what the Dynabook did for the first - to be, a "forcing function" for the most appropriate new technology. The original idea for the Vivarium, the ecology-in-a-computer concept, came from Ann Marion, now the Vivarium Program Manager, when she was working with Alan at Atari. One of their projects was to try and do intelligent autonomous Warner Bros. cartoon characters, to send Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd into the forest, and have them play out a cartoon as a result of their personalities. Ann, however, sought to infuse life into more realistic creatures engaged in social interaction with each other and with their environment. She chose to model an aquarium, with fish that would chase and eat one other and reproduce. It was an arduous task, and one that we now seek to make as easy as child's play.