From the Mist

Michael Arrington has created a little buzz with his blog post We Want A Dead Simple Web Tablet For $200. Help Us Build It.

We can do better.

Instead of Linux and Firefox, the Smalltalk system will provide an open-access environment on this thing, even for many end-users because the development environment will be part of the system.

It will of course be called the Stablet. It will contain a multi touch screen, which by the way will be running with probably no modifications on the iPhone and the Google Phone (or any other mobile device for that matter).

The ease of third party extensions should be a prime goal for this system. This will create a massive community of developers making money with services or small shareware applications licensed for a few dollars per user. No need to learn code and compile, just play around with your ideas, see it in action as you go, tweak it here and there, in a language that is simple by design.

What we really need for this is an unbiased comparison of the two platforms, Smalltalk and Linux. What are the various advantages/disadvantages, and even disadvantages that viewing at it from another angle can be advantages (like the old complaint “programmers do not understand the Smalltalk syntax because it is too different”).

We need centralised coordination of the effort, but the effort itself should be distributed to the max, making use of the vast potential of Smalltalk programmers out there, old or new.

We also need investment resources, someting which I am confident we will be able to get once we get our story straight. We can show that what we can do with Smalltalk can never be matched by any other environment!

Let’s rise to the challenge!