Doug Engelbart has died(ietf.org)
ietf.org
Doug Engelbart has died
http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg80472.html
98 comments
Excellent, thanks for posting. I shall use this tomorrow with students
Treasure that forever! And let it be a lesson in humility for us all.
I think that what most inspires me about Dr. Engelbart was not so much the physical manifestations of his work, although these were incredible, decades ahead of their time, and in some ways still not matched, but rather the philosophy that he used to guide his work.
It was his goal of greatly increasing the abilities of an individual human, as well as increasing the ability of groups of people to work together towards a goal that will remain timeless and inspirational long after everything he created has entered the realm of the pedestrian.
Ultimately, most of the problems we face on the planet are of human origin, and even for those that aren't the solution will need to be created by us as well. As a meta-machine, a machine that can embody and or imitate almost all other mediums, the computer offers a unique opportunity to augment and enhance the reach of humanity.
As the last few weeks have shown us, this reach can be extended in a negative fashion, and can be used to complicate the problems we already face.
But Doug Engelbart saw the other side of the coin, that the computer can be used to free and uplift us, and help us come together like never before. He saw this earlier than most and he pursued it further than most. And so we can follow along in his wake and add our efforts to his, and to the greater goal of extending humanity in a positive direction.
I'll finish by encouraging everyone reading this to take a few minutes now, and perhaps every few days from here on out to think about what efforts we can each make towards furthering Dr. Engelbart's ultimate goals. Not in the spirit of guilt or of shame, but instead as an inspiration. If one man, guided by a vision of using the computer to positively affect the course of human development, can accomplish this much in a few decades, how much further could we get with each of us working as well? I hope to do what I can, and I thank Douglas Engelbart for his efforts to help guide my way.
It was his goal of greatly increasing the abilities of an individual human, as well as increasing the ability of groups of people to work together towards a goal that will remain timeless and inspirational long after everything he created has entered the realm of the pedestrian.
Ultimately, most of the problems we face on the planet are of human origin, and even for those that aren't the solution will need to be created by us as well. As a meta-machine, a machine that can embody and or imitate almost all other mediums, the computer offers a unique opportunity to augment and enhance the reach of humanity.
As the last few weeks have shown us, this reach can be extended in a negative fashion, and can be used to complicate the problems we already face.
But Doug Engelbart saw the other side of the coin, that the computer can be used to free and uplift us, and help us come together like never before. He saw this earlier than most and he pursued it further than most. And so we can follow along in his wake and add our efforts to his, and to the greater goal of extending humanity in a positive direction.
I'll finish by encouraging everyone reading this to take a few minutes now, and perhaps every few days from here on out to think about what efforts we can each make towards furthering Dr. Engelbart's ultimate goals. Not in the spirit of guilt or of shame, but instead as an inspiration. If one man, guided by a vision of using the computer to positively affect the course of human development, can accomplish this much in a few decades, how much further could we get with each of us working as well? I hope to do what I can, and I thank Douglas Engelbart for his efforts to help guide my way.
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 user below posted this archive.org link which is better. Thanks, mxfh!
Edit: link had been to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJDv-zdhzMY but a user below posted this archive.org link which is better. Thanks, mxfh!
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 here knows where to find it; please let me know.
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 here knows where to find it; please let me know.
>>>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 and their amazing contributions.
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 and their amazing contributions.
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.
See Max Jammer's Conceptual Development of Quantum Mechanics as a model. He was interviewing the Old Ones before they passed on.
It would be amazing if someone could do more historical documentary type work on early pioneers in computing. I've learned a ton about Doug Englebart since seeing this post about his passing, and I now regret not having studied his work more closely earlier. It also reminds me that there are many others who probably had / have insightful things to say that could be lost to the sands of time. Ted Nelson seems like an obvious candidate, but who wouldn't want to learn more about people like:
Herbert Simon[1]
Norbert Weiner[2]
Marvin Minsky[3]
Richard Greenblatt[4]
Bill Gosper[5]
John McCarthy[6]
Barbara Liskov[7]
J.C.R. Licklider[8]
Edit: and, of course, we can't neglect Vannevar Bush[9] or Claude Shannon[10] either.
etc...
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_A._Simon
[2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norbert_Wiener
[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvin_Minsky
[4]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Greenblatt_(programmer)
[5]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gosper
[6]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McCarthy_%28computer_scien...
[7]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Liskov
[8]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.C.R._Licklider
[9]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vannevar_Bush
[10]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Shannon
Herbert Simon[1]
Norbert Weiner[2]
Marvin Minsky[3]
Richard Greenblatt[4]
Bill Gosper[5]
John McCarthy[6]
Barbara Liskov[7]
J.C.R. Licklider[8]
Edit: and, of course, we can't neglect Vannevar Bush[9] or Claude Shannon[10] either.
etc...
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_A._Simon
[2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norbert_Wiener
[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvin_Minsky
[4]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Greenblatt_(programmer)
[5]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gosper
[6]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McCarthy_%28computer_scien...
[7]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Liskov
[8]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.C.R._Licklider
[9]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vannevar_Bush
[10]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Shannon
This is such a great list, I just started frantically jotting some of these names down so I can start digging into their work.
Is there any particular order I should tackle these?
Is there any particular order I should tackle these?
I don't know about order... they've all done some amazing stuff. FWIW, there's some interesting historical / biographical information on some of these folks in two books, both by Steven Levy:
Artificial Life
and
Hackers: Heroes Of The Computer Revolution
That said, the stuff Claude Shannon did basically established the field of Information Theory[1], which underpins huge swathes of our modern digital world. You could do worse than reading up on him.
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_theory
Artificial Life
and
Hackers: Heroes Of The Computer Revolution
That said, the stuff Claude Shannon did basically established the field of Information Theory[1], which underpins huge swathes of our modern digital world. You could do worse than reading up on him.
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_theory
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've read several accounts of this presentation ( one is in _What the Dormouse Said_ ), but don't recall an explanation.
The account in What the Dormouse Said says the sound was intentional audio feedback:
"Engelbart referred to the on-screen cursor as a "bug" or a "tracking spot," and there were occasionally odd buzzing sounds in the background as he executed commands at the keyboard. The group had been experimenting with using the computer to generate different tones depending upon what was being executed, as a way of creating auditory feedback."
Looks like a pretty uniform buzz, too
http://i.imgur.com/BbaGsCu.png
"Engelbart referred to the on-screen cursor as a "bug" or a "tracking spot," and there were occasionally odd buzzing sounds in the background as he executed commands at the keyboard. The group had been experimenting with using the computer to generate different tones depending upon what was being executed, as a way of creating auditory feedback."
Looks like a pretty uniform buzz, too
http://i.imgur.com/BbaGsCu.png
It's not intended. It's clock and/or data-signals that leaks and has gotten amplified, if you look at it in an oscillator you will probably see a square or sawtooth wave at around 1KHz. You might even be able to read that data...
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?
Thank you for posting, this version is much higher quality than the other youtube links.
The version hosted on archive.org seems to have even less compression artifacts.
http://archive.org/details/XD300-23_68HighlightsAResearchCnt...
http://archive.org/details/XD300-23_68HighlightsAResearchCnt...
WOW! How have I never seen this before? 1968??? That is amazing. I'll have to come back and watch the entire video later this evening when I have the time.
I will say though that taking a look at it for just a few minutes is incredibly inspiring. It's a reminder that with enough passion and determination to push the boundaries of current technologies, anyone can become an innovator who sets in motion a wave of changes that effects the lives of everyone on this planet.
I will say though that taking a look at it for just a few minutes is incredibly inspiring. It's a reminder that with enough passion and determination to push the boundaries of current technologies, anyone can become an innovator who sets in motion a wave of changes that effects the lives of everyone on this planet.
No offense, but that metaphor is still an euphemism.
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 programmers rejected in favor of the personal computer. The conflict was both technical and social: the younger programmers came from an era where centralized power was highly suspect, and personal computing was just barely on the horizon." ( Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Engelbart )
He didn't predict the cloud, he basically predicted that the way things were then (timeshared system with dumb terminals) was the way it was always going to be. So he wasn't predicting anything, it was already there. You might be able to say that he predicted it would grow to have terminals everywhere but that is more just looking at normal growth if you assumed the current way of doing things is the way it would always be done.
We're not catching up, we're going back to it. Just this time we have dumb terminals just as powerful as the server that is doing things but relegated to doing nothing but displaying markup. It wouldn't surprise me if cost of the terminal compared to the cost of a central server at the time factored into his views.
The man was amazing, it is not often that one man can make such a impact on the everyday lives of so many, but in this case he missed where computing was going. Oddly, his creation of the mouse made personal computers more accessible to everyone.
We're not catching up, we're going back to it. Just this time we have dumb terminals just as powerful as the server that is doing things but relegated to doing nothing but displaying markup. It wouldn't surprise me if cost of the terminal compared to the cost of a central server at the time factored into his views.
The man was amazing, it is not often that one man can make such a impact on the everyday lives of so many, but in this case he missed where computing was going. Oddly, his creation of the mouse made personal computers more accessible to everyone.
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.
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.
I meant the part about centralized power being highly suspect. We have certainly seen all too well recently that that part is true.
True enough. I guess every generation needs their reminder.
Still, the meta-point holds: centralized power lacks robustness (e.g. to corruption and/or the stupidity of a relative few), but has big advantages over widely distributed systems in terms of communication latency and bandwidth that enable efficiency. We're sloshing around dynamically trying combinations, but we should expect to always see some centralized (opportunities for efficiency) and some distributed (opportunities for robustness) stuff going on.
Still, the meta-point holds: centralized power lacks robustness (e.g. to corruption and/or the stupidity of a relative few), but has big advantages over widely distributed systems in terms of communication latency and bandwidth that enable efficiency. We're sloshing around dynamically trying combinations, but we should expect to always see some centralized (opportunities for efficiency) and some distributed (opportunities for robustness) stuff going on.
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.
No, I think he means the young programmers were right in their distrust, not in their prediction of what will win:
The conflict was both technical and social: the younger programmers came from an era where centralized power was highly suspect
The conflict was both technical and social: the younger programmers came from an era where centralized power was highly suspect
Hmm so a kind of liberal vs. socialist philosophy of technology. You just gave me a new perspective on things. Thanks!
I'd suggest checking out Wikipedia, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, and Encyclopedia Britannica on the term "communitarianism". It's far more relevant than applying the word "socialist" without meaning.
That depends what you put in that word. To me socialism is not a bad thing.
To me, socialism isn't meaningfully comparable to liberalism. It's apples and oranges.
Well then you need to change your perspective I guess. Of course it's comparable. They are both political systems.
Socialism isn't a political system. Neither, come to that, is liberalism. Socialism is an economic system. Liberalism is a political philosophy.
How about, instead of using labels like "liberal vs socialist" to express your point, you actually describe what you mean? Because you clearly haven't conveyed the contrast between Engelbart and the "younger programmers" that you wanted to.
How about, instead of using labels like "liberal vs socialist" to express your point, you actually describe what you mean? Because you clearly haven't conveyed the contrast between Engelbart and the "younger programmers" that you wanted to.
Socialism is as much a political philosophy and system as it is an economic system.
You seem to like Wikipedia, so I suggest you go read up on it.
And please read what was actually written.
I was not expressing a point I was thanking someone for giving me a new perspective on things.
Whether your understanding of the words socialism & liberalism allow you to understand that is really not of my concern.
You seem to like Wikipedia, so I suggest you go read up on it.
And please read what was actually written.
I was not expressing a point I was thanking someone for giving me a new perspective on things.
Whether your understanding of the words socialism & liberalism allow you to understand that is really not of my concern.
Anyone who works in interactive computing should be familiar with Doug Engelbart's work.
Years ago, at one of the first conferences on interactive computer, after people spent all day presenting their new work, Andy van Dam--builder of the first hypertext system with Ted Nelson who named it--stood up and said "you should all be ashamed that you don't know your history. Doug Engelbart invented almost everything presented here years ago." And he was right.
I hope a lot of you are watching The Mother of All Demos http://archive.org/details/XD300-23_68HighlightsAResearchCnt.... But it's worth reading and understanding the reasons why Doug was working on all of this.
Doug and his crew at SRI had the goal of "human augmentation". Everyone else at the forefront of the computer industry thought we'd have general AI by the 1970s. They instead believed that GAI wasn't within reach. They believed that the things we wanted to build and accomplish as a society weren't doable with the communication tools we had.
They had the idea that computers could be tools to help individuals work. Since computers were multi-million dollar calculating machines, the idea that people would have a computer at their desk and that they'd help us to communicate and manage information was beyond-out-there.
http://www.dougengelbart.org/pubs/augment-3906.html
But after leaving Engelbart's group at SRI, lots of his team joined PARC and built the modern GUI and networking.
For a history of the details, I highly recommend reading Markoff's What the Dormouse Said http://www.amazon.com/What-Dormouse-Said-Counterculture-Pers...
[Bonus: If you like Engelbart's MOAD, also watch Ivan Sutherland's Sketchpad Demo.]
I only tend to comment about once-a-year on HN, but it would be impossible not to say something about Doug and the impact he's had on our world.
Edit: Sutherland's Sketchpad http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USyoT_Ha_bA
Years ago, at one of the first conferences on interactive computer, after people spent all day presenting their new work, Andy van Dam--builder of the first hypertext system with Ted Nelson who named it--stood up and said "you should all be ashamed that you don't know your history. Doug Engelbart invented almost everything presented here years ago." And he was right.
I hope a lot of you are watching The Mother of All Demos http://archive.org/details/XD300-23_68HighlightsAResearchCnt.... But it's worth reading and understanding the reasons why Doug was working on all of this.
Doug and his crew at SRI had the goal of "human augmentation". Everyone else at the forefront of the computer industry thought we'd have general AI by the 1970s. They instead believed that GAI wasn't within reach. They believed that the things we wanted to build and accomplish as a society weren't doable with the communication tools we had.
They had the idea that computers could be tools to help individuals work. Since computers were multi-million dollar calculating machines, the idea that people would have a computer at their desk and that they'd help us to communicate and manage information was beyond-out-there.
http://www.dougengelbart.org/pubs/augment-3906.html
But after leaving Engelbart's group at SRI, lots of his team joined PARC and built the modern GUI and networking.
For a history of the details, I highly recommend reading Markoff's What the Dormouse Said http://www.amazon.com/What-Dormouse-Said-Counterculture-Pers...
[Bonus: If you like Engelbart's MOAD, also watch Ivan Sutherland's Sketchpad Demo.]
I only tend to comment about once-a-year on HN, but it would be impossible not to say something about Doug and the impact he's had on our world.
Edit: Sutherland's Sketchpad http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USyoT_Ha_bA
Doug was the Albert Einstein of our field.
Oral history for people who want to learn more about him:
http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/hasrg/histsci/ssvoral/enge...
Oral history for people who want to learn more about him:
http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/hasrg/histsci/ssvoral/enge...
http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/hasrg/histsci/ssvoral/enge... (just the content framed in the bottom corner ;-)
Engelbart was perhaps the most important influence in realizing the computer as an interactive medium.
Around 1960, most were still thinking of the computer as a sophisticated calculator. You give it a problem, it spits out an answer. Even the idea of artificial intelligence was framed this way.
Engelbart realized the potential of the computer to augment human intelligence. High bandwidth, continuous interaction between human and computer allows the computer to be an extension of the mind. Chasing this vision led him and his team to naturally invent the mouse, bitmapped screens, hypertext, networked computers, etc.
IMO, more important than these individual inventions is Engelbart's foundational principle that technologies change what the mind is capable of thinking. And by augmenting our thinking, we enable ourselves to create new technologies. Mind and technology co-evolve. This is "bootstrapping" in the purest sense and the source of that profound feeling many of us have experienced while augmenting our minds through programming and other rich, creative interactions with computers.
Around 1960, most were still thinking of the computer as a sophisticated calculator. You give it a problem, it spits out an answer. Even the idea of artificial intelligence was framed this way.
Engelbart realized the potential of the computer to augment human intelligence. High bandwidth, continuous interaction between human and computer allows the computer to be an extension of the mind. Chasing this vision led him and his team to naturally invent the mouse, bitmapped screens, hypertext, networked computers, etc.
IMO, more important than these individual inventions is Engelbart's foundational principle that technologies change what the mind is capable of thinking. And by augmenting our thinking, we enable ourselves to create new technologies. Mind and technology co-evolve. This is "bootstrapping" in the purest sense and the source of that profound feeling many of us have experienced while augmenting our minds through programming and other rich, creative interactions with computers.
I believe a black bar at the top of Hacker News is in order.
The best recommendation in the thread.
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.
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.
I just read whatever I could about this, but do you have any further information? I'm fascinated.
All I've got is what I wrote, and what's on NDMA's site about it.
I wish I'd kept that floppy. It was a full working copy, and the printed instruction manual. I have no idea how I acquired it, at this late date.
Perhaps it was sitting around in the server 'room' where I was working: lots of engineers there (including my boss) and it seems like the kind of thing he'd have been interested in.
I wish I'd kept that floppy. It was a full working copy, and the printed instruction manual. I have no idea how I acquired it, at this late date.
Perhaps it was sitting around in the server 'room' where I was working: lots of engineers there (including my boss) and it seems like the kind of thing he'd have been interested in.
It sounds very interesting. I just emailed NDMA to see if I can somehow acquire a copy. I'd be more than happy to pay for it.
Big ideas definitely take time to catch on.
Big ideas definitely take time to catch on.
May I ask what search terms you used?
I tentatively thought it was "TheBrain", but that's a bit later, and I was working out if there's any link between Harlan Hugh and Engelbart.
I tentatively thought it was "TheBrain", but that's a bit later, and I was working out if there's any link between Harlan Hugh and Engelbart.
'engelbart inspired augment software' without quotes.
Which led me to the wiki page for NLS which contains the line ...
"The HyPerform program sold by NDMA Inc. is a descendant of NLS and Augment."
Which made my brain go 'that's it' and google confirmed it.
Which led me to the wiki page for NLS which contains the line ...
"The HyPerform program sold by NDMA Inc. is a descendant of NLS and Augment."
Which made my brain go 'that's it' and google confirmed it.
Looks like it's still available, on Windows for $149: http://ndma.com/resources/ndm8543.htm
> Besides the considerable technical contributions of Doug's project at SRI, theirs was a group that did much to create the open and collaborative tone of the Internet that we've come to consider as automatic and natural, but were unusual in those days.
Sadly, the open and collaborative tone of the Internet that we've come to consider as automatic and natural is becoming less and less automatic and natural as people put things in walled gardens using weird non-standard rapidly-changing protocols and close access to anyone not using The Official Client.
Sadly, the open and collaborative tone of the Internet that we've come to consider as automatic and natural is becoming less and less automatic and natural as people put things in walled gardens using weird non-standard rapidly-changing protocols and close access to anyone not using The Official Client.
For anyone who is not sure who he was check this out
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_of_All_Demos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfIgzSoTMOs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_of_All_Demos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfIgzSoTMOs
There was a book written on Engelbart's work and his philosophies which I enjoyed reading many years ago:
Bootstrapping: Douglas Engelbart, Coevolution, and the Origins of Personal Computing http://www.amazon.com/Bootstrapping-Engelbart-Coevolution-Pe...
Bootstrapping: Douglas Engelbart, Coevolution, and the Origins of Personal Computing http://www.amazon.com/Bootstrapping-Engelbart-Coevolution-Pe...
I think this is a better book on him. Less history, more ideas:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Engelbart-Hypothesis-dialogs-Dougl...
Can we get independent verification of this? I've looked at all of my usual primary sources and I can't find third party confirmation.
There's an email from Christina (his daughter) on classiccmp cctalk, so I'd be inclined to believe it.
(edited to add that Christina is his daughter, and if you can find a cctalk archive, or subscribe and just missed it, its dated 6:31 and AEK forwarded it onto the list this morning.)
(edited to add that Christina is his daughter, and if you can find a cctalk archive, or subscribe and just missed it, its dated 6:31 and AEK forwarded it onto the list this morning.)
The Wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Engelbart) has already been updated with this link:
http://gigaom.com/2013/07/03/doug-engelbart-american-invento...
http://gigaom.com/2013/07/03/doug-engelbart-american-invento...
I can't find anything either though at 88, it isn't too hard to believe.
There's this: https://twitter.com/hrheingold/status/352489027716386816
but I do not know how Rheingold get the news
but I do not know how Rheingold get the news
[deleted]
[deleted]
Do people not read the links they upmod?
This source doesn't state that he's died. This just seems to be completely unsubstantiated at this point, especially as there's no mention of this anywhere else.
This source doesn't state that he's died. This just seems to be completely unsubstantiated at this point, especially as there's no mention of this anywhere else.
When I posted this comment the link was to a completely unrelated page that made no mention of his death. As of right now the link has changed twice.
For whatever reason HN had a snafu and didn't delete it when I hit the delete button. Now the comment is completely incorrect, undeletable, and uncorrectable!
For whatever reason HN had a snafu and didn't delete it when I hit the delete button. Now the comment is completely incorrect, undeletable, and uncorrectable!
Link submitter here (first time, too): My apologies, I saw the news via the Computer History Museum's twitter feed ( https://twitter.com/ComputerHistory/status/35248540097302118... ) , and they linked to that page. I googled around for a better link but couldn't find anything, but felt it was worth mentioning as a story to allow for discussion?
It just seemed like an elaborate troll and an unsubstantiated rumor at first because that link didn't mention his death, and as you said, there was nothing else mentioned about his death anywhere!
Your link makes a lot more sense now, but I'm still confused why so many people upvoted it before it was corrected to a better link that corroborated the title!
> first time, too
Welcome! :-)
Your link makes a lot more sense now, but I'm still confused why so many people upvoted it before it was corrected to a better link that corroborated the title!
> first time, too
Welcome! :-)
Like others on here have posted. Doug's true worth was not in the innovations he procured or the things he built, but rather what he saw as the future of computing, humanity, and technology. The way he was able to reach into the future and pull out the best bits, and then execute was something that not many innovators can claim to. The ideas that were built at SRI are nothing short of legendary, and the core principles still carry on.
It may be a bit sad to think that so many don't know his name, blindly believing the mouse was invented by Xerox, that the Internet was invented by Tim-Berners Lee, but in the end, does it really matter? To Doug, all that mattered was being visionary and helping people. It would do good for all of us here at HN to follow his example. Humans only get one shot, and Dr. Doug Engelbart nailed it.
P.S., thanks PG for the black topbar. A fitting sign of respect for a very great man.
It may be a bit sad to think that so many don't know his name, blindly believing the mouse was invented by Xerox, that the Internet was invented by Tim-Berners Lee, but in the end, does it really matter? To Doug, all that mattered was being visionary and helping people. It would do good for all of us here at HN to follow his example. Humans only get one shot, and Dr. Doug Engelbart nailed it.
P.S., thanks PG for the black topbar. A fitting sign of respect for a very great man.
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.
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.
He was one of the keynotes at a conference I attended out in the Valley in the early nineties. Tremendously inspiring guy and a much better speaker than a lot of tech people.
What I remember from that day was that he was very, very humble with a great sense of humor.
He was truly one of those Xerox Parc giants upon whose shoulders our entire industry rests upon.
What I remember from that day was that he was very, very humble with a great sense of humor.
He was truly one of those Xerox Parc giants upon whose shoulders our entire industry rests upon.
Don't think he was ever actually a member of PARC, although his ideas and collaborators certainly inhabited the place.
Doug Engelbart has been a huge inspiration to me even though I never met him. I'm amazed at how much his group at SRI was able to accomplish. I think his vision - augmenting human intellect to help solve the world's complex problems - is still a vision worth sharing. Doug did help change the world, and I'll remember him for it.
From the Isaacson bio of Steve Jobs:
>>>Two other occasional visitors were high school students Steven Jobs and Stephen Wozniak, who hung out at SAIL [Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory], with an older friend, Allen Baum, who was working at the laboratory during the fall of 1970. Jobs later said that the “vibrations” he felt at SAIL would stay with him his entire life. The bewitched Wozniak rode his bike up to the laboratory from his home in Los Altos, and he later said that his experiences there contributed to his hunger for his own computer.
SAIL was one of the core places of the computing revolution, from which The Mother of All Demos by Doug Engelbart was spawned. That demo happened in 1968, when Jobs was twelve or thirteen, and influenced everything that came afterwards in computing.
>>>Two other occasional visitors were high school students Steven Jobs and Stephen Wozniak, who hung out at SAIL [Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory], with an older friend, Allen Baum, who was working at the laboratory during the fall of 1970. Jobs later said that the “vibrations” he felt at SAIL would stay with him his entire life. The bewitched Wozniak rode his bike up to the laboratory from his home in Los Altos, and he later said that his experiences there contributed to his hunger for his own computer.
SAIL was one of the core places of the computing revolution, from which The Mother of All Demos by Doug Engelbart was spawned. That demo happened in 1968, when Jobs was twelve or thirteen, and influenced everything that came afterwards in computing.
Doug - The energy and light of your vision and inspiration still burns bright, still ignites, still guides...
http://Collaborapologist.com/ http://CommunityOfImpact.info
Thanks, Doug
A friend - Sam
http://Collaborapologist.com/ http://CommunityOfImpact.info
Thanks, Doug
A friend - Sam
Nothing sad about well liked person, who accomplished a lot, dying at age 88. He won. RIP Doug Engelbart.
I had the chance to meet Doug as a student a couple of times. He showed me and my friend the NLS system and thought us basic typing on the chord keyboard. He was the grandpa I never had who's wisdom extends to the technology of the future. I hold him in very fond memories.
Engelbart not only had amazing vision, he had the ability to turn it into working demos. And he was able to inspire others (at PARC most notably) to work in the same way. His mouse is now everywhere of course, but his more important ideas, eg for tools to support collaborative thinking, still remain to be realized.
The history of Engelbart's approach to HCI (Augmentation of the Intellect, or IA) and its more-or-less friendly rivalry with AI is quite interesting. AI got more of the research money back in the day, but IA seems to have been more generally successful, although not under that rubric. And nowadays, the borders between them are blurring as humans and computation get more closely connected.
The history of Engelbart's approach to HCI (Augmentation of the Intellect, or IA) and its more-or-less friendly rivalry with AI is quite interesting. AI got more of the research money back in the day, but IA seems to have been more generally successful, although not under that rubric. And nowadays, the borders between them are blurring as humans and computation get more closely connected.
It's amazing that he was working on augmentation already in 1962.
Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework
http://www.dougengelbart.org/pubs/augment-3906.html
Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework
http://www.dougengelbart.org/pubs/augment-3906.html
Robert X. Cringely's NerdTV Interview... amazing stuff
http://archive.org/details/nerdtv011
Sad to hear he is gone. I got to talk him at one of the Computer History Fellow awards ceremonies and was struck by how clearly he thought about things. He will be missed.
Obligatory link to 'The Mother of All Demos':
http://youtu.be/JfIgzSoTMOs
Better quality, full: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJDv-zdhzMY
Mother of All Demos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJDv-zdhzMY ... It is really amazing how he conceived all these in 1968 (45 years ago!). If you think about it, what we have today is just putting on a pretty UI on top of all these concepts. We hardly moved for those innovation breakthroughs that he demoed.
One thing that strikes me really odd from the demo of the mouse, is how nervous and worried he looks. I mean I can understand the concept of computers were so foreign until people got use to it. I think he was really intimidated by the culture of people being close minded to things they don't understand.(I thing progress was more of a liability.)
To my embarrassment, I didn't really know much about Doug Engelbart until Brett Victor brought him up in one of his excellent talks (Inventing on Principle). I quite like his eulogy: http://worrydream.com/Engelbart/
Without Douglas Engelbart, none of the personal computing tech we have today would have been even this remotely far ahead. He was the first person to believe in the Personal Computer.
He got to pass on after seeing his vision come to life. It must have been an amazing experience for him.
He got to pass on after seeing his vision come to life. It must have been an amazing experience for him.
He lived a life worth living and died accomplishing so much, this should be a motivation to us all to pursue our dreams and goals and make the most of it because this just proves how short life is no matter how great you are, death is the destination we all share.
If you are an IxD or UX guy, you really owe it to yourself to read "Designing interactions" by Bill Moggridge. In it, Doug Engelbart is interviewed for an entire chapter regarding how he and some other guys designed the mouse. Very interesting stuff.
From Wikipedia article: "...after 1976 ... Engelbart saw the future in collaborative, networked, timeshare (client-server) computers, which younger programmers rejected in favor of the personal computer."
Go figure! A true visionary... He will be missed for sure.
Go figure! A true visionary... He will be missed for sure.
[deleted]
Black bar ?
Waiting for Google to have a doodle about him tomorrow.
What a remarkable life!
R.I.P. Mr. Engelbart.
Click.
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."