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Mother of All Demos (1968)

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Re: Mother of All Demos (1968)

#11

Post by jacquesm »

ux266478 wrote: post #2

People talk about Apple stealing from Xerox, but what you may not know is that Douglas Engelbart's team at SRI left shortly after this demo and took everything to Xerox without him. The man spent the rest of his career being swept into gutters, never got any recognition until the early 2000s at the very end of his life. It's a really tragic tale.

That's factually incorrect. Engelbart was recognized as the man that started it all by plenty of people in the industry, to the point the Logitech (a Swiss company, go figure) allocated him a an office for his Bootstrap Institute just because they thought it was the right thing to do.

https://www.technologyreview.com/2013/07/23/177246/douglas-e...

Anybody in the industry knows who Engelbart is and his name recognition is close to 100% in the circles where it matters. Between him and my late friend at Logitech they changed the world of personal computing.

But neither Engelbart or my friend were much on the 'cult of personality' and that is one reason their names are not 'household names' but Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are. I think that makes them nicer people, for not seeking that.

Re: Mother of All Demos (1968)

#13

Post by tolerance »

I wish that this wasn’t a LLM-generated summary of a YouTube video.

I wish that this was a personal website and the content was handwritten. That the voice and insight was yours. Reading LLM-generated prose is like reading an obituary.

The name appropriately describes the content. The font weight for the table of contents doesn’t appear to sufficiently increase to indicate the user’s place on the page.

Re: Mother of All Demos (1968)

#14

Post by thekuanysh »

tolerance wrote: post #13

I wish that this wasn’t a LLM-generated summary of a YouTube video. I wish that this was a personal website and the content was handwritten. That the voice and insight was yours . Reading LLM-generated prose is like reading an obituary. The name appropriately describes the content. The font weight for the table of contents doesn’t appear to sufficiently increase to indicate the user’s place on the page.

All important points, thanks for the feedback!

I'll update UI for the table of contents in a moment.

As for LLMs, my vision for Wordspike’s not to replace human voice, but to act as a filter. It's an add-on to see what video content is valuable to watch in full. It's my attempt to built a counter-weight to the endless amount of shorts and slop I see online.

Re: Mother of All Demos (1968)

#15

Post by ux266478 »

jacquesm wrote: post #11
ux266478 wrote: post #2

People talk about Apple stealing from Xerox, but what you may not know is that Douglas Engelbart's team at SRI left shortly after this demo and took everything to Xerox without him. The man spent the rest of his career being swept into gutters, never got any recognition until the early 2000s at the very end of his life. It's a really tragic tale.

That's factually incorrect. Engelbart was recognized as the man that started it all by plenty of people in the industry, to the point the Logitech (a Swiss company, go figure) allocated him a an office for his Bootstrap Institute just because they thought it was the right thing to do. https://www.technologyreview.com/2013/07/23/177246/douglas-e... Anybody in the industry knows who Engelbart is and his name recognitio…

Interesting, that much isn't common knowledge. I was only aware of the struggles he had at Time Share and later obscure research foundations. It's good to know his name mattered in important places, that kind of stuff often doesn't filter down to us on the outside.

Re: Mother of All Demos (1968)

#16

Post by thekuanysh »

tolerance wrote: post #13

I wish that this wasn’t a LLM-generated summary of a YouTube video. I wish that this was a personal website and the content was handwritten. That the voice and insight was yours . Reading LLM-generated prose is like reading an obituary. The name appropriately describes the content. The font weight for the table of contents doesn’t appear to sufficiently increase to indicate the user’s place on the page.

The UI for table of contents has been updated. Should be much more indicative of the current place on the page. Thanks again!

Re: Mother of All Demos (1968)

#19

Post by VonGuard »

ux266478 wrote: post #2

People talk about Apple stealing from Xerox, but what you may not know is that Douglas Engelbart's team at SRI left shortly after this demo and took everything to Xerox without him. The man spent the rest of his career being swept into gutters, never got any recognition until the early 2000s at the very end of his life. It's a really tragic tale.

Well, sort of. I mean, yeah he deserved to be praised, but the reason half the SRI staff left to go to Xerox is that Engelbart and his people were becoming obsessed with EST training. EST is basically a cult that starves you, insults you until you cry, then builds you back up with compliments while asking you to pay up front for the next sucker in your family to take the "training." It's about as close as you can get to a cult while still being a business. Engelbart and his closest people were basically forcing SRI workers to take EST training, and they did't like it so they left.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erhard_Seminars_Training

Re: Mother of All Demos (1968)

#20

Post by vidarh »

jacquesm wrote: post #11
ux266478 wrote: post #2

People talk about Apple stealing from Xerox, but what you may not know is that Douglas Engelbart's team at SRI left shortly after this demo and took everything to Xerox without him. The man spent the rest of his career being swept into gutters, never got any recognition until the early 2000s at the very end of his life. It's a really tragic tale.

That's factually incorrect. Engelbart was recognized as the man that started it all by plenty of people in the industry, to the point the Logitech (a Swiss company, go figure) allocated him a an office for his Bootstrap Institute just because they thought it was the right thing to do. https://www.technologyreview.com/2013/07/23/177246/douglas-e... Anybody in the industry knows who Engelbart is and his name recognitio…

I think it's reasonable to think that he deserved more recognition.

But I also recall attending a Techcrunch party at Mike Arringtons house in 2006/7 or so that Engelbart showed up at briefly, and how fun it was to see him instantly surrounded like a celebrity, so I think you're righ he was recognised in the circles where it mattered.

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