Douglas Engelbart : The Mother of All Demos (1/9)

On December 9, 1968, Douglas C. Engelbart and the group of 17 researchers working with him in the Augmentation Research Center at Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park, CA, presented a 90-minute live public demonstration of the online system, NLS, they had been working on since 1962. The public presentation was a session in the of the Fall Joint Computer Conference held at the Convention Center in San Francisco, and it was attended by about 1,000 computer professionals. This was the public debut of the computer mouse. But the mouse was only one of many innovations demonstrated that day, including hypertext, object addressing and dynamic file linking, as well as shared-screen collaboration involving two persons at different sites communicating over a network with audio and video interface.

(1/9) http://youtube.com/watch?v=JfIgzSoTMOs
(2/9) http://youtube.com/watch?v=a11JDLBXtPQ
(3/9) http://youtube.com/watch?v=61oMy7Tr-bM
(4/9) http://youtube.com/watch?v=fNXLK78ZaFo
(5/9) http://youtube.com/watch?v=7zz1SwCTCEE
(6/9) http://youtube.com/watch?v=6dVNxlLYTsQ
(7/9) http://youtube.com/watch?v=XiJA7_Sw9aM
(8/9) http://youtube.com/watch?v=EI8LZKW5Lwk
(9/9) http://youtube.com/watch?v=VYDg2wr2QfI

See also the Stanford Mousesite http://sloan.stanford.edu/MouseSite/ for the complete annotated version of the demo and background, as well as the Doug Engelbart Institute http://www.dougengelbart.org/firsts/dougs-1968-demo.html for more great resources.

Credit to SRI International

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• NLS
• Augmentation
• Research
• Center
• Doug
• Douglas
• Engelbart
• first
• GUI
• 1968
• 60s

[Digeridude]

He didn't predict it, silly. He's not psychic. He CREATED it.

[rndmcnlly]

Man, computers used to make the most awesome noises.

[Invisibrah]

@rndmcnlly

Sounds like EM disturbance feeding into the microphone.

[Neojhun]

I don't get it how the system could handle video over such fair distance so smoothely. I assume it is because it is a hybrid of digital and analogue. I wish i could have such effortless video today on a computer 10,000 more powerful.

[Neojhun]

He Should not of called it RESEARCH. It was creation, the birth of something that would change the universe. The birth of the tangible Metaphysical World,

[hyoga2k]

@Hunkola "Pirates of Silicon Valley" just show a part of history. If you put more attention, Apple people visit the PARC and have a demo from Xerox engineers. The key is on the short-time vision of Xerox board, that didn't consider the GUI as a massively profitable product. In fact, Xerox sold computers with the GUI technology. Search for Xerox Alto, a GUI-based computer, 3 years before Apple was founded.

[samgod]

@Hunkola You're getting your understanding of historical facts from a movie? Interesting. According to that movie, Apple started Mac development after visiting PARC. The sheer number of things that movie got wrong (which the writers themselves admit to) renders it useless as a judgement of history. I loved the movie, and it was fun, but off base on many counts. Apple stealing the GUI from PARC being one of the bigger ones, that even people at PARC had to correct.

[w3bt3k]

@w3bt3k Sorry, I meant "Check out all these Mother of All Demos clips."

[w3bt3k]

@Hunkola Xerox's venture capitalist wing had invested in Apple. The scientists at PARC didn't like it, but Jobs asked to see it, they showed it to Jobs, and even game him documents. Google "Vannevar Bush", Memex, "As We May Think" 1945! Even Xerox PARC "stole" ideas from him and Douglas Engelbart. Check out the "Mother of all Demos".

[andrija11]

2 punch card operators disliked this video

[daEmoNicky]

@Hunkola I read ... it was product of Raskin, he saw that GUI when he was student at university, and his project was almost closed. Later they improved over Xerox's system (app menu, overlapped windows were redrawn ...). Xerox failed to sell their system. POSV seems not so accurate ...

[yaroslavkhnygin]

@Hunkola Oh fuck yes, facile pseudo-documentary film is a very reliable source of information.