Doug Engelbart died on July 2, 2013. He is
probably best known, to the general public, as the
inventor of the computer mouse. But he was much
more than that…
"They called him
kooky, and laughed at him for doing weird
stuff."
If you're not familiar with it, The
Demo included demonstrations of "hypertext, object
addressing and dynamic file linking, as well as
shared-screen collaboration involving two persons
at different sites communicating over a network
with audio and video interface."
And
the best part… The Demo took place on
December 9, 1968.
Stanford
University has an excellent series of annotated
clips:
here.
Truly a man ahead of his time,
Engelbart's
vision
was to ask:
"How do we collectively use
technology to map our future with integrity
mindful of the perspectives of others and future
generations?"