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Doug Engelbart has died

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Re: Doug Engelbart has died

#41

Post by bentcorner »

oasisbob wrote: post #35
glhaynes wrote: post #10

If you've never watched the retrospectively-named "Mother of All Demos", it's an extraordinary document of current-day technology that was somehow done in 1968. There are parts that just seem "wrong" — as seemingly-anachronistic as if Don Draper used a PowerPoint. Yet, there it is. http://archive.org/details/XD300-23_68HighlightsAResearchCnt... Edit: link had been to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJDv-zdhzMY but a u…

In the demo video, there are some noises in the background, I'm assuming from his workstation -- rather pleasant and atmospheric. Anyone know what they are? Is it a transmission artifact? Feedback intended for the user (maybe related to the chorded keyboard)? I've read several accounts of this presentation ( one is in _What the Dormouse Said_ ), but don't recall an explanation.

I don't know, but as a guess it sounds like a transmission artifact from when his terminal redraws. Maybe some cross-talk between the terminal transmission line and the microphone feed?

Re: Doug Engelbart has died

#42

Post by robotresearcher »

Uhhrrr wrote: post #34
bretpiatt wrote: post #19

He predicted 'The Cloud' in 1976 and we're just catching up now, "Engelbart slipped into relative obscurity after 1976. Several of his researchers became alienated from him and left his organization for Xerox PARC, in part due to frustration, and in part due to differing views of the future of computing. Engelbart saw the future in collaborative, networked, timeshare (client-server) computers, which younger programme…

Heh - I think the younger programmers were right on that one.

They were both right. The web brought them together. We didn't have to choose after all.

I have a fabulously powerful personal workstation on my desk, a slimmer, more modest one in my bag, a thin client in my pocket, and a bunch of upstream data centers that provide amazing services.

Some people might hanker for a completely decentralized P2P model of the Internet, and BitTorrent shows this is still hugely relevant. But practical issues of bandwidth mean that there will always be a place for locality-exploiting concentrations of CPU and storage in data centres.

Re: Doug Engelbart has died

#43

Post by triplesec »

ThomPete wrote: post #22
bretpiatt wrote: post #19

He predicted 'The Cloud' in 1976 and we're just catching up now, "Engelbart slipped into relative obscurity after 1976. Several of his researchers became alienated from him and left his organization for Xerox PARC, in part due to frustration, and in part due to differing views of the future of computing. Engelbart saw the future in collaborative, networked, timeshare (client-server) computers, which younger programme…

Hmm so a kind of liberal vs. socialist philosophy of technology. You just gave me a new perspective on things. Thanks!

entirely not such a gross simplification

Re: Doug Engelbart has died

#44

Post by bdunbar »

A long time ago, 1995 or 1996, I fooled around with software that was written by one of Engelbart's team.

It promised to augment the person running the program, to do for their brain what word-processing did for text.

It was darn nifty, but a bit beyond me at the time. Couldn't get my boss interested, and I moved on.

Does anyone have a clue what that could have been called?

Edit: HyPerform, by N. Dean Meyer. I never thought I could google that, today of all days.

Re: Doug Engelbart has died

#45

Post by epo »

Uhhrrr wrote: post #34
bretpiatt wrote: post #19

He predicted 'The Cloud' in 1976 and we're just catching up now, "Engelbart slipped into relative obscurity after 1976. Several of his researchers became alienated from him and left his organization for Xerox PARC, in part due to frustration, and in part due to differing views of the future of computing. Engelbart saw the future in collaborative, networked, timeshare (client-server) computers, which younger programme…

Heh - I think the younger programmers were right on that one.

Not really, Facebook, Google, the cloud... All essentially mainframe-like services. Most people nowadays don't need their own computer they just need a simple display/interactive terminal, what did we use to call those? Oh yes, CRTs, iPad for you youngsters.

Re: Doug Engelbart has died

#47

Post by keithpeter »

bdcravens wrote: post #46

I hope this gets a few more articles: Doug Englebart is far more of an influence on modern computing than Steve Jobs ever was, even if he's less known.

In each field, there are the pioneers, then the entrepreneurs who make the market, then the commodity suppliers. In my opinion, you need all three to get where we are now, walking about with supercomputers in our pockets/handbags.

I'm planning to project the MOAD at College tomorrow. And trying to persuade digital galleries and hacker spaces to do likewise.

Moggridge's book on design Designing Interactions has a good section on Englebart and the activities of his students. Example: in this text box, I have a caret that fits in the space between the characters I am typing. I can insert text wherever I place that caret with my mouse.

Re: Doug Engelbart has died

#48

Post by SiVal »

Many years ago, before the creation of the Web, a small group of us used to meet at a little wooden church just off the Stanford campus to discuss a little-known idea called nanotechnology. Eric Drexler, Ralph Merkle, a couple of Stanford post-docs and a few others met just to talk.

At some point, Eric and his then-wife Christine decided that the message was getting out too slowly, so they created the Foresight Institute and had a conference. So few people showed up that we held it in the same little church. We thought, given the implications for such things as life extension, that it was pretty funny to have the speakers literally preaching from the pulpit with the listeners sitting in the church pews. Christine was in the church kitchen making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, which was the conference lunch banquet. A PBJ, a banana, and a napkin in a paper bag.

I picked up my brown bag and walked into the small inner courtyard to sit. An older gentleman on a bench beckoned to me to join him. We chatted about the amazing implications of nanotechnology to change everything about human life. I expressed amazement that so few seemed to care. He told me that big ideas could take a surprisingly long time to become part of real life, something he'd seen again and again.

I kept thinking that he looked familiar. I introduced myself. He stuck out his hand: "I'm Doug."

Re: Doug Engelbart has died

#49

Post by keithpeter »

at-fates-hands wrote: post #31
mtrimpe wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another one of his hidden gems is the video where he discussed how they created a virtual tele-conferencing room by moulding CRT screens in the shapes of the head of each participant and projected their face onto it. It's the perfect example of a practical solution Doug invented decades ago that still hasn't been matched by today's technology. P.S. I was never able to find the link after I saw it once, so if someone…

>>>It's the perfect example of a practical solution Doug invented decades ago that still hasn't been matched by today's technology. I just told one my co-workers about this and he nearly broke down crying. I asked him who he was and he went into the same example you gave. To say he was ahead of his time is an understatement. Always sad to lose such a visionary. I'm just learning about some of these incredible people…

What is needed is a history project.

See Max Jammer's Conceptual Development of Quantum Mechanics as a model. He was interviewing the Old Ones before they passed on.

Re: Doug Engelbart has died

#50

Post by endlessvoid94 »

bdunbar wrote: post #44

A long time ago, 1995 or 1996, I fooled around with software that was written by one of Engelbart's team. It promised to augment the person running the program, to do for their brain what word-processing did for text. It was darn nifty, but a bit beyond me at the time. Couldn't get my boss interested, and I moved on. Does anyone have a clue what that could have been called? Edit: HyPerform, by N. Dean Meyer. I never…

I just read whatever I could about this, but do you have any further information? I'm fascinated.
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