To Honor Doug Engelbart, Who Passed Away Last Night, Please Go Watch His 1968 Demo

from the innovation-at-work dept

Wed, Jul 3rd 2013 6:29pm — Mike Masnick

On the the 40th anniversary of Doug Engelbart's famous 1968 demo of a personal computer system, we urged everyone to find some time to watch the video of his demo. Now, with the news that Engelbart passed away last night in his sleep, at age 88, we'll once again suggest you find the 100 minutes necessary to rewatch the demo. This is the birth of modern personal computing on so many levels. Engelbart, and his staff at SRI, more or less invented the very concept of a personal computer, including the mouse, the graphical user interface, hyperlinks, and so much more that is now standard today. So many of those concepts are now ubiquitous, in part, because of Engelbart's brilliance, and his openness in sharing what he was working on and inspiring so many of those who came into contact with him over the years. Engelbart shared these concepts with the world, and the world took them and built so many useful things with them. The computing world we live in today would likely be very, very different if there had never been a Doug Engelbart.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: computers, doug engelbart, gui, hyperlinks, innovation, mouse

12 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

horse with no name, 3 Jul 2013 @ 6:46pm

The computing world we live in today would likely be very, very different if there had never been a Doug Engelbart.

Every so often, someone comes along that sees things very differently, and he is an innovator that moves us forward in a big way with huge steps.

There are very few true innovators, he was one of them, and will be missed.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Lance, 3 Jul 2013 @ 8:04pm

I had never watched this before today. Just some jaw-dropping stuff when you consider it was 1960-friggin-8. Text editing, hyperlinks, email, teleconferencing, shared desktop, forward and back (you know, like your browser). Oh, yeah: and he used a mouse.

The talk was given in San Francisco, but the computer he controlled was in Menlo Park.

To put how amazing that was in context: he was hoping that this experimental ARPANET would be running the next year with 12 computers and transmitting at 20kbps.

He was the Edison of the computer age.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Mike Linksvayer (profile), 3 Jul 2013 @ 9:49pm

condolences, but stay out of the Great Man gutter
The computing world we live in today would likely be very, very different if there had never been a Doug Engelbart.

Maybe very, very, considering the path dependency of computing development, in detail. But so what, would it have been very, very delayed or otherwise worse? I doubt it very much. Independent contemporaneous invention and all that.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
apauld (profile), 3 Jul 2013 @ 11:42pm

Had a really mega geek moment
In the final credits when he gives credit to the 'Herman Miller Research Company.' My house was built in 1956 and thus I've filled it with late '50s Herman Miller furniture, which is now considered the classic bachelor pad style of that time period.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 3 Jul 2013 @ 11:56pm

ffs im still wondering how ootb will go with this story, keeping me waiting...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Peter, 4 Jul 2013 @ 2:34am

Wonder if
I wonder if anyone else tried to patent the mouse...and if the patent office granted it
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Pragmatic, 4 Jul 2013 @ 3:29am

Re:
...except for the patent trolling. Edison is one of the reasons Hollywood came into existence. That's right, they ran to California to get away from Edison's lawyers.

We do owe Engelbart a debt, though. I wonder if Matthew "The Oatmeal" Inman will set up an Indiegogo fundraiser to set up a statue or something. I'd contribute.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
justok (profile), 4 Jul 2013 @ 5:07am

tl;dw
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Kristopher Barrilleaux, 4 Jul 2013 @ 9:41am

M i n d
B
L
O
W
N
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Vinnie, 4 Jul 2013 @ 12:56pm

Not his only innovation
I would say this is also the birth of the modern vague mission statement.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Marissa Webs, 4 Jul 2013 @ 11:00pm

Rest In Peace
The person who managed to change the future ans the way we interact today with our computer systems. RIP.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Nick (profile), 5 Jul 2013 @ 8:27am

Read this article for a good insight...
A short article about the meaning behind Englebart's ideas...he was much more than any product creation, but the most about fostering collective intelligence...how groups interact with each other to "improve how they improve". His contributions are still being studied to this day, and we can hope for a future where his ideas on constant improvement can be more fully realized.

http://worrydream.com/Engelbart/
[ link to this | view in thread ]