On This Day: The Mother Of All Demos, When the World Met Interactive Computing
Posted by Martin_Connelly on Thursday, Dec 09, 2010
Above, a quick introduction to the demo. Watch the whole thing below.
It is easy to get swept up in full body user interaction (ala kinect hacking) – or water based touch screens – and it is always a joy to be on the cutting edge of technology and culture, but sometimes it behooves us to look back and pay homage to the inventions that brought us here.
And as Google’s new Demo Slam reminds us, every invention deserves a good demo.
Forty two years ago today, at the Fall Joint Computer Conference in San Francisco, Douglas Engelbart presented a working demonstration of the NLS , or the oN Line System, a computer funded by DARPA, NASA, and the U.S. Air Force and based on a time-sharing computer with an approximately 96 MB storage disk. Under the title, A research center for augmenting human intellect, it was the first comprehensive demonstration of an interactive computer for a world used to punch-card systems.
With his terminal projected onto a 22-foot-high screen with video insets, Englebart demonstrated hypertext, the computer mouse, raster-scan video monitors, information organized by relevance, screen windowing, presentation programs, and, mind bogglingly, video conferencing. (There is a complete list of “firsts” on Wikipedia.) Englebart’s work is credited as course charting and paradigm setting, all towards “boosting our ability to better address complex, urgent problems.” He and his team were addressing challenges other people hadn’t even thought of.
For its sheer technological spectacle, Englebart’s demo became legend in Silicon Valley. His terminal wasn’t just linked to a massive video projector loaned by NASA Ames but via leased telephone lines to ARC’s SDS 940 computer in Menlo Park, where his colleagues participated. The term “The Mother of All Demos” – a reference to “The Mother of All Battles,” a name used by Saddam Hussein to describe the 1991 Gulf War – it was first used by journalist Steven Levy in his 1994 book, Insanely Great: The Life and Times of Macintosh, the Computer That Changed Everything.
“… a calming voice from Mission Control as the truly final frontier whizzed before their eyes. It was the mother of all demos. Engelbart’s support staff was as elaborate as one would find at a modern Grateful Dead concert. …”
The Invisible Revolution is a great web documentary about Englebart and his work, and I’d highly recommend taking a look at it. Also of interest: his own site, The Englebart Institute.
Here’s the original flyer for the demo, and the first reel (watch reel 2 and reel 3 at the Internet Archive).
More History On Motherboard:
Read the essay that inspired the Internet, say hello to The Grandaddy Of Internet Routers, or how about The World’s First PC. Remember, Lincoln won the War With The South through judicious use of T-Mail, and, right, the World Wide Web still isn’t old enough to buy a beer in the United States.
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About the author
Martin Connelly is a freelance transmedia journalist based in St. John's, Newfoundland. He's worked across borders, both figurative and literal: as a newsroom editor for China Central Television In...
