Ted Kaehler

Ted Kaehler is an American computer scientist known for his role in the development of several system methods. He is most noted for his contributions to the programming languages Smalltalk, Squeak, and Apple Computer's HyperCard system,[1] and other technologies developed at Xerox PARC.[2]

Ted Kaehler
Born
Edwin B. Kaehler

1950 (age 69–70)
Palo Alto, California
CitizenshipUnited States
EducationStanford University
Carnegie Mellon University (M.Sc., 1976)
Known forWork on Smalltalk, Squeak, HyperCard
Spouse(s)Carol Nasby (1982–1991)
Cynthia (1998–present)
Children3
Scientific career
FieldsComputer science
InstitutionsXerox PARC, Apple Computer, Walt Disney Imagineering, Hewlett-Packard, Viewpoints Research Institute
Academic advisorsDonald Knuth
InfluencesDonald Knuth, Alan Kay
Websitetedkaehler.weather-dimensions.com/us/ted

Background

Kaehler is a son of a mechanical engineer and grew up tinkering with mechanical toys. During the 1960s, he built a computer on his own following an article published in Scientific American.[3] He went to Gunn High School, a public school in Palo Alto, California.[3] While in high school, Kaehler was accepted to a summer job at then named Fairchild Industries. During this work, he learned the programming language Fortran.[3] He was also introduced to the Xerox Alto during his high school days, as Xerox had a pilot program with Gunn. He then studied Physics at Stanford University where he studied under Donald Knuth, learned the language APL, and met Dan Ingalls.

Kaehler was married to Carol Nasby, who also worked at Apple for several years. She died in 1991 due to complications of Type 1 diabetes.[4] He lives with his second wife Cynthia in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Xerox PARC

Ingalls introduced Kaehler to PARC when he secured a contract with Xerox. They formed a team that included George White, who was already with the company working on a voice recognition software.[3] By the 1980s, he was reportedly demonstrating a virtual reality (VR) technology that involved a user in Maze War 3D game. This depiction successfully voiced a response in-world to another in the real world.[5] The development has been touted as the first avatar-centric reference to this kind of VR technology.[5]

Kaehler was also documented as one of the researchers at PARC who briefed Steve Jobs about the company's three innovations: the graphical user interface (GUI) of the Xerox Alto computer, Smalltalk, and Ethernet network at PARC.[6]

Smalltalk

Kaehler was part of a group led by Alan Kay who refined the concept of network computing through Smalltalk. This is a system that drew from John McCarthy's language LISP and from simulation programming languages Simula 1 and 67, which were developed by the Norwegian Computing Center.[7] In Kay's account of Smalltalk's early development, he cited key milestones attributed to Kaehler. According to Kay, along with Ingalls, Dave Robson, and Diana Merry, for instance, Kaehler successfully implemented the Smalltalk-76 system from scratch within a period of seven months.[8] It constituted 50 classes that composed 180 pages of source code.[8] Kaehler was also credited for designing the virtual memory system the Object-Oriented Zoned Environment (OOZE).[9] This system gave Smalltalk more speed, and the development of a system tracer used to clone Smalltalk-76 since the technology can write out new virtual memories from their prior iterations.[8]

Apple
Squeak's EToys

In March 1985, Kaehler moved to Apple as a researcher.[4] He became involved in the development of Macintosh computers, primarily providing technical support.[10] However, Kaehler was more noted for improving other technologies such as the company's HyperCard system from 1985 to 1987. This is a tool that allows users to create entertainment and instructional content. Kaehler added an interface that made it possible to control videodiscs.[1]

In 1996, while at Apple, Kaehler received a US patent for co-inventing user interface intermittent on-demand (pop up) halos around objects, with buttons to manipulate that object.[11]

Squeak

Kaehler also became part of the open-source software community-supported Squeak Central Team in 1996, which also included Ingalls, John Maloney, Scott Wallace, and Andreas Raab. It was initially developed out of the Smalltalk-80 at Apple Research Laboratory[12] and was later continued at Walt Disney Imagineering. Squeak was developed as an open and highly-portable language that is written fully in Smalltalk and included the EToys system, which allows children to see the software operation.[13] The use of Smalltalk technology allows Squeak to be easier to debug, analyze, and change.[14] Kaehler was credited for writing the code of the platform's painting system, Squeak Paintbox, and other EToys pilot versions.

References
  1. Ferster, Bill (2016). Sage on the Screen: Education, Media, and How We Learn. Baltimore, MD: JHU Press. p. 86. ISBN 9781421421261.
  2. "Vivarium History". Worrydream. Retrieved 2019-09-26.
  3. Markoff, John (2005-04-21). What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry. Penguin. ISBN 9781101201084.
  4. Dormehl, Luke (2012). The Apple Revolution: Steve Jobs, the Counterculture and How the Crazy Ones Took over the World. Random House. pp. 249-250. ISBN 9780753540626.
  5. Grimshaw, Mark (2014). The Oxford Handbook of Virtuality. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 22. ISBN 9780199826162.
  6. Dormehl, Luke (2012). The Apple Revolution: Steve Jobs, the Counterculture and How the Crazy Ones Took over the World. Random House. pp. 155-156. ISBN 9780753540626.
  7. "PCAD - Xerox Corporation, Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), Palo Alto, CA". pcad.lib.washington.edu. Retrieved 2019-10-10.
  8. "Smalltalk.org: smalltalk: TheEarlyHistoryOfSmalltalk_V.html". ramix.org. Retrieved 2019-09-27.
  9. "Folklore.org: The Grand Unified Model (1) - Resources". www.folklore.org. Retrieved 2019-10-10.
  10. Langton, Christopher (1989). Artificial Life: Proceedings of an Interdisciplinary Workshop on the Synthesis and Simulation of Living Systems. New York: Routledge. pp. xxiv. ISBN 9780367002909.
  11. US patent 5515496, Kaehler, Edwin B.; Kay, Alan C. & Wallace, Scott G., "Computer System with Direct Manipulation Interface and Method of Operating Same", issued 1996-05-07, assigned to Apple Computer
  12. Aksit, Mehmed (1997-05-28). ECOOP '97 - Object-Oriented Programming: 11th European Conference, Jyväskylä, Finland, June 9–13, 1997, Proceedings. Berlin: Springer Science & Business Media. p. 316. ISBN 3540630899.
  13. Lee, Newton (2014). Digital Da Vinci: Computers in the Arts and Sciences. New York: Springer. p. 141. ISBN 9781493909643.
  14. Ingalls, Dan; Kaehler, Ted; Maloney, John; Wallace, Scott; Kay, Alan (1997). "Back to the future: The story of Squeak, a practical Smalltalk written in itself". ACM SIGPLAN Notices. 32: 318–326.

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