Yes, "not ready" is exactly right. And this is one of Bret's points: Engelbart wasn't actually interested in technology itself. He was interested in sociology:

Yes, "not ready" is exactly right. And this is one of Bret's points: Engelbart wasn't actually interested in technology itself. He was interested in sociology: creating groups of people who were ready to do transformative work by collaborating in new ways. Whether or not this model would work is up for debate. But that collaboration, not any particular piece of software, was what Engelbart was after.