Man and mouse

Engelbart was responsible for some of the more basic computing technologies that we take for granted today,but were far from the norm in the 1960s. Computers were big machines back then,and human interaction with them was conducted largely through punch cards,thus making it difficult for anyone without a computer science degree to talk to the machines. Engelbarts now-legendary 1968 presentation in San Francisco,the mother of all demos,changed that. In a tour de force of creativity and innovation,he showed off his work to a group of the worlds best computer scientists: there was the mouse,yes,but he also showcased probably the first iterations of video conferencing,teleconferencing,hypertext,word processing,hypermedia,object addressing and dynamic file linking,and a collaborative real-time editor. Weve only now caught up with some of those ideas.

Engelbarts imagination shaped the way we interact with computers. He saw computing as a way to augment human intellect,and provided many of the tools so necessary for the exploration of ideas in a way that aids collective intelligence the ability of teams to develop solutions that might elude individuals a notion he passionately believed in.