The last Fourth Wish

[Melanie]

When I was in University, I was a fanatical reader... the Librarian hated me, must have dusted off books for me that hadn't ever seen the light of day... I recall casually reading a computing history book (or a very old issue of an Electronics magazine) about someone back in the early 1980's that wanted to write a program that could write programs directly for End-Users... for those that couldn't do the technical stuff for themselves. Can't remember his name, or the name of his project or venture, so obviously if failed... all I do remember was a picture of him holding an Osborne 'portable' computer (well it WAS bound to fail if that was his platform!!!!) so that might have made him an Englishman. Actually wasn't Osborne American? So hardcore's wish is not new - somebody already had it a generation or two earlier. Actually some of the best advances in computing started with a wish (like the desire to take a fixed-task machine and make it more versatile by making it programmable). This might be the application of reverse logic (taking a versatile broad-application device, and making it narrow single-application).