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I searched Google for this recently and could not find it. I tried it again on Google Groups just now and found one reference to it:

https://groups.google.com/g/comp.arch/c/Y4C_Zjkb9VM/m/scDk_0...

> Killer micros of today are a lot like flourescent lights -- cheap to operate, prevalent, and expensive to turn off. To see a machine standing idle, when you were raised as a child to "use cycles efficiently" is a gut-wrenching experience. Just remember Alan Kay's prediction: In the future, computers will come in cereal boxes and we will throw them away.

March 20, 1990. I haven't found a source for Alan Kay's prediction.



Various fortune files attribute the quote to Robert Lucky. I would guess that it was misattributed to Alan Kay since quotes often get attached to famous people.

"In the future, you're going to get computers as prizes in breakfast cereals. You'll throw them out because your house will be littered with them. -- Robert Lucky"

https://web.mit.edu/~mkgray/jik/sipbsrc/src/fortune/scene




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