Item Details

Description

The Kenneth Einstein papers, ranging in date from 1975 to 2001, contain materials related to Einstein’s career at Ansa Software and Borland International, as well as records from his consulting work, conference materials, technical reports, books, periodicals, and software. The collection can be divided into four parts: professional files, conference materials, mixed reference materials, and software. The first quarter of the collection consists of professional work files from companies such as Ansa Software, Borland Interactive, Upshot Corporation, and Diffusion, Inc. These files range in date from 1984 to 1999 and include initial product concepts, product planning documents and timelines, internal company materials, presentation materials, marketing materials, newspaper and magazine clippings, and both internal and published product documentation. Topics of note include the development and release of the Paradox desktop database program, Borland general product line planning, and Borland Paradox for Windows planning. Also of note are design and testing documents related to Borland Interactive’s 1800 Project, which was done in collaboration with MCI with the aim of using MCI’s Friends & Family marketing platform to create an email client. There are also folders with marketing materials from various other companies, such as IBM, Apple, and NeXT. The second quarter of the collection consists of materials from industry conferences, partner meetings, and trade shows. Examples of events represented in this portion of the collection include the Software Publishers Association Conference, Network Systems Forum, Platforms for Communication Forum, and Borland Database Conference. There are also materials from numerous other conferences focused on databases and multimedia as well as documents from partner meetings, such as an IDAPI (Integrated Database Application Programming Interface) meeting in 1992. The third quarter of the collection consists of mixed printed materials, such as reference books, technical reports, published research papers, market forecasts, printouts of online discussion threads, and periodicals. Most of the periodicals are from the 1990s and are related to Multimedia. Some of the titles represented include Multimedia World, The Red Herring, NewMedia, Desktop Video World, CD-ROM World, and PC World. There is also a small amount of manuals and standards. The final fourth of the collection is made up of packaged software and loose disks. Software formats include 5 ¼ inch floppy disks, 3 ½ inch floppy disks, and CDs. The software includes programs such as Studio PCTV, Net-TV 98, and Upshot Sales, as well as multiple versions of Paradox. Additionally, there are early programs for Macs, such as Hypercard 10, MS Word 1.0 for Mac, MacWrite/MacPaint, and MacType. The Kenneth Einstein papers also hold the only extant digital copy of a prototype version of MCI Friends & Family Mail. Biographical/Historical Note Kenneth (Ken) Einstein has been a software designer in the field of user interface design and user experience for over thirty years. In the early 1980s, Einstein attended the Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU. In 1985, he joined Ansa Software, where he worked as manager of user interface design and documentation. After Ansa was acquired by Borland International in 1987, Einstein became director of application strategy. In this position he worked on the design and development of many of Borland's products in the late 80s and early 90s. Einstein left Borland in 1993, becoming an independent consultant specializing in user experience (UX). A notable project that he worked on was leading the UX design and implementation effort for MCI Friends and Family Mail (FFM). The goal of the product was to create a mass market service that anyone who could make a phone call could use to send and receive emails. The project was scrapped in 1995 when the World Wide Web grew increasingly powerful, thus making MCI's project no longer viable. After the FFM project, Einstein worked in the design and development of products at a number of startups, including Diffusion, Inc. and Upshot Corporation. As of 2018, Einstein still works as a consultant in Silicon Valley.

Level of description

Collection

Date

1975-2001, 1984-1999

Author

Kenneth Einstein (Author)

Extent

8.25 linear feet in 6 record cartons and 1 periodical box

Collection title

Kenneth Einstein papers

Credit

Gift of Kenneth Einstein

Catalogue number

102784977

Lot number

X8138.2017