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The Interoperation

"Yuri woke the workstation and settled in.

"When he first saw the ClearWorks interface, he felt a shock of profound nostalgia. Yeah, it really was ClearWorks running there! No kidding!

"ClearWorks was a simple white pane with a pair of tiny, almost invisible icons in the upper right corner. ClearWorks was so entirely clear that it looked starkly absurd. Compared to Yuri's working interfaces for the modern construction business, ClearWorks was alien."

From a short story by Bruce Sterling, published at MIT Technology Review.

This is an eerily familiar story.  It describes a CAD system of the future -- one developed in 2010, yet still unmatched in 2040.  Thirty years later.

"It was the brainwork of a single geek, some embittered dissident from the early CAD business. The name of this lonesome genius was Greg Something, or Bob Something, or Jim ­Something..."

Actually, his name is Mike.  And, though the program isn't actually called ClearWorks, and it's not yet 2010, it really exists.  I have a copy of it in my pocket, on a memory stick attached to my keyring.  I briefly described it here last January.

Posted on Friday, November 16, 2007 at 11:35PM by Registered CommenterEvan Yares in | Comments2 Comments | References1 Reference

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Reader Comments (2)

Is there a demo of this application somewhere ?
November 17, 2007 | Unregistered Commenterzograf
There is a demo, but it's not being shown publicly yet. I expect, you'll see it out in January or February.
November 19, 2007 | Registered CommenterEvan Yares

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