Computing Scattered Into Physical Space
Scatrd is a computer interface that replaces windows on a screen with multiple, physical computing objects scattered about one's desk and workspace.
Scatrd is a meta operating system: a system protocol. It is constructed from multiple operating systems, storage systems, services and devices in a highly distributed, network-centric form. The resulting Scatrd system integrates these many, disparate and changing systems into a single user experience and platform for communication and creative work.
Much of the conceptual design of Scatrd was inspired by Plan 9 from Bell Labs, the 1990's successor to Unix (by the original authors of Unix) that rethought the operating system in a radically distributed, network-centric way. Plan 9 was far ahead of its time and never gained adoption beyond internal use at Bell Labs. Yet even now its design is significantly advanced over contemporary, mainstream operating systems.
The Scatrd system has been employed as an everyday computing environment since 1996. Its components have varied over time, changing as technology has advanced the state of wireless networking, hardware and software.
The first Scatrd system combined multiple portable and handheld computers that were linked wirelessly through remote, open source Internet servers housed in large data centers (what we now call “The Cloud”) via a wide area wireless CDPD network piggybacking on the analog cellular system.
Advances in high speed wide area wireless networking and tactilly responsive mobile computing hardware and software have made the Scatrd interface an ever richer, more human environment for everyday computing.
The Scatrd interface is the future of computing.