We're very excited about the open source software called Squeak Smalltalk. Squeak was released by Apple in late 1996 with a very open license. It has been ported just about everywhere (including Windows, Linux, UNIX, DOS, Mac, Acorn, WinCE). You can modify Squeak to fit your needs, and even deliver it to paying customers, including the browser, compiler, and debugger. Squeak is a collaborative effort with a strong user community, and is coordinated by several of the original ST-80 developers who are now at Disney. A great source of information about Squeak is http://squeak.cs.uiuc.edu/. For more information about open source software in general, and why collaborative software is the wave of the future, see http://www.opensource.org/

We're most interested in the possibilities of using Squeak for educational simulations, open-ended modeling tools, an embedded macro language, and a manufacturing knowledge repository to use to design space habitats.

We're hoping to transition our company to doing mainly Squeak/Python consulting (instead of mainly VisualWorks/Visual C++/Delphi consulting) over the next couple of years. So, if you've got a project you want done and are willing to try Squeak, let us know!

Here is Embedded Squeak version 1.0 For Squeak 2.2, developed by Paul Fernhout. The ZIP file includes a standalone EXE file to run Squeak in a text-only console under Win95. It also includes all the source (VC++ 5.0 and Squeak 2.2) to generate it. Embedded Squeak is placed under the Squeak license.

squeak22embedded10.zip (1,417,766 bytes)

Here is the included readme.txt file, which includes a section on "Why embed Squeak?".

readme.txt (6K bytes)

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Many people unrelated to us have done great things with Squeak.

Here is an example: a speech synthesizer by Luciano Esteban Notarfrancesco. (This is a new version "with a lot of bug fixes".)

speech.zip (22,947 bytes)

Luciano ported rsynth (a public domain speech synthesizer) to Squeak. It is very impressive to see what Smalltalk alone can do in the hands of a great developer. He's now working on improving the speed and sound quality. If you have any comments about improving the synthesizer, you can send Luciano email at: luciano@core-sdi.com.

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We're hoping to eventually use work like Luciano's in a Squeak port of our Delphi based StoryHarp product. Using Squeak (which runs anywhere) instead of Delphi 3.0 (which only runs on Win 95/NT) would give that product a much wider audience.