7 ms·
Doug Engelbart’s 1968 demo
- layer8 3y agoAnd the associated YouTube channel: https://youtube.com/@engelbartinstitute/videos https://youtube.com/@engelbartinstitute/videos
- ck2 3y agohug of death https://google.com/search?q=cache:https://dougengelbart.org/content/view/209/ https://google.com/search?q=cache:https://dougengelbart.org/...
- orangepurple 3y agoDoesn't work. Try https://archive.is/dLvnF https://archive.is/dLvnF
- cf100clunk 3y agoAlso many other submissions here over the years about Doug Englebart and the famous 1968 demo. Use this HN search link: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=doug%20englebart&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
- userbinator 3y agoI was expecting something about the demoscene.
- unleaded 3y agoDont think that existed in the 60s mate
- userbinator 3y agoThe name doesn't necessarily need to be the date it was created on.
- TheRealPomax 3y agoWe had oscilloscopes in the 60's. It could have.
- cf100clunk 3y agoIn a ''For All Mankind'' sorta way, I suppose.
- JKCalhoun 3y agoDon Lancaster talks about "quadrature art" in his Active Filter Cookbook from 1975 — so it was a thing by then. https://www.radiolocman.com/shem/schematics.html?di=151800 https://www.radiolocman.com/shem/schematics.html?di=151800
- codetrotter 3y agoAlso, in the scene events they often have ANSI art competitions on the program but even before colors and computers people were using typewriters to make character based artwork. So in a sense, the ANSI art art form predates computers. Somewhat.
- ClearAndPresent 3y agoWhile not technically a demo scene demo, in 1952 Sandy Douglas pushed the EDSAC to play a game of noughts and crosses (OXO) on its cathode ray tubes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OXO_(video_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OXO_(video_game)
- mikewarot 3y agoThe DemoScene has existed forever... well before computers, lathes, etc... all the way back to "Look at the way these pictures come to life and dance around when the torch flickers inside this cave"
- vidarh 3y agoThe "scene", no, but demos? Arguably, yes. The demo scene was little but the evolution of demonstrations of tech or art from doing it as e.g. part of a product demonstration or research to doing it as art or for reputation. E.g. the IBM 7094 "singing" Daisy Bell in 1961 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41U78QP8nBk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41U78QP8nBk
- qwertox 3y agoNo reason to downvote. For many of us this demo is well known, but there's no reason for us to expect that everyone must be aware of its existence. You're one of today's lucky 10,000.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- II2II 3y agoYou could also think of the early development of computers as the ultimate expression of the demoscene. The thing to keep in mind is that computers originated as very experimental calculating machines for the military about twenty five years earlier. It would take years for people to imagine the true potential of these machine. The successive developments were not simply a matter of waiting until the underlying technology was good enough to implement preexisting ideas. To put it in concrete terms: the concept of programming languages would have to wait until the development of the concept of stored program computers, since the notion of a programming language doesn't have much meaning in the world of plugboards (literally wiring subsystems together to tell the computer what to do). More relevant: the notion of interactive user interfaces would have been inconceivable when the sole means of interacting with a computer was via a teletype. Even once graphical displays were introduced, it would take time to go from simply representing something visually to conceiving of how the technology could facilitate HCI. Even then my examples are highly simplified. We like to view the history of computers as a mostly linear progression. It wasn't. There were many twists and turns and abandoned paths as we learned how to make useful machines. (For fun, try researching computer memories.) A lot of the early work in computers was presented in demos that reflected the figuring out of things. While those demos may not appear as fun and the scene wasn't as culturally cohesive as the modern idea of the demoscene, the underlying spirit seems to be quite similar.
- idkdotcom 3y ago[flagged]
- idkdotcom 3y ago[flagged]
- codetrotter 3y ago> many in tech vilify him. He did that to himself.
- idkdotcom 3y ago[flagged]
- shadowgovt 3y ago... And advertisers and revenue stream.
- idkdotcom 3y agoElon is smart enough and will make this work. Had it not been because of his purchase of Twitter, we would not have a free speech oriented social media in the world. SolarCity ended up integrated in Tesla and the same could happen with Twitter.
- slater 3y ago> Had it not been because of his purchase of Twitter, we would not have a free speech oriented social media in the world. What? There's Gab, Truth Social and a host of other places where crypto-fascists can spew their inane nonsense. Elon's purchase of Twitter may be many things, but "freedom of speech"-anything, it ain't.
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- ReactiveJelly 3y agoJust as telephones were a step backwards from telegrams, every other HCI mode has been a step backwards from the Xerox Alto :P
- AnimalMuppet 3y agoIn what sense were telephones a step backwards from telegrams? That seems completely wrong to me. Unless your whole post was sarcasm...
- ThalesX 3y agoSignal to noise ratio maybe.
- satvikpendem 3y agoThey probably mean synchronous vs async communication as well as the compactness of text versus audio in terms of information density.
- ArtTimeInvestor 3y agoI think this is about the stage we are at in regard to decentralized finance at the moment. I often think about how strangely archaic our financial system is. For example when you start a new job and the first payment comes in after 4 weeks on the job. In the future, the payments will flow realtime. Or when I want to check the price of some stock and the stock market is closed, like it is most of the time. In the future, prices will be set on a global market with no downtime. Or when I talk to people who run online businesses and the plethora of problems they have with credit card payments. Because a credit car payment is not a payment. It's a something where the receiver of the money is held responsible when the one who pays plays dirty tricks on them. In the future, an electronic payment will be simply a payment. Let's hope we don't need over 40 years from theory to reality like it took for the internet.
- ldjkfkdsjnv 3y agoPlease dont pollute this video demo with the degeneracy of "crypto"
- themerone 3y agoI thought we are at the stage of DeFi where most people realized it has flaws that can only be fixed with centralization. Most crypto users are already using online exchanges and wallets, so from their perspective it already is centralized. True decentralized crypto only has niche applications outside a small number of enthusiasts.
- ArtTimeInvestor 3y agoonly has niche applications outside a small number of enthusiasts Like the internet in 1968.
- themerone 3y agoThe internet didn't exist then, and it's still an Apples and oranges. Billions of people have access to crypto technology now, and there are no gatekeepers preventing them form participating. Arpanet was started 1969 and you had to be part of a small number of institutions to have access.
- smurpy 3y agohttps://web.archive.org/web/20231209174528/https://dougengelbart.org/content/view/209/ https://web.archive.org/web/20231209174528/https://dougengel...
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- teddyh 3y agoThe reason for the downfall of SRI, the company led by Engelbart to develop NLS, can be discovered in The Network Revolution – confessions of a computer scientist (1982) by Jacques Vallée, specifically in chapter 5, “Knowledge Workers of the World, link up!”: <https://books.google.com/books?id=6f8VqnZaPQwC&pg=PA97 https://books.google.com/books?id=6f8VqnZaPQwC&pg=PA97> It contains a partial and anonymized (all names have been changed) retelling about the initial decline of SRI. To summarize, they all became entranced with the cult-like Erhard Seminars Training, except the smart people, who left because they didn’t like it.
- wisemang 3y agoInteresting! This is the same as the “EST” sessions depicted in the TV series The Americans, for those familiar with it. Didn’t realize it went back so far.
- mikewarot 3y ago>Erhard Seminars Training My understanding of EST training was that it gave people permission to be self centered assholes, and had no redeeming value. No wonder SRI went downhill. 8( [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erhard_Seminars_Training https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erhard_Seminars_Training
- leoc 3y agoThe well-funded (and comparatively highly sane) Xerox PARC also specifically set out to scoop up people from SRI from its beginning. EST seems to have been influenced by other, slightly older post-war groups with their own kinds of struggle session such as the drug-rehab community gone bad Synanon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synanon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synanon and our old friend Scientology, and in turn to have influenced later "large group awareness training" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large-group_awareness_training https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large-group_awareness_training orgs like the "wilderness training" camps. At least Synanon helped to make the name of one fairly-big jazzman, Joe Pass: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sounds_of_Synanon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sounds_of_Synanon
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- pcurve 3y agoI had seen the video before but completely missed the video conference capability. I wonder what network line they used for that. Simply amazing
- jazzyjackson 3y agoThere's a great book that details this event in one of the chapters, "What the dormouse said", iirc they used a television broadcast van sitting at the top of a hill to bounce the signal from where the machine sat and where the conference was. Stewart Brand was also behind this demo and it was his idea to pipe audio from the machine to the conference, so that any UI lag was accompanied by all the disk seeking noise instead of awkward silence.
- ftio 3y ago+1 for What the Dormouse Said. Truly fantastic.
- helf 3y ago[dead]
- skibz 3y agoI'd absolutely love to have a small chorded keyboard for macros like Doug is using with his left hand here...
- melling 3y agoHow many chords did he have? I’d prefer going with body gestures. Google Soli looked promising: https://youtu.be/r-eh2K4HCzI?si=aIVasKkvm5wtO3tu https://youtu.be/r-eh2K4HCzI?si=aIVasKkvm5wtO3tu
- hackernews1134 3y agoI had never heard of this before. It looks fascinating. Thank you for sharing! You say it “looked” promising - past tense - did Google kill it? Is anyone else working on anything similar (Apple, MS)?
- dv35z 3y agoYou may be interested in this: https://deepdeck.co/ https://deepdeck.co/ - Open source, programmable mini keyboard
- engfan 3y agoSomeone once said to Doug: “I don’t know what Silicon Valley will do when it runs out of your inventions.” I had the pleasure of working with him. He was brilliant and kind. The world just wasn’t ready for him.
- bmitc 3y agoThere are so many systems thinkers from that time that basically understood how the world works and how it could or should work that basically no one today knows of or considers. It's a shame. This demo us one of the most mindblowing things I've seen and especially so if you consider its date of arrival. I truly think the audience didn't really understand it.
- zamadatix 3y agoWho's to say there aren't just as many such people know but we still have trouble recognizing them until well after the fact.
- bmitc 3y agoMy point was more that these people wrote about things that predicted where we were headed but no one listened to them then, and no one listens to them now.
- tomcam 3y agoUsername truly checks out. And yes, a prophet far ahead of his time.
- planewave 3y agoI met Mr. Engelbart once as a child when my mother worked at SRI in the 90s/early 2000s. At the time I had seen the mouse prototype while wandering the halls and on some open house day I was introduced to him. He listened to me, a young kid, talk excitedly about technology for what must've been awhile and was very encouraging and kind. While I was excited about computers at the time I had no idea the significance of his ideas until I was an adult. Looking back on it, I am awed by the kindness he showed to some random kid.
- swagempire 3y agoAh yes -- the Mother Of All Demos. Impressive!
- cliffwarden 3y agoOften, i will go to science fiction (Rudy Rucker) to "drink from the well" and generate some inspiration for new ideas, projects, etc. This is one of the real-life sources that gives me that same feeling. It's just amazing and awe inspiring to see something that felt truly "out of the future". You can probably draw lines to existing inventions and research but to me, this felt like he lived in the world where this technology already existed and was giving us a glimpse.
- LAC-Tech 3y agoOne of my favourite bits is how embarrassed he sounds about calling it the "mouse".
- dang 3y agoHere are the past threads I found - seems like there should be others (anyone?): The Mother of All Demos - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36704885 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36704885 - July 2023 (1 comment) 50th Anniversary of the Mother of All Demos (2018) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31676445 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31676445 - June 2022 (82 comments) The Mother of All Demos - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24467751 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24467751 - Sept 2020 (1 comment) The Mothers of the Mother of All Demos - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24059231 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24059231 - Aug 2020 (12 comments) Doug Engelbart’s 1968 demo - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23535853 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23535853 - June 2020 (47 comments) The Mother of All Demos (1968) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20717835 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20717835 - Aug 2019 (2 comments) 50 years on, we’re living the reality first shown at the “Mother of All Demos” - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18646445 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18646445 - Dec 2018 (2 comments) How Doug Engelbart Pulled Off the Mother of All Demos - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18640784 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18640784 - Dec 2018 (2 comments) Show HN: Celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Doug Engelbart's Great Demo - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18640656 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18640656 - Dec 2018 (13 comments) The 50th Anniversary of Doug Engelbart's Great Demo - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18626215 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18626215 - Dec 2018 (42 comments) Mother of all demos: Life as we know it turns 50 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18605185 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18605185 - Dec 2018 (1 comment) Watching and Re-Watching “The Mother of All Demos” - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9366039 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9366039 - April 2015 (24 comments) 'The Mother of All Demos' Is 45 Years Old, Doesn't Look a Day Over 25 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6875879 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6875879 - Dec 2013 (59 comments) The programming languages behind "the mother of all demos" - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5996695 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5996695 - July 2013 (2 comments) The Mother of All Demos - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5996246 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5996246 - July 2013 (4 comments) The Demo - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5987780 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5987780 - July 2013 (36 comments) The Mother of All Demos, presented by Douglas Engelbart (1968) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5337425 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5337425 - March 2013 (1 comment) Douglas Engelbart : The Mother of All Demos (1968) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3011864 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3011864 - Sept 2011 (2 comments) 1968, Douglas Engelbart gives the Mother of All Tech Demos - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1942687 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1942687 - Nov 2010 (3 comments) The Mother of All Demos - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1939458 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1939458 - Nov 2010 (10 comments) The mother of all demos - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1138879 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1138879 - Feb 2010 (16 comments) The programming languages behind "the mother of all demos" - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=393653 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=393653 - Dec 2008 (1 comment) 1968: Engelbart demonstrates the mouse, email, collaborative work, hypertext, video conferencing - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=116121 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=116121 - Feb 2008 (1 comment)
- dr_dshiv 3y agoI met Doug once at a Singularity event at Stanford where I showed him how to ride a Segway. What a boss.
- russellbeattie 3y agoIt's interesting the amount of time technologies take to propagate. It seems to take about 5 years. The Xerox Alto appeared in 1973. The first integrated microchip CPUs were created in 1969 and the Altair launched in 1974. The Web was created in 1989 and Netscape Navigator launched in 1994. GPT based LLMs began in 2017 and hit the mainstream last year... Maybe these are cherry picked examples, but it seems like a pattern.
- quickthrower2 3y agoYes, you need time for hackers to hack on the new thing. 5 years from concept of the core thing, to production ready of the thing that depends on the core thing is pretty good.
- memset 3y agoI'm not able to see this link, but I'm assuming it is this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJDv-zdhzMY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJDv-zdhzMY Google "The Mother of All Demos" One fascinating thing to me is that he is explaining things with clarity that we take for granted - for example, the mouse - for the first time. He explains the mouse here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJDv-zdhzMY#t=31m07s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJDv-zdhzMY#t=31m07s "The tracking spot [cursor] moves in conjunction with the mouse. As it moves up and down and sideways so does the tracking spot."
- bdcravens 3y agoI've seen this several times, but what always struck me was how Doug's presentation style felt quite contemporary, as if he was at a modern-day conference.
- gjvc 3y ago"on this day"
- spit2wind 3y agoThe Future of Coding podcast reviews and discusses papers of past and present that imagine how computing could change. If you find the Mother of all Demos inspiring, you may find the podcast interesting, too. At the very least, the reading list is a great resource. https://futureofcoding.org/episodes/ https://futureofcoding.org/episodes/