# The Mother of All Demos (1968): Doug Engelbart and the ARC Team Show NLS ![[images/Engelbart-Mother-of-All-Demos-thumb.webp]] **Creator:** Douglas Engelbart and the SRI Augmentation Research Center (ARC), remastered film uploaded by the [Doug Engelbart Institute](https://www.youtube.com/@DougEngelbartInstitute) on 2022-11-02 · **Event:** 1968-12-09, Fall Joint Computer Conference, San Francisco · **Length:** 100:36 in three parts (34:30 + 33:26 + 32:40) · Watch: [playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCGFadV4FqU3flMPLg36d8RFQW65bWsnP) · [Part 1](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhpTiWyVa6k) · [Part 2](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxaEhju0EoI) · [Part 3](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-XlttLGUeY) **Related:** [[Doug Engelbart]] · [[Doug Engelbart - Biography]] · [[Doug Engelbart - Bibliography]] · a modern commentary on his 1962 framework: [[AI Has Been Developing for Centuries - Douglas Engelbarts 1962 Paper]] > Caption source: **YouTube auto-generated English captions** on the three Institute uploads (no manual subtitles), downloaded with yt-dlp and merged into paragraphs. They garble many names and terms, which I corrected from the film’s own credit slides and the Institute’s credits page: "Jeff Wilson" is Jeff Rulifson, "Ida 4" is the Eidophor projector, "Opera network" is the ARPA network, "Vander meat" is Ed van de Riet and "Steve cabola" is Steve Paavola. Quotes are approximate, so I paraphrase most of it. Each part is timestamped on its own, so every heading links to the right part at the right second. Times in headings are **within that part**. Part 2 starts at 34:30 of the whole show and Part 3 at 67:56. There are 31 screenshots plus the thumbnail, about one every three minutes. Sections labeled **Added context** are mine, not the speakers’. ## Where to watch, and which version this is - **Used here:** the Institute’s three-part remaster ("re-mastered", 2022), which is the sync-corrected restoration of SRI’s film of the session. Part 1 has YouTube chapters; Parts 2 and 3 do not, so their headings are mine. Parts 1 to 3 have 39.8k, 6.3k and 3.9k views at capture (2026-11-01). - **Not used:** an unofficial single-file copy, ["Marcel" (yJDv-zdhzMY)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJDv-zdhzMY), 100:52, with manual English subtitles. Original SRI film material, including a 1968 highlights reel, is in the Internet Archive’s Doug Engelbart Collection (for example [this item](https://archive.org/details/XD300-23_68HighlightsAResearchCntAugHumanIntellect)). I did not review it. - **What the film is.** It is a film of the screen as the audience saw it, with the sound track from the loudspeakers (the film says so on its first card). It is not the full live event: the audience, the stage and the Menlo Park control room are mostly absent, apart from the short live-video cut-ins described below. ## Outline ### Part 1 of 3 (UhpTiWyVa6k) ### Part 1 · [0:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhpTiWyVa6k&t=0s) Preface cards: what you are watching ![[images/Engelbart-demo-p1-00020.webp]] - The film opens with typed cards. The first says the film captures a technical-session presentation at the Fall Joint Computer Conference in San Francisco "on December 8, 1968" (this date is wrong; see the Claims check), shown on a 22 ft by 18 ft screen at the front of a 2,000-chair convention-center arena. - The next card ([0:40](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhpTiWyVa6k&t=40s)) says the main speaker, Engelbart, sat on stage at an on-line computer-display work station whose output was projected on the screen and filmed at the same time. ![[images/Engelbart-demo-p1-00040.webp]] ### Part 1 · [1:29](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhpTiWyVa6k&t=89s) Opening: "show you rather than tell you" ![[images/Engelbart-demo-p1-00125.webp]] - Engelbart apologizes for the odd setting. He is on stage with a console and headset, while his research team sits about 30 miles south at SRI in Menlo Park and will appear on the screen by live link. - His pitch: imagine you had, in your office, a computer display "alive" for you all day, instantly responsive, and ask what you would do with it. He will show a bit of this instead of describing it. ### Part 1 · [3:14](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhpTiWyVa6k&t=194s) A blank page, statements and words ![[images/Engelbart-demo-p1-00250.webp]] - He types on an empty screen: a word, then a line of repeated words, which become a "statement". He shows copying words and statements, saves the text to a named file, and shows the header that carries the file name, date and time. - The point is how little typing it takes to restructure text, with commands like "insert", "delete", "copy" and "move" each acting on words, statements or groups. ### Part 1 · [5:44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhpTiWyVa6k&t=344s) View control and the shopping list ![[images/Engelbart-demo-p1-00520.webp]] - At [8:11](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhpTiWyVa6k&t=491s) he loads a shopping list and starts re-sorting it: grouping items (produce, canned goods and so on), moving whole groups at once, and numbering the structure automatically. - Each item sits at a level of an outline. He collapses the list to show only the headings and expands it again, so one structure can be seen at several levels of detail. ![[images/Engelbart-demo-p1-00650.webp]] ### Part 1 · [12:37](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhpTiWyVa6k&t=757s) Jumping to names and labels - He shows "jump to name" and "jump to label": pick a name on screen and the display jumps to the matching statement, within the file or in another one. This is the cross-referencing that people later call hyperlinking. - He builds a short link and follows it, then returns. ### Part 1 · [15:24](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhpTiWyVa6k&t=924s) A route map from the same list ![[images/Engelbart-demo-p1-00950.webp]] - Items from the list (library, drugstore, market, home) are drawn as a route on a map, and the map is part of the same file. At [16:27](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhpTiWyVa6k&t=987s) he swaps produce and canned goods in the list to make the point that the structure and the picture belong together. - At [17:27](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhpTiWyVa6k&t=1047s) he changes gear from "illustrative" examples to "real working stuff": the team’s own files, run on a time-sharing system with six consoles in use and more planned. ### Part 1 · [18:49](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhpTiWyVa6k&t=1129s) The real working files: links and chains of views ![[images/Engelbart-demo-p1-01240.webp]] - He jumps through links between files, changes view specifications (such as the number of levels or lines per statement) and "freezes" statements so they stay put while the rest is reordered. - The screen shot above, from about 20:40, shows the controls for format parameters such as character size and spacing, which he calls "horrible" as an example because there are so many. ### Part 1 · [22:44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhpTiWyVa6k&t=1364s) The research center: people, sponsors, goals - He describes the Augmented Human Intellect Research Center (AHIRC) at SRI: a group of **17 people**, sponsored by ARPA, NASA and the Rome Air Development Center (RADC), with earlier support from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and the Electronic Systems Division. A staffing graph shows the group growing from one person in 1950. - At [24:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhpTiWyVa6k&t=1470s) he states the goals (improve the effectiveness with which individuals and organizations work at intellectual tasks, to get better and faster solutions and to use human capabilities better) and the approach: **empirical, evolutionary, whole-system and "bootstrapping"**, meaning the team uses its own tools to improve its own tools ([26:34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhpTiWyVa6k&t=1594s)). ![[images/Engelbart-demo-p1-01500.webp]] ### Part 1 · [27:34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhpTiWyVa6k&t=1654s) NLS as an instrument for complex information - NLS (oN-Line System) is described as an instrument for composing, studying and modifying complex information structures. At [29:40](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhpTiWyVa6k&t=1780s) he explains why the team started there: it needed an instrument to organize its own working information (plans, specifications, programs, user guides, reports). ### Part 1 · [30:23](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhpTiWyVa6k&t=1823s) Control devices: mouse, keyboard, keyset ![[images/Engelbart-demo-p1-01870.webp]] - Starting the implementation section, he outlines "control techniques": control devices, control dialogue and the control metalanguage. The devices are the **mouse** (his "pointing device"), a standard keyboard and a special key set. - At [31:03](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhpTiWyVa6k&t=1863s) the picture cuts live to Menlo Park, where Don Andrews’s hand shows the mouse working: two wheels, potentiometers and an analog-to-digital converter. He adds that he does not know why they call it a mouse ("it started that way and we never did change it"). He also notes that the mouse will not trace a map faithfully, since a closed loop does not return the spot to its start, but that does not matter when you steer by watching the screen. It stays put when lifted, and the buttons on top get heavy use. ![[images/Engelbart-demo-p1-01990.webp]] - At [33:45](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhpTiWyVa6k&t=2025s) he explains the **keyset**: five keys, one per finger, that give a one-hand equivalent of a keyboard: any single key or any combination of them makes a character, **31 combinations** in all. ![[images/Engelbart-demo-p1-02045.webp]] ### Part 2 of 3 (hxaEhju0EoI) ### Part 2 · [0:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxaEhju0EoI&t=0s) The keyset in use, the echo register and view specs ![[images/Engelbart-demo-p2-00060.webp]] - With the keyset and mouse together he issues commands (for example "D" then "W" for delete word). The system shows which command you are building in a feedback line, and an echo register shows the last six characters typed. - He shows how single-character view specifications change what the screen shows, without leaving the keyset. ### Part 2 · [2:27](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxaEhju0EoI&t=147s) Control dialogue and the "metalanguage" - He explains that the command language is defined in a separate **control metalanguage**, a description of the user’s choices as a tree, so the system can offer the right options at each step and so the team can change the interface cheaply. ### Part 2 · [3:31](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxaEhju0EoI&t=211s) Implementation: the hardware ![[images/Engelbart-demo-p2-00290.webp]] - At [4:33](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxaEhju0EoI&t=273s) he turns to Bill English’s diagram of the hardware: an SDS 940 computer with its memory banks, a swapping drum, a **96-million-character disc**, two display systems each driving up to six displays, an input controller that samples the console devices about 15 times a second, plus the printer and the coupling to the ARPA network. - He says the display and control load costs only about 1 to 1.5 percent interference with the CPU. ### Part 2 · [7:25](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxaEhju0EoI&t=445s) The display system, seen from Menlo Park ![[images/Engelbart-demo-p2-00470.webp]] - The live video moves to the equipment racks at SRI. Each display is a small high-resolution CRT that a **commercial TV camera** scans, and the camera’s video is sent to a monitor at the user’s console. It is an 875-line picture, sent by cable and microwave, with a "sticky cathode" camera tube to keep the image refreshed. - He says the camera, amplifier and monitor add about **$5,500** per work station and cost less than a comparable random-deflection display. ### Part 2 · [10:50](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxaEhju0EoI&t=650s) Jeff Rulifson’s software tour ![[images/Engelbart-demo-p2-00740.webp]] - From Menlo Park, Jeff Rulifson (the film credits him with preparation and presentation) takes over the controls and shows the **system guide**, the team’s living documentation of its own software: an overlay-structure picture, notes for programmers and an index of debugging information. - He explains that the system is written in special languages, a **machine-oriented language (MOL)** and a **content analyzer language**, built with the **TREE-META** compiler-compiler, and thanks Erwin Book and Val Schorre of System Development Corporation (SDC) for it (the captions garble both names; they are my reading). Each statement in the system guide is stamped with its author and time. ![[images/Engelbart-demo-p2-01075.webp]] ### Part 2 · [21:27](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxaEhju0EoI&t=1287s) The control metalanguage walked through ![[images/Engelbart-demo-p2-01330.webp]] - Rulifson shows the actual control-language source: a tree of what the user may choose after each key. The system and the people maintaining it read from the same description. ### Part 2 · [24:37](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxaEhju0EoI&t=1477s) Usage: back to Engelbart, writing programs and documents - Engelbart returns from the Menlo Park segment and turns to how the group uses NLS for its own work. Programming is the first example: names of places in the hierarchy double as the labels the compiler sees for subroutines. ### Part 2 · [25:38](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxaEhju0EoI&t=1538s) User documentation and the glossary ![[images/Engelbart-demo-p2-01590.webp]] - A glossary is stored as a frozen statement, so it can be shown inside any other file. A user-guide entry for the mouse sits there beside a sketch of the device. The guide was written by a colleague whose name the captions garble ("Dave Casseros"), so I do not name him. ![[images/Engelbart-demo-p2-01640.webp]] ### Part 2 · [27:47](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxaEhju0EoI&t=1667s) Papers, print directives and joint files - He shows how the paper the team wrote for the conference proceedings was written and printed from the same files, with print directives controlling layout, and at [29:12](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxaEhju0EoI&t=1752s) shows **joint files** where three team members leave each other messages under a convention ("wke from dce" marks a message from Engelbart, "dce", to Bill English, "wke"), with a content-analyzer filter that shows only the messages meant for you. ![[images/Engelbart-demo-p2-01810.webp]] - Near the end of the part ([32:21](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxaEhju0EoI&t=1941s)) the shared time-sharing system slows down because other users are asking it for work, and he comments on the delay. ### Part 3 of 3 (k-XlttLGUeY) ### Part 3 · [0:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-XlttLGUeY&t=0s) Duty roster and markers ![[images/Engelbart-demo-p3-00110.webp]] - The duty roster for the team’s open house and for staffing the Menlo Park lab shows roles and sessions; a compiled filter pattern picks out who is on duty on Tuesday evening (the screen lists Andrews, Evans, Paavola and Shapiro). He also shows **markers**: a character in a file tagged with a short name that can be used instead of pointing. ### Part 3 · [3:43](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-XlttLGUeY&t=223s) Hardware design documentation ![[images/Engelbart-demo-p3-00250.webp]] - A hardware-design file shows how the engineers record logic, comments and wiring for an input register in the same structured files, so the design record can be browsed with the same view controls as everything else. ### Part 3 · [4:45](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-XlttLGUeY&t=285s) Two-person collaboration with Bill Paxton ![[images/Engelbart-demo-p3-00415.webp]] - Engelbart says the team will soon add hardware for "computer aid" and here adds some "people aid". He sets up a collaborative mode with Bill Paxton’s terminal back at SRI. They first connect by intercom, and Paxton says he is on terminal 13 ([6:34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-XlttLGUeY&t=394s)), so Engelbart’s text appears on Paxton’s display. - Paxton gets a tracking spot he controls, but Engelbart keeps the right to edit, so "my bug is more powerful than yours", and the pair joke about a "bug fight" ([6:54](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-XlttLGUeY&t=414s)). - At [7:59](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-XlttLGUeY&t=479s) a camera picture of Paxton, taken from the camera on his console, is switched into a corner of Engelbart’s display ("hi Bill"): shared text, pointing and a face, with audio. ![[images/Engelbart-demo-p3-00490.webp]] ### Part 3 · [8:39](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-XlttLGUeY&t=519s) Information retrieval: hot and cold destinations ![[images/Engelbart-demo-p3-00780.webp]] - Engelbart hands over to Paxton, who works from his own terminal (the two swap pointer control more than once). Paxton splits retrieval into two cases. For a known (**"hot"**) destination you specify it explicitly (jump to identity, link or name) or from stored memory (jump back, jump ahead, or by file structure: the successor of a statement, the head of a branch). For an unknown (**"cold"**) destination you browse a hierarchy (for example, finding the print directive for Roman page numbers) or search indirectly by **keywords**. ### Part 3 · [13:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-XlttLGUeY&t=833s) Keywords, weights and associative retrieval ![[images/Engelbart-demo-p3-00885.webp]] - Paxton draws the idea: a catalog of items, a list of keywords, and each keyword pointing to items. Selecting several keywords puts items matched by more than one at the head of the list. He then does it live in the system guide’s documentation index (a catalog plus a keyword list, with links into Don Andrews’s source files), picks keywords for file handling, and gives one a weight of 2 ([19:13](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-XlttLGUeY&t=1153s)). "Keyword execute" returns the reordered results ([19:36](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-XlttLGUeY&t=1176s)). - The telephone company drops the line partway ([18:26](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-XlttLGUeY&t=1106s) to [21:03](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-XlttLGUeY&t=1263s)) and Engelbart apologizes for being rushed. ![[images/Engelbart-demo-p3-01170.webp]] ### Part 3 · [23:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-XlttLGUeY&t=1433s) Activities, the ARPA network and the "product" ![[images/Engelbart-demo-p3-01560.webp]] - Engelbart lists the group’s activities: service-system and user-system development, a management system, **the ARPA network** and the **Network Information Center (NIC)**, and a "product", meaning a sample augmentation system plus the design principles behind it. - On the ARPA network ([25:58](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-XlttLGUeY&t=1558s)) he says an experimental network will come into being "in its first form" in about a year and later reach some 20 experimental computers. He says the hope is for bandwidths of something like 20 kilobits per second and delays under a tenth of a second, so he could run his system from Cambridge and get the same response. His group plans a service for network information (who has what service, which protocol, who is up today), listed on the slide as the Network Information Center. ### Part 3 · [28:01](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-XlttLGUeY&t=1681s) Credits ![[images/Engelbart-demo-p3-01730.webp]] - Credit slides thank: **Bill English** (design of the audio-video show, set-up and stage management); **Ed van de Riet, Martin Hardy, Roger Bates, John Yarborough and Steve Paavola**; **Dave Evans** (coordination and open-house management); and **Don Andrews, Jeff Rulifson and Bill Paxton** (preparation and presentation). - He also thanks SRI for general support, **Stewart Brand** of the Portola Institute, **John Dusterberry** of NASA’s Ames Research Center for the loan of the Eidophor projector, **Eugene Warren** of T&T Communications, **Tasker Instruments**, the telephone company, and **Herman Miller Research**, whose designer made the control console and chair in time for the show. ![[images/Engelbart-demo-p3-01880.webp]] ### Part 3 · [31:43](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-XlttLGUeY&t=1903s) Dedication and close - He says he is backed by "17 guys" who caught the spirit of the show, and by a "Bob" who has supported him through years of a "wild dream" (the captions give no surname), and dedicates the presentation to his wife and daughters. The film ends with applause at [32:25](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-XlttLGUeY&t=1945s). - **Added context:** the video does not say who "Bob" is. Bob Taylor, who sponsored ARC at NASA and ARPA, is the obvious candidate (see the [[Doug Engelbart - Biography]]), but I have not confirmed it. ## Key takeaways - **A tool for thinking, not a calculator.** Engelbart frames the computer as an always-available "alive" display that a person works with all day, which is the augmentation idea in practice. The three parts are one long argument that the interface (views, links, pointing, chords, shared screens) is where the leverage is. See his [1962 report](papers/1962-engelbart-AHI-framework-report.pdf) for the theory behind it. - **Structure is the product.** Almost every feature in Part 1 is about hierarchy: statements, levels, collapsible views, moving whole branches, numbered outlines, links between files. - **Bootstrapping is the method.** The team writes its specs, programs, guides, hardware designs and messages in NLS itself and improves NLS from that daily use. - **The interface was designed as a system.** The mouse, the five-key chord handset and the keyboard work together, with a command language defined in data (the metalanguage), so changes are cheap. - **Collaboration comes with the package.** Shared screens, pointer-level cooperation, live video and joint message files appear in Parts 2 and 3, a decade or more before the web or modern office suites. - **The demo was also a feat of production.** Engelbart ran the system from the stage with the team 30 miles away in Menlo Park, using live video and audio links, a projector borrowed from NASA Ames and a custom-built chair and console. He credits Bill English’s months of work on the intercoms, video switching and mixers, and thanks outside helpers by name. The session is commonly described as 90 minutes; the Institute’s remaster runs 100:36. - **What it did not do.** It did not invent the mouse in public for the first time (see the Claims check), and Engelbart himself says the aim is the "product": a sample augmentation system and the design principles behind it, not an end-user machine. ## Claims check Sources: ARC’s own paper Engelbart & English, ["A Research Center for Augmenting Human Intellect"](papers/1968-engelbart-a-research-center-for-augmenting-human-intellect.pdf) (AFIPS FJCC 1968, [original PDF](https://www.dougengelbart.org/pubs/papers/scanned-original/1968-augment-3954-A-Research-Center-for-Augmenting-Human-Intellect.pdf)); [US patent 3,541,541](https://patents.google.com/patent/US3541541A/en); [DARPA: Mother of All Demos](https://www.darpa.mil/about/innovation-timeline/mother-of-all-demos); [Smithsonian](https://invention.si.edu/invention-stories/mother-all-demos); the Institute’s [demo page](https://www.dougengelbart.org/content/view/374/) and [Engelbart biography](https://www.dougengelbart.org/content/view/183/); [Wikipedia: The Mother of All Demos](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_of_All_Demos) and [SDS 940](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SDS_940); [Kleinrock on the first ARPANET message](https://www.lk.cs.ucla.edu/internet_first_words.html). | Claim in the video | Verdict | Evidence | |---|---|---| | Preface card: the session was held "on December 8, 1968" | **Wrong date** | The demo was on **December 9, 1968** (DARPA, Smithsonian, the Institute). The NLS clock on the screens in the film itself reads 12/09/68 (see the screenshots of Part 2 at about 12:20 and 17:55). The card appears to be an error. | | Preface card: a 22 ft by 18 ft screen and a 2,000-chair arena | **Partly consistent** | The Institute’s biography says a 20-foot screen and "1000-plus" attendees; Wikipedia gives a 22 ft screen. A 2,000-chair arena is not contradicted by a smaller crowd, but I found no independent count of the chairs. | | The team is "30 miles south" in Menlo Park, linked live | **Supported** | DARPA gives the distance to SRI’s lab as about 30 miles; the film itself mentions a microwave video link. | | The ARC has 17 people | **Supported (same source)** | The Institute’s own outline of the demo says 17. The Institute’s biography says ARC peaked at 47 people later. | | Mouse: two wheels, potentiometers, analog-to-digital converter; "I don’t know why we call it a mouse" | **Supported** | Patent 3,541,541 (filed June 21, 1967): two perpendicular wheels, a third support, potentiometers, an analog-to-digital converter and three buttons. The Institute says no one remembers who first called it the mouse. | | Five-key chord set gives 31 combinations | **Correct** | 2^5 − 1 = 31, and the 1968 paper says "31 chords". | | The 940 has a 96-million-character disc; displays are 875-line TV; each station adds about $5,500 | **Supported (ARC’s own paper)** | The 1968 FJCC paper states each of these. They are the team’s own figures, not independently measured. | | The 940 design and priority hardware came from "Project Genie" at Berkeley | **Supported** | Wikipedia (SDS 940): the SDS 940 was derived from the Berkeley Project Genie machine (announced February 1966). | | ARC is sponsored by ARPA, NASA and RADC, with earlier Air Force and ESD funding | **Supported** | ARC’s own reports carry these sponsors: the 1962 report (Air Force Office of Scientific Research), the 1965 reports (ESD, NASA) and the 1968 paper. | | An ARPA network will exist "in about a year", with an information center at SRI | **Timing supported** | The first ARPANET message went from UCLA to SRI on **Oct 29, 1969**, about 10½ months after the demo, and SRI was the second node (Kleinrock). The "20 computers, 20 kilobits" figures were **not checked**. | | "About 6 months" of time-sharing use, "fourth computer", six consoles | **Unverified** | No independent source found. | | Often said: this was "the first time" the mouse, hypertext, video conferencing and the like were shown | **Partly** | It was the first **public demonstration** of the mouse, but the mouse was already described in the 1967 patent filing and in Engelbart & English’s 1967 IEEE HFE paper ("Display-Selection Techniques for Text Manipulation", [PDF](papers/1967-english-engelbart-berman-display-selection-techniques-for-text-manipulation.pdf)). Other pointing devices, including a Telefunken trackball marketed in 1968, existed (Wikipedia). | | Often said: the demo was called "the Mother of All Demos" at the time | **Wrong** | The name came later. Wikipedia says the demo was named retroactively, and web sources credit Steven Levy’s 1994 book *Insanely Great* with the phrase (I did not locate the passage myself). | | The venue was Brooks Hall / the Civic Auditorium | **Sources differ** | The Institute places the session at Brooks Hall; Wikipedia says the San Francisco Civic Auditorium. I did not resolve which is exact, and the film’s own card says only "convention-center arena". | ## Things mentioned - **Systems and software:** NLS (oN-Line System), the Augment system it became, SDS 940, the control metalanguage, MOL (machine-oriented language), the content analyzer, TREE-META, the system guide, the Network Information Center (NIC). - **Hardware:** the mouse, the five-key chord handset, the keyboard, a 96-million-character disc, a swapping drum, the display system with a CRT and TV camera, the Eidophor projector, the Herman Miller console and chair. - **Organizations:** SRI (Stanford Research Institute), ARPA, NASA (and its Ames Research Center), Rome Air Development Center (RADC), the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the Electronic Systems Division, System Development Corporation (SDC), Portola Institute, T&T Communications, Tasker Instruments, Herman Miller Research. - **Concepts:** augmenting human intellect, bootstrapping, view control, frozen statements, links and jumps, joint files, keyword retrieval, "hot" and "cold" retrieval, two-person collaboration. - **Related reading:** the [1962 framework report](papers/1962-engelbart-AHI-framework-report.pdf), [the 1968 FJCC paper](papers/1968-engelbart-a-research-center-for-augmenting-human-intellect.pdf), [the 1968 multi-display facility report](papers/1968-engelbart-multidisplay-time-shared-computer-facility.pdf), and the full list in [[Doug Engelbart - Bibliography]]. ## Biographies - **Douglas Engelbart** (1925–2013): leader of ARC; see [[Doug Engelbart - Biography]]. - **William (Bill) English:** ARC’s chief engineer; built the first mouse to Engelbart’s design and, per the Institute, directed and produced the demo’s audio-video show. Co-author of the 1968 FJCC paper. - **Jeff Rulifson:** ARC software developer, who presents the system guide and the languages in Part 2. - **Don Andrews:** ARC staff member, shown demonstrating the mouse live from Menlo Park in Part 1. - **Bill Paxton:** ARC staff member, the remote collaborator and retrieval demonstrator in Part 3. - **Stewart Brand:** of the Portola Institute, credited in the film; Wikipedia (citing John Markoff) says he operated a camera for the Menlo Park video. - **John Dusterberry:** credited with arranging the loan of the Eidophor projector from NASA Ames. - **Ed van de Riet, Martin Hardy, Roger Bates, John Yarborough, Steve Paavola, Dave Evans:** ARC staff credited on the final slides. ## Tags Applied: `video-summary`, `history`, `science`, `futurism`. Proposed, not applied: `computing`, `human-computer-interaction`.