World inTimelines

Timeline of Smalltalk

Smalltalk from Xerox's educational computing research in 1972 to Squeak 6.1 in 2026: objects and messages, graphical environments, commercial tools, web frameworks, and open-source descendants.

Category
Engineering & Technology
Tag
computing
Events
17 events 1972 – 2026
Generated
by gpt-6

  1. Xerox researchers create Smalltalk

    Alan Kay, Dan Ingalls, and colleagues at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center created Smalltalk-72. The language treated computation as communication between objects and supported Kay's vision of personal computers as media for learning, experimentation, and creative work.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Kay

  2. Smalltalk adopts a more structured object model

    Dan Ingalls redesigned Smalltalk around classes, inheritance, and compiled methods executed by a virtual machine. Smalltalk-76 combined the language with browsers, inspectors, and graphical tools, making the running system itself available for examination and change.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smalltalk

  3. Smalltalk runs on the portable NoteTaker

    Xerox researchers ported Smalltalk to the experimental NoteTaker computer. Moving the environment from the Alto to Intel microprocessors tested whether its interactive programming model could accompany a portable personal computer.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox_NoteTaker

  4. Reenskaug formulates model-view-controller

    Trygve Reenskaug described model-view-controller while visiting Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center. Separating application data, its presentation, and user interaction gave Smalltalk a framework for graphical interfaces that later influenced many other software environments.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model%E2%80%93view%E2%80%93controller

  5. Xerox shares Smalltalk with outside implementers

    Xerox invited companies including Apple, Hewlett-Packard, and Tektronix to evaluate and implement Smalltalk-80. The collaboration tested the system beyond its original hardware and helped turn a laboratory environment into a portable language specification.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smalltalk

  6. Byte introduces Smalltalk to a wider readership

    Byte devoted its August issue to Smalltalk, with articles by the system's developers on its language, graphics, and programming tools. Detailed public explanations made ideas previously seen mostly in research demonstrations accessible to personal-computer programmers.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte_(magazine)

  7. Goldberg and Robson document Smalltalk-80

    Adele Goldberg and David Robson published "Smalltalk-80: The Language and Its Implementation." The book specified the language and virtual machine in detail, while Xerox made the second version of Smalltalk-80 available under a general license.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adele_Goldberg_(computer_scientist)

  8. Digitalk brings graphical Smalltalk to personal computers

    Digitalk released Smalltalk/V, a graphical Smalltalk system for IBM-compatible personal computers. An accessible commercial implementation let developers experiment with object-oriented applications without obtaining a specialized research workstation.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digitalk

  9. ParcPlace and Digitalk merge

    ParcPlace Systems and Digitalk combined their businesses, bringing major commercial Smalltalk product lines under one company. The merger was followed by a difficult attempt to combine products as Java emerged as a competing platform for business applications.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smalltalk

  10. Squeak opens a portable Smalltalk environment

    Dan Ingalls and colleagues at Apple released Squeak, derived from Smalltalk-80. Its virtual machine was developed largely in Smalltalk and translated into C, making the environment practical to port while keeping much of its implementation open to inspection.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squeak_(programming_language)

  11. Smalltalk receives a formal language standard

    The American National Standards Institute approved a Smalltalk standard. It specified language behavior and core library protocols so conforming programs could have consistent meaning across implementations, while vendors retained distinct tools and application frameworks.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smalltalk

  12. Cincom acquires VisualWorks

    Cincom acquired VisualWorks from ObjectShare and combined it with ObjectStudio in its Smalltalk product line. The sale gave the commercial descendant of Xerox's Smalltalk-80 a new owner and continued support for existing enterprise applications.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VisualWorks

  13. Seaside brings Smalltalk to web applications

    Avi Bryant and Julian Fitzell released Seaside, a framework for building web applications from reusable Smalltalk components. Its continuation-based control flow and live development tools brought the language's interactive style to server-side software.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seaside_(software)

  14. Etoys ships on educational XO laptops

    One Laptop per Child's XO computers included Etoys, an educational environment implemented in Squeak. Children could construct simulations and multimedia projects with visual scripts, carrying Smalltalk's educational aims into deployments beyond its original research setting.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etoys_(programming_language)

  15. Pharo branches from Squeak

    An international developer community began Pharo as a fork of Squeak. The project focused on a smaller, consistently licensed environment for professional software development and research, establishing a separate path for Smalltalk's tools and runtime.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharo

  16. The Smalltalk Zoo preserves executable history

    Dan Ingalls and the Computer History Museum introduced the Smalltalk Zoo, a collection of historical systems running in web browsers. Emulation made versions from Smalltalk-72 through Squeak available for direct experimentation, preserving their interactive behavior as well as their source code.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Ingalls

  17. Squeak refreshes its interactive development tools

    Squeak 6.1 introduced a new tree browser and improvements to debugging, profiling, process handling, and class reshaping. Released three decades after Squeak's debut, it continued Smalltalk's practice of developing software inside a running, inspectable object environment.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squeak_(programming_language)