http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJDv-zdhzMY As Cory posted, computing pioneer Douglas Engelbart died last night. Please watch this 1968 video of “The Mother of All Demos” in his honor. READ THE REST
wow. he and his team built computers the way they wanted them in '68. they used closed circuit tv and microphones instead of the internet to present, but they set up and used them the way we use our networks. we got what they had several decades later. I never knew. astounding!
Yeah, this demo basically formed the basis for so much of modern computing. It’s something I still go back to every now and again.
This demo is a shining counterexample against the ‘wrongful predictions of future tech,’ most likely because these were the inventions that made ‘future’ tech modern. The only thing that isn’t really used today is the Chorded Keyset, and that still is so cool and seems so reasonable. I mean, to properly use a Keyboard and Mouse you need three hands! Using the Chorded Keys means you can type and use a mouse at the same time!
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As a Software Engineer, I dedicate this, the first of many cups of coffee that will fuel me through the day, to Doug and reach for the device which he was instrumental in bringing into the world…
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The thing that struck me was that having managed to get remote operation, a mouse, shared text editing etc - they didn’t have lower case characters; seems an odd ommission (and they had variable size fonts, and they seem to be using an overbar to represent capitals, so the data was there); odd.
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