Remarkable People

The 'mother of all demos' debuted the computer mouse, hyperlinks, and more

The 'mother of all demos' debuted the computer mouse, hyperlinks, and more
The first computer mouse was made of wood and featured two wheels to control X and Y movement (Image: SRI International)
The first computer mouse was made of wood and featured two wheels to control X and Y movement (Image: SRI International)
View 11 Images
The NLS shown in its Herman Miller designed office environment (Image: SRI International)
1/11
The NLS shown in its Herman Miller designed office environment (Image: SRI International)
The first mouse, part of the NLS interface (Image: SRI International)
2/11
The first mouse, part of the NLS interface (Image: SRI International)
The first computer mouse was made of wood and featured two wheels to control X and Y movement (Image: SRI International)
3/11
The first computer mouse was made of wood and featured two wheels to control X and Y movement (Image: SRI International)
Dr. Douglas Engelbart on screen as part of the 1968 demo (Image: SRI International)
4/11
Dr. Douglas Engelbart on screen as part of the 1968 demo (Image: SRI International)
The ARC NLS demo included live video links and multi-window displays (Image: SRI International)
5/11
The ARC NLS demo included live video links and multi-window displays (Image: SRI International)
The NLS featured Herman-Miller-designed consoles and office environment (Image: SRI International)
6/11
The NLS featured Herman-Miller-designed consoles and office environment (Image: SRI International)
The NLS keyboard console shown in split-screen with the video display (Image: SRI International)
7/11
The NLS keyboard console shown in split-screen with the video display (Image: SRI International)
The NLS keyboard console with the chord set on the left and the mouse on the right (Image: SRI International)
8/11
The NLS keyboard console with the chord set on the left and the mouse on the right (Image: SRI International)
The ARC team rehearsing for the 1968 demo (Image: SRI International)
9/11
The ARC team rehearsing for the 1968 demo (Image: SRI International)
The ARC team in Menlo Park preparing for the demo (Image: SRI International)
10/11
The ARC team in Menlo Park preparing for the demo (Image: SRI International)
Douglas Engelbart during "The Mother of All Demos" in 1968. This was the world's first sighting of the computer mouse, which was one of the approximately 25 believed to have survived of the first prototype. (Image: SRI International)
11/11
Douglas Engelbart during "The Mother of All Demos" in 1968. This was the world's first sighting of the computer mouse, which was one of the approximately 25 believed to have survived of the first prototype. (Image: SRI International)
View gallery - 11 images

Dr. Douglas Engelbart is perhaps best known as the inventor of the computer mouse, but when he unveiled that device at a computer conference in 1968 he also introduced additional technology that would profoundly affect computer-human interaction as much as the mouse has. During the "mother of all demos" at the Fall Joint Computer Conference held at the Convention Center in San Francisco, Engelbart and his team of researchers from the Augmentation Research Center at Stanford Research Institute gave a live demonstration of hyperlinks, remote collaboration software, on-screen windows, and even video conferencing.

The ARC NLS demo included live video links and multi-window displays (Image: SRI International)
The ARC NLS demo included live video links and multi-window displays (Image: SRI International)

In the 1950s and 1960s there was no such thing as a "personal computer", let alone a computer "mouse". In fact popular sentiment often leaned toward the view that computers would replace humans. Inspired by a book by Vannevar Bush called As We May Think, Engelbart wanted to find a way for computers to augment humans, not replace them. At the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) in California, Englebart founded the Augmentation Research Center (ARC) based on the philosophy of "augmentation not automation".

The system Engelbart developed with the team at ARC was called the NLS (which somewhat oddly stood for "oNLine System" -- so perhaps Englebart was also a pioneer of the lower-case first-letter approach to naming products). The NLS equipment included the first computer mouse, a monitor, a keyboard, and a five-keyed "chord set" that could be used with one hand to execute commands. The NLS consoles and office environment were designed by furniture innovator Herman Miller.

The NLS keyboard console with the chord set on the left and the mouse on the right (Image: SRI International)
The NLS keyboard console with the chord set on the left and the mouse on the right (Image: SRI International)

For the conference demo in San Francisco, the ARC team connected Engelbart's NLS terminal on the stage to the SDS-940 computer located at ARC in Menlo Park. A video projector enabled the 1000 people in the audience to see what was on Engelbart's screen and to watch him use the mouse and chord set. ARC team members were able to virtually join the demo from Menlo Park by using video and audio as well. Because the demo occurred before the Internet, and even before ARPANet, the lab and conference hall were connected using leased phone lines.

Douglas Engelbart during "The Mother of All Demos" in 1968. This was the world's first sighting of the computer mouse, which was one of the approximately 25 believed to have survived of the first prototype. (Image: SRI International)
Douglas Engelbart during "The Mother of All Demos" in 1968. This was the world's first sighting of the computer mouse, which was one of the approximately 25 believed to have survived of the first prototype. (Image: SRI International)

And so on December 9, 1968, Engelbart and his team gave a 90-minute live presentation of NLS. The system, which they had been working on since 1962, featured many computer firsts that we now take for granted: hyperlinks in text and graphics, dynamically linked files, object addressing, multi-user collaboration, and windowed screen displays. Of course the computer mouse, which Engelbart invented with ARC colleague Bill English, has become nearly ubiquitous now.

"Many of those firsts came right out of the staff's innovations," Engelbart would later say. "[They] even had to be explained to me before I could understand them."

The ARC team in Menlo Park preparing for the demo (Image: SRI International)
The ARC team in Menlo Park preparing for the demo (Image: SRI International)

Although many of the innovations have become standard in today's computers, the NLS was complex and meant for expert users. It was not a "personal" computing experience. Engelbart saw the NLS as a system for helping experts work with complicated information structures that were too complex to investigate using linear text.

"We didn't realize at the time that even a decade later it would still have been something fairly unique, and I was very disappointed in the months that followed [the demo]," recalled Engelbart in an interview years later. "I just thought that lots of people would start doing similar work because they would see that, 'boy! this is the way things are going to go!' And they didn't."

Of course, the technology and concepts that Engelbart pioneered at ARC eventually did catch on to such an extent that in 2000, Engelbart was honored with the National Medal of Technology by President Bill Clinton. The medal is the United States' highest technology honor, and recognizes innovators who have made a lasting contribution.

The NLS demo at the Joint Computer Conference was recorded, and the original 90-minute video of the event is part of the Engelbart Collection at Stanford University. The full-length video is also available edited into 35 video clips which can be seen on Stanford's Mouse Site. Here are just a couple.

Part 1 of 10: Engelbart and the Dawn of Interactive Computing: SRI's 1968 Demo (Highlights)

Part 4 of 10: Engelbart and the Dawn of Interactive Computing: SRI's 1968 Demo (Highlights)

View gallery - 11 images
6 comments
6 comments
gafisher
Engelbart was decades ahead of his time, a visionary who, unlike most of his predecessors, actually saw many of his ideas implemented during his lifetime. One of the ideas which appeared in the NLS \"MOAD\" but haven\'t caught on yet and still seem promising is the knee-brace pointing device [http://dougengelbart.org/images/pix/img0025.jpg] which, at least in theory, facilitates moving about in a document while keeping both hands on the keyboard. A second, with even more potential, is the one-handed chording keyboard [http://dougengelbart.org/images/pix/img0002.jpg], variations of which could be extremely useful on portable devices such as phones.
Terotech
I heard that the mouse was developed/invented by Xerox, did Mr. Engelbart work for them?
Alan Brandon
Engelbart developed the wheeled mouse with Bill English while at ARC. English later went to Xerox PARC, where he developed the ball mouse.
Facebook User
There are several chording keyboards available, and some no longer available, with differing numbers of keys. IIRC the one with the fewest, but more than five, is the BAT keyboard. That one is available in left or right handed and recently had the case redesigned to be more curved instead of angular (much like the original Macintosh mouse) and available with USB connection.
Michael Mantion
I hate the mouse, I wish the pointer based interface was never invented.
grandee
I hate the mouse,... You hate the mouse because from NLS system only one part was realised - clicking with ONE finger. Plus DOUBLE CLICK was introduced in 80s, with result the index finger to make TREMENDOUS job every day. But there are devices, that help to work with BOTH PALMS, as ergoclick mouse (any), that can be considered as the only device on market, that close to NLS, but furthemore - no fingers are used. Search ERGOCLICK on Youtube to see how it works