印度的设计历史
来自艾哈迈达巴德市的文字。
这段文字源于我在2024年与艾哈迈达巴德的设计师和教育者们的一些对话。
印度的设计历史有点像一本被遗忘的图书——有趣且潜在有价值，但在你真正需要的时候却 inexplicably 消失在书架上。尽管在独立后的历史中，传统与现代以奇妙的方式交融，但几乎没有人想到把这些写下来。我怀疑这是因为设计师天生忙于设计事物，以至于没有时间停下来写作。
上周，我偶然发现了一个关于被遗忘的科技与设计历史中最奇特且令人愉快的故事：苹果的Newton在印度。没错，就是Newton——1980年代iPhone和iPad的前身，曾承诺未来，却跌跌撞撞地回到了过去。我在艾哈迈达巴德遇到的一位参与了这一传奇故事的人告诉我，苹果在绝望的最后一搏中决定将Newton引入印度。想法是什么呢？把它卖给政府。你知道的，当你的尖端科技产品濒临死亡时，通常会这样做。
计划很简单：苹果将Newton宣传为社会发展的革命性工具，田野工作者可以用它来收集数据。因为政府喜欢大宗购买东西（尤其是听起来有用的东西），这可能会拯救Newton。最有趣的是，他们甚至在拉贾斯坦的农村进行了研究，结果让所有人惊讶的是，人们实际上喜欢并理解它。苹果产品的粘性让田野工作者们爱不释手。想象一下，在沙漠中，有人悠闲地用一个看起来像是星际迷航中的设备收集土壤数据。
一年里，一切进展顺利。然后，按照苹果的风格，他们突然中止了这个项目。Newton在这里的计划被搁置了。
当然，这让我想起了另一个古怪的设计/科技历史：Simputer，一个在1990年代于班加罗尔设计的手持设备。如果说Newton是古怪的姑姑，那么Simputer就是疯狂科学家的表亲——另一个由印度科技人员进行的聪明但大多被遗忘的尝试，试图重塑未来，但并没有成功。这个设备甚至配备了加速度计。没错，你没听错——在90年代就有加速度计！为了演示它，他们制作了一个滚珠迷宫游戏，如果Simputer能存活下来，可能会比你那部可靠的诺基亚上的贪吃蛇更让人上瘾。但可惜的是，像所有美好的事物一样，它在我们能尽情享受倾斜LCD屏幕的乐趣之前就消失了。
让我感到不安的是：在尘封的角落里，还有许多这样的故事在等待被讲述。然而，随着原始讲述者的年纪渐长（有些人也已离世），我们正在以比“请备份你的硬盘”更快的速度失去这些故事。
历史在我们指间流逝，我不禁想到，在这一堆被遗忘的设备和被抛弃的梦想中，或许有一本手册，教我们如何修复这一切。它可能被归档在“我们最终会处理的事情”下。
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Written from the city of Ahmedabad.
This text was an outcome of some conversations with designers and educators I met in Ahmedabad in 2024.<p>---<p>Design History in India is a bit like a forgotten library book—interesting, potentially valuable, but inexplicably missing from the shelf when you really need it. Despite a rich post-independence history where tradition and modernity mingled in strange and wonderful ways, hardly anyone thought to write any of it down. I suspect it’s because designers, by nature, are far too busy designing things to stop and write about them.<p>Last week I stumbled upon one of the strangest and most delightful stories of forgotten tech and design history: the Apple Newton in India. Yes, the Newton—the 1980s precursor to the iPhone and iPad that promised the future but tripped and fell into the past instead. Someone I met in Ahmedabad, who’d been on the front lines of this saga, told me about how Apple, in a final fit of desperation, decided to bring the Newton to India. The idea? Sell it to the government. You know, as one does when one’s cutting-edge tech product is at death’s door.<p>The plan was simple: Apple would pitch the Newton as a revolutionary tool for social development, something field workers could use to collect data. And because governments like buying things in large quantities (especially if it sounds vaguely useful), this might just save the Newton. The best part? They even carried out research in rural Rajasthan, where, much to everyone’s surprise, people actually liked and understood it. Sticky that Apple products are, field workers couldn't get their hands off them. Imagine someone in the middle of a desert casually collecting soil data on a device that looked like it belonged in Star Trek.<p>For a year, everything was going well. And then, in true Apple fashion, they pulled the plug. The Newton project here was shelved.<p>Of course, this reminded me of another quirky bit of design/tech history: the Simputer, a handheld device designed in Bangalore in the 1990s. If the Newton was the eccentric aunt, the Simputer was the mad scientist cousin—another ingenious, mostly forgotten attempt at reshaping the future by Indian technologists that didn't work out. This thing even had an accelerometer. Yes, you heard that right—an accelerometer, in the ‘90s! To demo it they created a Ball Bearing Maze game, which, had the Simputer survived, would’ve probably been more addictive than Snake on your trusty Nokia. But alas, like all good things, it vanished before we could waste hours tilting LCD screens in sheer joy.<p>What really gets to me is this: there are so many stories like these lurking around in dusty corners, waiting to be told. Yet, as the original storytellers grow older (and some shuffle off this mortal coil), we’re losing these tales faster than we can say, “Please back up your hard drive.”<p>History is slipping through our fingers, and I can’t help but think that somewhere in all this mess of forgotten devices and discarded dreams, there’s a manual on how to fix it all. It's probably filed under "Things We’ll Get To Eventually."<p>---