Testimonials to Doug Englebart: Dec 9, 2013 @CHM
Computer visionary Doug Englebart was posthumously honored on December 9th at the Computer History Museum (CHM) in Mt View, CA. The date of this event was significant, because December 9 was the 45th Anniversary of the “Mother of All Demos.^” Doug's wife, daughter, and several people that worked with Doug or knew of his work made brief speeches to honor him. The speakers included: Bill English, Chief Engineer at SRI who built the 1st mouse based on Englebart's notes ; Stewart Brand, President of Long Now Foundation and Whole Earth Catalog publisher; futurist Paul Saffo, Guerrino De Luca, Chairman of Logitech; Curtis Carlson, CEO of SRI; Adam Cheyer, Co-founder of Siri; and Elizabeth "Jake" Feinler, former Director at SRI.
Funding for this event was provided by SRI International and Logitech.
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^ "The Mother of All Demos" is a name given retrospectively to Douglas Engelbart's December 9, 1968, computer demonstration at the Fall Joint Computer Conference in San Francisco. The live demonstration featured the introduction of a complete computer hardware—software system called the oN-Line System or more commonly, NLS. The 90-minute presentation essentially demonstrated almost all the fundamental elements of modern personal computing: multiple windows, hypertext, graphics, efficient navigation and command input, video conferencing, the computer mouse, word processing, dynamic file linking, revision control, and a collaborative real-time editor (collaborative work). Engelbart's presentation was the first to publicly demonstrate all these elements in a single system. The demonstration was highly influential and spawned similar projects at Xerox PARC in the early 1970s. The underlying technologies influenced both the Apple Macintosh and Microsoft Windows graphical user interface operating systems in the 1980s and 1990s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_of_All_Demos
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Marc Weber, Web historian and founding curator of the CHM's Internet History Program, said: "When it comes to the kind of knowledge navigation and collaboration tools that were the heart of Engelbart's system, we've climbed only the first rung of the ladder. The same is true when it comes to the daunting goal that drove him to build all of his technology -- to augment human intellect so that we might better address the world's big problems."
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It was said that Engelbart’s great insight was making computers interactive and easier to use. That in turn would result in a "flowering of humanity." He foresaw computer technologies as augmenting people’s abilities and intellect rather than replacing them. Many speakers acclaimed Doug as a visionary, but did not articulate his accomplishments or what his vision actually was. For that reason, the talks didn't live up to the expectations of many in the audience, including this author. The SRI Augmentation Research Center was frequently mentioned by speakers, but it's mission, funding, or accomplishments were not described.
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From Wikipedia:
Under Engelbart's guidance, the Augmentation Research Center developed, with funding primarily from DARPA, the NLS to demonstrate numerous technologies, most of which are in modern widespread use; this included the computer mouse, bitmapped screens, hypertext; all of which were displayed at The Mother of All Demos in 1968. The lab was transferred from SRI to Tymshare in the late 1970s, which was acquired by McDonnell Douglas in 1984, and NLS was renamed Augment. At both Tymshare and McDonnell Douglas, Engelbart was limited by a lack of interest in his ideas and funding to pursue them, and retired in 1986.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Engelbart
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John Markoff wrote in the December 16, 2013 NY Times:
"During the 1960s in Menlo Park, Calif., at the Stanford Research Institute, Dr. Engelbart created a research group to design what he described as the oN Line System, or N.L.S. It was intended to augment small groups of knowledge workers. Along the way, he pioneered computer interfaces by inventing the computer mouse, hypertext and many of the other components of modern computing."
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/16/an-homage-to-douglas-engelbart-and-a-critique-of-the-state-of-tech/?_r=0
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Comments on the event:
Here's an anonymous comment, received via email, from someone who knew and worked with Englebart that flew from out of state to attend this event:
"I enjoyed being at the Englebart event, but was disappointed that some of the speakers didn't look towards the future and speculate what might lay ahead based upon Doug's work. I would have also liked to hear from some people who worked on the social side of what Doug had envisioned."
CHM Chairman of the Board Len Shustek wrote in an email: "I thought the evening was terrific. It really gave a sense of the man, and of the disappointment that he couldn't make more progress on his agenda."
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Doug Englebart was elected as a CHM Fellow in 2005: "For advancing the study of human-computer interaction, developing the mouse input device, and for the application of computers to improving organizational efficiency."
Doug's bio is at: http://www.computerhistory.org/fellowawards/hall/bios/Douglas,Engelbart/
Guide to the SRI ARC/NIC records is at: http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/FindingAids/102706170-SRI.pdf
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