The Mother of All Demos, presented by Douglas Engelbart (1968)

"The Mother of All Demos is a name given retrospectively to Douglas Engelbart's December 9, 1968, demonstration of experimental computer technologies that are now commonplace. The live demonstration featured the introduction of the computer mouse, video conferencing, teleconferencing, hypertext, word processing, hypermedia, object addressing and dynamic file linking, bootstrapping, and a collaborative real-time editor."

[@jasonsdodd]

I can't stop laughing at, "I don't know why we called it that. It started that way and we never changed it" That is SOOOO common.

[@danlock1]

I'm pleased that you laugh at human nature. The world would be a better place if laughter were so easily provoked in everyone. Far fewer people would be offended or angered or misunderstood. (TOTALLY SERIOUS)

[@jasonsdodd]

@@danlock1It's because I have so many projects are work that have horrible names. I've taken to using ridiculous project name so that someone will come along and rename it. But hardly ever happens. One of my projects is called 'mvs ducttape'. My manager called into her office one day and said, "Thanks to you I had to explain to my a room full of directors and VPs about Ducttape.

[@ericpa06]

I'm glad Douglas Engelbart, who passed away in 2013, lived enough to see how right he was, how absolutely precise he was decades before that technology existed. I'm also happy that he lived enough to be somewhat recognized for his priceless contribution, I mean we have all these geniuses that die young and in absolute anonymity. I'm glad that didn't happen with Douglas, even though he deserved to be way more famous and recognized for what he done.

[@jestonxi6391]

most of the real foundation types names never get mentioned, only salesmans (aka steve jobs) and funders names is remembered, sad really

[@JulianUccetta]

@@jestonxi6391 Sad but true. Sadly history will remember salesmen like Elon Musk more than the people who actually developed the technology we use. And they cultivate that personality very carefully for that exact reason. Elon isn't a genius. Steve Jobs wasn't a genius. Jeff Bezos isn't a genius.... They are just salesmen.

[@MrSofazocker]

Yes, all praise this man. But not for his “predictions”, but his genius to envision. Many developers referenced this, and at school you get shown this many times. So naturally, students and later developers will shape whatever they make into what they saw before, bcs it makes you think about all the possibilites. A child can find 10 uses for a screw, an adult maybe 3. And computers back in the day were simply calculators, but what can you else do with it? It blows open that whole world by anchoring it all on the simple goal of augmenting the human intellect.

[@personzorz]

Was he precise, or was he the reason that it is what it is

[@sophiacristina]

What i like on the internet is how we can preserve and share such things!

[@ConquerJS]

So it's 1968 and computers are literally huge mainframes that just do math. Suddenly this guy pops up outta nowhere and introduces collaborative word processing in Google docs with his homeboy Bill English via live teleconferencing feed while dragging a cursor around on his screen with a mouse.

[@sanji663]

time travel

[@iamserda]

homeboi* I love it!

[@glytchd]

@@iamserda Homeboy* Boi entered usage when ppl started thinking Ghetto-speak & mis-spelling was fun and used it to Dumb Down language. Hence also the Devolution of "Shut." as opposed to 'Shut It'. It's not funny, it's retarded. God I miss the '90s and 2000s. We used to actually have intelligent discussions on Message boards & newsgroups.

[@jiaxuanng2396]

@@glytchd Shut boi

[@music6577]

@@glytchd classic pseud moment

[@frank2398]

This is what genius is. "Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see." -Arthur Schopenhauer

[@peterzelchenko]

Actually, it's mostly what money is. There are hundreds of millions of geniuses, but precious few in command of the millions of dollars in federal taxes that lead to such discoveries. But I acknowledge it's a wonderful thing.

[@oldvideopro]

A 16mm film of this demo was sent to the UK. At the time I was a lowly AV Technician at University College London. I ran the film in the New Chemistry Theatre for all the staff of the University of London Computer Centre and other interested parties. I watched fascinated. However, after 90 minutes, when it ended and the audience of senior London computing academics filed out, I heard several make comments such as "Interesting, but it will never catch on" and "What a waste of time." They had just seen the first ever Mouse, Hypertext, WP, video conferencing, and the Internet (Arpanet). I BELIEVED Doug Engelbart - they didn't! Here we are. years later, after the Xerox Star, Apple's Lisa and Mac and finally Windows. Amazing. As another commenter says, Doug should be as well known as Einstein - and FAR better than Steve Jobs or Bill Gates!

[@LootFragg]

I think it's absurd how I'm watching this from an affordable home computer many generations later and my flash player plugin just crashed...

[@dealloc]

Flash? Are you still using IE6?

[@AdamArmstrong]

Flash player is the modern equivalent of punch cards. Join us in the future.

[@MalakkarVohryzek]

However, there is a hidden element... Doug Engelbart's grad students got their books at Kepler's Books in Palo Alto. Kepler's Books was also a coffee shop, and almost always open -- most of the grad students worked SAIL at odd hours, because computers were expensive and rare back then, so used 24-7 in a timeshare fashion. Kepler's Books is an extremely important nexus -- the Grateful Dead first got stage time at Kepler. The beatniks distributed their poetry and other literary works there, and had readings there. The grad students, while getting books, would have some coffee and check out the scene. The beatnik philosophy infected the students, and even Doug himself, with a new idea around computing -- no more MIT East Coast Mainframes and Robots to replace humanity, instead the Beatnik Exaltation of the Human Potential would form their work at SAIL -- computers would expand human potential, become a tool with which we could modify the world to our liking. And how did the Beatniks wind up in San Francisco, distributing their literature in Palo Alto? Because Neal Cassidy followed his wife Carolyn to the Bay, while Allen Ginsburg, Jack Kerouac, followed John out from Denver, and found a welcome environment in San Francisco for their literary arts... Carolyn Cassidy, the Fairy Godmother or Pied Piper of the Personal Computer, without even knowing it. All Hail Eris!

[@jasonsdodd]

I believe that because it happens all the time at work now.

[@beepIL]

Just so people get the sense of how monumental that moment was... people were still using punch cards at that time when it came to computing... this guy is a freaking miracle worker, its amazing he is so unknown to so many people, people should know his name just as much as they know Einstein's

[@LexLExistor]

without Einstein (and Newton and so many others), computers wouldn't exist. science and research are cumulative, so I wouldn't put Doug ahead of Albert.

[@memovilmx6239]

The Apolllo Guidance computer used wired memory

[@gregory-of-tours]

And the average person probably wouldn't even touch a computer for another 20 years.

[@hermitgreenn]

His team of engineers.

[@sdfjsd]

Steve Jobs gets the name, but this guy doesn't. It's such a shame.

[@compteprivefr]

I don't understand - this should be celebrated as one of those moments in history when someone steps out of relative obscurity and changes EVERYTHING. Imagine Edison coming out of nowehere and not just presenting the light bulb, but a city block fully lit with street lamposts, and fully lit apartment building with individual units all set up with light switches, ceiling lamps, desk lamps etc etc. This is like Einstein's Miracle year, or the publication of The Origin of Species. This is absolutely monumental. Epochal. How could they have put together all that technology, HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE in one working system? The vision it must have took to assemble all the disparate technologies into this is beyond comprehension.

[@SMGJohn]

+Compte Prive Majority of the population are ignorant sheeps, too busy celebrating fake celebs with fake tits than something as amazing as this.

[@scb2scb2]

You are correct the world should know him more years before he died i warned my parents (of all people) when he dies he will be on tv and they will say 'the inventor of the mouse has died' and how limited that would be. And thats what happend. But keep in mind within the community of his peers he was considered a near god and they know and speak out on what he did both in his work as in his effect on people before, during and after the demo.

[@skatei]

it's actually not beyond comprehension. Only for weak minded individuals as yourself is it mind-exploding. I can easily comprehend and internalize such thoughts with ease.

[@MmtS]

Yes we can *now*, but it's like saying Charles Babbage's work wasn't particularly impressive because it's easy for us to visualise a computer. The features in this demo are easy to comprehend now because these things have all become standard features of a computer. But put in the context of 1968, the demonstration here really is hugely impressive.

[@scb2scb2]

Its hard to understand the impact since most of it was on the people in the room who party where working on the same topics. What was shown was a completeness of a vision they all shared. The effect it had on that first wave is important. Its unlike the einstein in many ways since it was slowly evolved over 10+ years. One of the mistakes you make (sorry) is that you make it sound it was lucky it was captured on film but the reverse is true it was a 'show' created for that reason with the help of Bob Taylor they got about a 10Milj. dollar budget in todays money to make it happen the demo itself as was done at a near impossible level. The fact that its hard to grasp for some younger people is good and bad i guess most can't even imagine a world without the Internet (something he was also involved in as you see at the end of the demo). But what is more important is the impact on the people who followed some look back and say 'We had seen many parts in labs but he showed it all in one working demo, he showed the future and it was great and it was ok for us to work on stuff like this, we had to work on stuff like this'. They went to join, sri, xerox and apple and there is where ideas became products.

[@charvelgtrs]

This guy was literally 30+ yrs ahead of his time. He's even got a gamer headset on lol.

[@juliandeal93]

And the first Roccat Sova.

[@Fiilis1]

:D gamer headset. But yeah, this dude is a fucking time traveler or some shit

[@SubhiSHashwa]

1968 was 50+ years ago

[@Minsetti]

@@SubhiSHashwa Ok, so you are saying that this tech got popular in 2020?

[@SubhiSHashwa]

@@Minsetti The gamers headset is what triggered my comment. On reflection they've been popular for around 10 years now.

[@mlun]

Some highlights: 5:00 - input: keyboard, mouse, extra-keyboard 31:30 - mouse 15:45 - todo list associated with a map 1:16:57 - hangouts + collaboratively editing of docs

[@NickWestgate]

Could add 3:49 world sees first typo! : - D

[@brcalderone]

This is exactly what I wanted, thank you!

[@antonioviggiani3503]

Thank you so much, you're my hero now!

[@jamonh]

Hyperlinks between files, also including what view to use

[@MrBulshoy]

Lasso tool, copy and paste.

[@dmatscheko]

The whole video gives me goosebumps. He was showing technology from 24 years in the future.

[@jurjenbos228]

24 years later, the only improvement they made from this was the undo function.

[@MikkoRantalainen]

The demo even has some valueable features that are still not in use in modern applications half a century later. For example, the ability to have multiple views into shopping list demo around 11:00 would be nice to have e.g. in Google Keep but we only have dumbed down applications nowadays.

[@PoliticalCineaste]

In December 1968, the 21st Century dropped in for a four-week stay. Not only this incredible demonstration of what is essentially 21st century computer technology, but also the Apollo 8 lunar orbital mission only 12-days later. After all the killings, political assassinations, riots and invasions in 1968, it's like the future descended on the final month of a bleak year to give it hope.

[@lpod7180]

I'm an IT student, closing in on my bachelor's degree, and this is blowing my mind. I feel like this is akin to watching footage of someone a cellphone in 1968. It's nuts. I would never believe this was possible, let alone demonstrated all at once for the first time ever, in 19 freakin' 68! This is some timetraveler-esque weird shit. Commendable.

[@mjouwbuis]

You might be amazed, but cellphones have existed since at least WWII. To be fair, they had to be fitted in the trunk of a car, were at first mostly based on traditional two way radio technology and were quite expensive. Hand held cellphones were introduced in the 1980's.

[@lpod7180]

@@mjouwbuisDo you know the length of distance they could communicate? You describing that makes a large WWII military radio come to mind.

[@HFbastler1]

@@lpod7180 There where handheld Walkie Talkies then, about 1km to max. 20km. Suitcase transmitters (mostly for morse code) and car based voice transmitters are a pre WW2 development and go round the world via shortwave reflection in the ionosphere, but with changing reflection conditions. Line operated Two-way Video-Telephone-Call was used in germany in 1926, and also in that time, they predicted these devices to be handheld. I've seen a drawing from the 20ies of two women sitting in a cafe with headphones and looking in a handheld "mirror" with a picture.

[@lpod7180]

@@HFbastler1 simply fascinating! Thanks for sharing

[@danlock1]

It is YOUR "blown mind" and YOUR "weird feces" ... With that perspective, you must be having difficulty

[@thomasmrak9261]

They invented meta-tags as well. Amazing they were able to do all of this in the 1960s. A shame the technology took almost 2 decades to be cheap enough to do this for the mass market, and longer still to become mainstream, but this pioneering work should be acknowledged more often.

[@avedic]

This is *_incredible_*. Think about it: This is a demo of technology that would take *_15 YEARS_* before consumer applications caught up....and we're *_still_* using this technology *_today_*. Engelbart was so very ahead of his time, in _so many_ ways. It amuses me to realize, *_as I'm watching this_*....I'm typing words into this text box and using my *_mouse_*(a word Engelbart coined) to move around. Engelbart must have felt so vindicated as he got older. Though, it's sad he was never fully recognized for what he's given us. He was a true shaman of technology...especially when it comes to his *_philosophy & ethos_* of the full potential of technology *_to make the world a better place_*. Much respect....

[@surefmeurope5766]

Sadly I note that a lot of pioneers were never given the credit due their work in their lifetime, or ideas stolen, so many examples in history

[@surefmeurope5766]

Yeah, it's almost a frankensteins monster feel to the sound and picture - but in all seriousness, I have to agree with all other comments...this is legendary

[@danlock1]

@@surefmeurope5766 Precisely. We can take heart in and feel satisfaction by knowing that our ideas were known to us before others stole them and popularized them. Merely because we lacked the resources to publicize them doesn't make our inventions any less important, when the benefit to humanity was realized in the end regardless.

[@MangoPanic]

He apparently lived up until 2013, which makes me really glad because he was able to at least see his vision come to fruition. Although, my goodness, if only he could see how this technology is being used now in the 2020s. It's amazing how much more integrated it's become in our lives in just 11 years.

[@FreezeClinchEctoplasm]

Amazing!! One of the founders!! Not a Greek god, but a Geek god! He died less than 2 years ago, and wasn't even a blip on the radar, to the mainstream media. Depressing!

[@htmaxpower]

Exclamation point!

[@NterpriseCEO]

You sound like trump. XD

[@htmaxpower]

@@NterpriseCEO Yeah, ok.

[@college-ke-baad]

@@NterpriseCEO Huuuge!

[@pauloabelha]

This is genius beyond comprehension. Anyone who makes a living programming knows how to recognise genius like this. This should be sent to space - it already fells like some ancient genius remain from a civilization. Thank you, Doug. Planet was better with you.

[@BenRangel]

Showing the screen as a transparent overlay on top of the presenter is a neat way of doing a presentation. Never seen it done in modern presentations though. We should start using that concept more.

[@bighands69]

You just watched a production piece and it required resources.

[@howardjones543]

But the resources *now* are built into FaceTime...

[@HailZOLTAN]

the first twitch stream

[@Niosus]

1:34:05 "ARPA Network" That is the earliest direct ancestor of the internet. Nobody on the planet could've imagined just how insanely much of a difference that little experiment would make. He just touched on it briefly, as if it's insignificant... Makes you wonder what the next 45 years will bring.

[@danieln6700]

impressive

[@villedocvalle]

Nothing, as everything is now about control and any altruistic notion has been stamped out.

[@666chapelofblood]

There was the NPL Data Communications Network even before ARPANET.

[@bryanjbuchanan]

For any Aussies who may not be aware, one of the guys involved in the demo is Dave Evans (see 1:36:00) who is an Australian. I was fortunate enough to work for Dave back in the day and saw this video in about 1981. It was just mind blowing seeing what David had been involved with. Met my wife of 37 years while working for Dave, so great memories.

[@steviebrochdale]

And now you can watch this presentation on your telephone.

[@BrowncoatFairy]

Well it’s important to note that your telephone is not an analog wire connected to the wall, but a self-contained has held computer with near infinite storage and utterly impossible screen resolution and processing power by early 2000’s standards

[@BrowncoatFairy]

@Rev limits i'm a software engineer with 35 years of experience in the industry, dipshit.

[@tomjones8328]

@@BrowncoatFairy I am

[@cjwfly1988]

I think this guy was born in 21st Century and time travelled back...

[@Mobunto]

cjwfly1988 who invented the mouse from his universe?

[@aidangarvey7049]

This is testable material for a human-computer interaction course I'm taking at university. I thought it was going to be hard to sit through but the entire thing was rather entertaining. I love how not even the inventor of the mouse knows why it's called a mouse.

[@bubbledoubletrouble]

The wire for the first mouse trailed behind it rather than sticking out the front. Probably has something to do with it.

[@Budsport_TV]

It looks like a mouse… especially with the wire trailing behind it acting as the tail lol

[@shadowoftiger116]

I wish that computers still had this wonder of amazement and watching them do things that they couldn't previously do. This must've been mindblowing back when it was first released to the public

[@computeraidedworld1148]

This should be considered as monumental as a moon landing

[@Mostlyharmless1985]

This came a year before the moon landing...

[@F-Man]

@@Mostlyharmless1985 Irrelevant to his point.

[@Mostlyharmless1985]

@@F-Man No, it's not.

[@robderon]

you mean it cannot be considered as monumental as moon landing before it happened one year before ? I don't get your point.

[@computeraidedworld1148]

@@robderon I don't really know how else to explain it. It seems to be an over looked part of history that I think is very important.

[@BangMaster96]

Given the primitive hardware and programming languages of that time, 1968, this has to be one the the greatest advanced in modern human history, i mean, this demonstration is decades ahead of its time. Just to even think about a video on screen, with a mouse and graphical user interface, which no one had ever done before, is mind boggling. Why were we never taught about this in schools, computers are part of our everyday lives today, and we should have a class on history of computers, so people can learn to appreciate where this technology comes from, and why we have it.

[@danlock1]

You act as if everyone on the planet is as backwards as you are. How naive.

[@nextai2003]

Look at the end of the presentation, where he gives credit to his family and becomes a little emotional (voice gets shaky and you can almost see a tear in his eye). I think he was a great man both as a scientist and in his private life. May God rest his soul.

[@gasenkotsu]

In 1968 this would probably seem like magic to me.

[@Ooxine]

+gunflame It does to me. Even in 2016

[@journeyquest1]

It did to Jobs and Gates who got rich and credit off these ideas.

[@notrealnamee7247]

@@journeyquest1 That's kind of like saying that the inventor of the TV was just riding the coattails of the inventor of the light bulb.

[@plinn2112]

It would have seemed sophisticated to me at the time, but I would have failed to grasp it's full possibilities.

[@Mostlyharmless1985]

@@journeyquest1 Having the idea is great. Getting the idea on the desk of almost every human on the planet is a different achievement entirely.

[@boriel]

This is true innovation and a huge step forward. Nowadays companies present "innovation" and sometimes it's just mostly cosmetic changes. :-/

[@ErichKramer]

It's difficult to make the wheel substantially better than it is.

[@bighands69]

Unless a whole new wheel has been built.

[@_lithp]

yes

[@_lithp]

@@camthesaxman3387 It never crosses you bitter commie-boy's minds that consumers ENJOY the "cosmetic changes," which is why they buy them in the first place.

[@1x4x9]

Amazing this ran on an old mainfraime with a simple 24-bit CPU and presumably ~192K of magnetic core RAM. The CRT looks like a vector display from the almost handwritten quality to the text due to the yoke not being able to deflect the electron beam accurately (tech limitations).

[@danlock1]

Yolk... chicken or egg problem?

[@MikaelMurstam]

This is incredible....simply incredible

[@jamesv.4662]

Mikael Murstam delicious simply delicious

[@danlock1]

Not credible to you, perhaps.

[@andyadler]

And let us also pay tribute to William English ---Englebart's colleague and collaborator --- who actually built the prototype mouse and directed the celebrated demo. He died on July 26 at the age of 91.

[@ianrbuck]

"We call it a mouse. I don't know why we called it a mouse, sometimes I apologize to people for that. It just started and we never did change it." 31:30 Well, you're going to be apologizing for a long time then!

[@herauthon]

a mouse: for it has a tail ( to tell )

[@derstreber2]

I like how they call the mouse pointer a "bug". lol I love it.

[@All-Inn-Till-I-Win]

So True

[@lilliewilde]

I remember Englebart's and many other people's contributions to the early time-sharing work, and installed one of the nodes of the early ARPAnet in 1972. We had an SDS 940 in 1969, I think and evolved it to be part of an internal multi-computer network with a common commuications system in 1977 call COED (see Wikipedia). Many people at SRI also deserve credit for innovations in software, hardware and user interfaces. What a great demo for it's time!

[@tomfoth]

Douglas: Thank you. Like so many millions of others, you provided the platform for our careers. I was in a lecture Dr. Engelbart was giving and he showed himself on snow skis at the top of a mountain peak. He said "Anything worth doing, anything that brings value, be it driving a car or skiing down a mountain, is worth doing well." His point was we need to master a tool or a technology to fully exploit it... and not be left to a tool or technology mastering us and our becoming slaves to it.

[@rsr789]

Just to realize how revolutionary this is, just see what every other computer in 1968 looked like... basically the equivalent of being around the first Wright Brothers flight with an F-22 Raptor.

[@SpencerLemay]

Their is something extremely musical and pretty about the noises it makes.

[@richdiscoveries]

Is the computer actually making those noises, or is the Primitive webcam he's using picking up electrical frequency interference being admitted by the computer as it is computing? That's what I'm trying to figure out

[@lowstaar]

​@@richdiscoveries I know my reply is late but when I had a low quality integrated soundcard I could hear every interference my motherboard created, even mouse movement since that also generated data. So by that theory we should be able to hear the noise every time he moves the mouse. Of course I can be very well wrong but it seems like the sounds were intentional.

[@richdiscoveries]

@@lowstaar no worries, thank you for the reply. I just found this entire scenario to be very interesting

[@danlock1]

@@richdiscoveries You mean "emitted"

[@wammo12345]

Isn’t it wonderful to see an understated American presentation. Nothing over delivered.

[@jsr7599]

Nice observation - just what it is - a win-win. No exploitation. Pure progress.

[@tayrona12]

@@jsr7599 The current presentations are full of nonsense talk and too flashy. Engelbart got to the point of the computer revolution.

[@leegivens3079]

I got to meet Dr. Engelbart at the iPhone keynote in 2007. He was just milling about after Steve finished. I saw him since I used this video to teach computer history to my undergraduate classes. Steve Jobs knew his history and paid respects to Douglas and all his work making Apple the company it is today.

[@nymusicman]

All I want to know is, how in the world did we go from this to DOS. 1968. Absolutely amazing!

[@JoostRingoot]

I Imagine this is like the Roman Culture of computing and DOS was like the dark ages.

[@Eddthompson]

+John O'Keefe Bill Gates bought a CPM clone for the X86 processor that IBM was going to use in their personal computer and then licensed that CPM clone as DOS to IBM. Millions made on a knock off OS built by a guy in a garage in a Seattle suburb.

[@null1023]

+John O'Keefe The answer is actually pretty simple -- it cost too much to do for decades, well into the 80s. When this was made, the price of a computer started in the tens of thousands of dollars (and it certainly couldn't do this at that price point) and went way up from there, and that's in '60s money. This was a bleeding edge research project displaying concepts that were over-20-almost-30 years ahead of its time. Systems commonly used teletypes instead of displays when this was demoed because machines didn't have display hardware to draw graphics or ROM boards to hold character data, etc. Xerox had some high-end graphical machines of their own that utilized many of the concepts shown in this video starting in the early 70s, but they were wildly expensive for the market segment (at least for personal business computing, as opposed to large mainframe back-end units) and never caught on as a result. When MS-DOS came around, things had barely reached the price point where this was feasible for average consumers. Microsoft was actually working on Windows starting in '82 based on seeing Xerox and Apple's work (eventually released in '85) so not too long after the IBM PC came out, the Lisa's development started in '78 and it was still expensive: the Lisa cost TEN GRAND in '83, the original Mac cost about $2500 in '84, and a PC that could run Windows in '85 was about that much too (and Windows wasn't too polished for a number of reasons, so it wasn't commonplace until Windows 3.0 came out). So, things only finally came together in the early-to-mid 90s to the point where everything in this video was reasonable to do at a cost low enough for it to catch on.

[@geephlips]

Edd thompson And his Mom was on the United Way's board of directors with the chairman of IBM at the time.

[@CTimmerman]

MS-DOS was bought by Bill Gates as 86-DOS, the commercial name for QDOS - Quick & Dirty Operating System - because time to market was more important than quality. And as noted above, hardware to support this demo was also way too expensive for the target market back then.

[@TACOINSURANCE]

Why is his 45 year old pre-web-cam stream clearer than my 2013 Skype?

[@zweddington]

It's a high quality recording (for the time) of a live video camera running through pro gear. TV gear was top of the line then. Still is for the most part. Skype is not TV

[@ChristopherSobieniak]

zweddington Not to mention this was transferred to film as well.

[@johnolson2216]

Internet video not looking much better in 2018

[@rkan2]

The TV gear used to film here costed tens of thousands of dollars inflation adjusted, where as your webcam in your laptop cost around 3$.

[@All-Inn-Till-I-Win]

Yes indeed, probably your laptop sucks. @😜

[@MPOnline100]

Ridiculously Beyond impressive. Excellent technology presentation from so long ago. Its like the original TED Talk. Douglas Engelbart should be more known in computer history. This video should be mandatory viewing in any computer science program.

[@sbalogh53]

I am watching this video on a high resolution monitor, connected to what is basically a supercomputer on my desk, connected to the marvelous internet. I look at the date and realise that this primitive demo was only 45 years ago when I was in high school. Not that long ago at all. I look at my personal system and my mind boggles when I think of how much computer technology has advanced in those few decades. R.I.P. Doug. Thank you for everything.

[@Trance88]

This is absolutely mind blowing technology for the time. Hard to believe they could do this stuff almost 50 years ago.

[@bighands69]

These are the people who invented it.

[@skistowe]

What a treat. So prophetic.

[@atsunset9673]

Engelbart dedicated his entire life to pursuing his ideals, firmly stating, "Some say I am merely a dreamer, but I am deeply dissatisfied with the word 'merely'. For to truly become a dreamer is an arduous task." He proved through his actions that dreamers can achieve greatness and make remarkable contributions to the advancement of humanity.

[@dancingdoungnut]

Research in graphical interfaces started in the late 50s, with the first one being in 63 being Sutherland’s Sketchpad. This guy innovated on this by introducing the mouse, windowing and hypertext concepts. This is a moment in history akin to mobile phones turning into smartphones

[@vivual]

Rest in Peace, Doug Engelbart. We stand on your shoulders. Thanks for your work.

[@Gh0sTPro]

This is so much ahead of its time, it's just ridiculous. This was 1968! 50 years later and my video calls are still worse than this. And online collaboration is still in some way a novelty to which many people are not used.

[@scb2scb2]

Keep in mind the demo was given almost as a 'ending' point almost all of the parts where shown before and made by his team over a decade before. The 1968 demo was paid for by mostly gov. resources at a cost of about 10M to the depth and the completeness of the concepts.. As Alan Kay is quoted "The demo was one of the greatest experiences of my life. To me, it was Moses opening the Red Sea" and he had seen most of the parts in the demo before. He went on to co-found xerox park and later move (as many) to apple.

[@russell2952]

Hollywood still thinks computers beep and boop like this

[@teknoman117]

And I think the only reason they beeped and booped was because of how precious screen space was (and because everything was basically text-mode) so it represented a fairly simple but effective way to get your attention or to alert you of things.

[@autotipps6993]

@@teknoman117 I think it did not actually make those noises at all, I guess we are hearing radio frequencies sent out by the computer and picked up by the TV equipment used to record the demo.

[@jasonsdodd]

They still do here.

[@grproteus]

@@teknoman117 You could input and show graphics in this system faster than you can today with Word and excel. It's not only text-mode.

[@cda32]

​@@autotipps6993 I think it was added actually to reduce dead air while things were updating

[@timcutler4708]

Quite possibly the most important presentation of the 20th Century.

[@skillaxxx]

I think that honour should probably go to the D-Day plan, but I still can't grasp how 2012 that presentation was, visionary is underselling it !

[@FunkyBaby01]

I am totally amazed at how modern the presentation itself is set up. This is what the audience saw on a giant screen. Ted avant le mot. Too many mind blowing things in here; I started making a list but gave up. Why do we not have all this now, 50 years later? Something akin to the sacking of the Alexandrian library must have happened.

[@FunkyBaby01]

Just when I thought I had suffered most of the mind-blowing, they turn on the video conferencing. I will never recover from this; I'm scarred for life now. People, I don't care how advanced you think we are; we are living in the computing middle ages. It's high time to seek enlightenment from the founders.

[@PoliticalCineaste]

Wim Rijnders In December 1968, the 21st Century dropped in for a four-week stay. Not only this incredible demonstration of what is essentially 21st century computer technology, but also the Apollo 8 lunar orbital mission only 12-days later. After all the killings, political assassinations, riots and invasions in 1968, it's like the future descended on the final month of a bleak year to give it hope.

[@avedic]

Wim Rijnders Well said my friend. This is *_incredible_*. Think about it: This is a demo of technology that would take *_15 YEARS_* before consumer applications caught up....and we're *_still_* using this technology *_today_*. Engelbart was so very ahead of his time, in _so many_ ways. It amuses me to realize, *_as I'm watching this_*....I'm typing words into this text box and using my *_mouse_*(a word Engelbart coined) to move around. Engelbart must have felt so vindicated as he got older. Though, it's sad he was never fully recognized for what he's given us. He was a true shaman of technology...especially when it comes to his *_philosophy & ethos_* of the full potential of technology *_to make the world a better place_*. Much respect....

[@adamclark8733]

Read "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" to see the root cause of what hampers technological innovation.

[@danlock1]

@@PoliticalCineaste you don't need to post the same words in every thread.

[@MrGoggo1]

Doing a youtube style video review back in '68 like a total BOSS :) Thank You for all the awesomeness! RIP, Mr. Engelbart.

[@iwaited90daystochangemynam55]

He proved that "The best way to predict the future is to invent it"

[@playGEMJI]

So satisfying just to listen while working on something else... The positive energy flowing out of this person is still reaching us more than half a decade later. How amazing is that?! :)

[@maxbell]

This is a wonderful lesson for us that we have not come as far as we like to think and that these ideas were in the air long before anyone starting charging for licenses and taking credit for features. Email, telepresence, collaborative editing, hyperlinks, guided search, keyword search, mouse driven cursors are all shown in a user context clear as day. Federal government spending and a small team of programmers playing for 6 months were responsible for this stuff not some VCs or entrepreneurs brought us these concepts that we take for granted today. Please note that there seems to be a repeated sequence over 20 minutes in length starting at about 1 hour 10 minutes.

[@avedic]

Max Bell Well said sir. This is *_incredible_*. Think about it: This is a demo of technology that would take *_15 YEARS_* before consumer applications caught up....and we're *_still_* using this technology *_today_*. Engelbart was so very ahead of his time, in _so many_ ways. It amuses me to realize, *_as I'm watching this_*....I'm typing words into this text box and using my *_mouse_*(a word Engelbart coined) to move around. Engelbart must have felt so vindicated as he got older. Though, it's sad he was never fully recognized for what he's given us. He was a true shaman of technology...especially when it comes to his *_philosophy & ethos_* of the full potential of technology *_to make the world a better place_*. Much respect....

[@TwitchingShark]

These guys really knew how to write functional code. Simply amazing.

[@NetworkXIII]

I’ve always loved this presentation, truly the mother of all demos. Thanks for posting it to YT.

[@climarathorn]

My computer science professor just showed us this the other day. Blew all of my assumptions of what computers could do in '68 out of the water!

[@yokumato]

This presentation should be shown in schools! Agree with many viewers, Engelbart should be a household name, like Edison or Pasteur...

[@creeper50]

That calm cold voice with an echo and electronic whine on the back makes it outlandish and mesmerizing

[@Negasuki]

this guy is using a mouse, webcams, and Skype like video calling over a network connection (internet like) in the 1960's demonstrating relational database theories still being worked on today...

[@bobinorlando]

+Negasuki Yes and where did they get those headsets with little mics that look cooler even than the ones available today?

[@scb2scb2]

Well they had enough money for all the coolest parts. Bob Taylor who ordered Doug to give the demo told the story that (sorry can't remember where) the 1968 demo alone cost about 10Milj. in todays money.

[@asicdathens]

@@bobinorlando Plantronics headset ( the same brand was used on the moon by Apollo 11 astronauts)

[@grproteus]

The awesome thing is he is using them in a system that displays it's code in the same way it displays the content, and you can change that code on the fly. It's self-programmable and that is awesome!

[@bitscolumn]

He was so ahead of his time. What an amazing man Doug Engelbart was. Thank you for all your contributions to computer technology we take for granted today.

[@LewisCampbellTech]

Not only is this an amazing demo, it's also one of my favourite ambient albums.

[@Gabrielleify4]

This is astounding. Very much ahead of their time. Even the way the demo is presented! Remote video, remote interaction/collaberative editing, hypertext links, typesetting tools and customization, word processing, customizable executables, search and sorting functions, a mouse, cursor, keyboard, email/messages, timestamps, graphics... mind absolutely blown

[@WizoneSolutions]

Wow. I'm just fascinated in how similar the language of computers was back then. And how similar that demo was to demos today.

[@256k_]

i wish i was there witnessing this for the first time... i wish i could experience watching something so mindblowingly futuristic and innovative...

[@johnolson2216]

Modern equivalent might be bioprinting, smart contracts, solid state aircraft, maybe some bioengineered fuels

[@DanielRucci]

like... Oops, I invented everything

[@teknoman117]

Collaborative document creation with video teleconferencing over a geographically distributed network. In 1968. Sure it took a pair of microwave transceiver trucks at each site to make the datalink possible, but still. Truly was a glimpse into the future. Kinda sad it took so long to get where we are. Most likely had something to do with how prohibitively expensive those machines were, and how low power (but very specialized) they were compared to today's machines.

[@soylentgreenb]

+Nathaniel Lewis In 1968 DRAM already existed, but the most common for of memory was still woven from ferrite cores, one _bit_ at a time by women. The last generation of ferrite cores was less than a millimeter in size; through which three wires had to be threaded, without mistake, for thousands and thousands of cores. Each plane of cores (e.g. 8096 bits + 1024 parity bits for ECC) would be tested and then they would be stacked in layers into a big block of memory. The other major invention for home PCs was the microprocessor, which was (re)invented by intel in the early 70's. The mask for the first commercial processor was made by cutting strips of masking material and placing them under a microscope.

[@mayflowerlash11]

Kind of sad? You have unrealistically high expectations. How long did it take for humans to go from horse power to steam power? How long did it take to figure out the Earth goes around the Sun and not vice versa? As the worlds population has increased and synergy of minds increases, so the pace of advancement increases. The scary thing is that we lived in a time when the exponential increase was on the 45 degree slope. Soon the pace of development will be on the near vertical part of the curve. The limiting factor will be the rate that individuals are able to learn and adapt to new ideas and circumstances.

[@awesomeoliver583]

That vertical arrow right there. that is the first EVER mouse cursor.

[@tesztech]

i use the vertical arrow as a cursor

[@valeriacaissa4552]

And close to three decades later I grew up right at the transition from DOS to Windows. It's amazing how long it took until what we see here was normal and how Engelbart and his colleagues invented and worked with the stuff of the future. True visionaries and wizards of the technology. Really, this IS the mother of all demos, I am in awe.

[@ThomCherryhomes]

I have heard him say this, throughout his talks and even explained at length in his papers. I consider myself fortunate, to have actually used the last Augment system that he had online, and for that brief period that I was exposed to it, and really got to know it, I miss it. It was insanely efficient, and unfortunately the lesson of kicking off the training wheels, REALLY GETS LOST ON EVERYONE, TODAY! we've numbed our brains to fit our tech, all backwards...pointing and grunting. :(

[@arnechino]

Douglas Engelbart did more for us than many other famous people in the technology and marketing world. His legacy will (literally) live forever in our minds. It's a shame not so many people knew about him. Rest in peace, sir.

[@8Zeitgeist]

Known for Computer mouse Hypertext Groupware Interactive computing

[@ShiroKage009]

If I were alive back then, only the first text demonstration would have blown my freaking mind to bits.

[@hrnekbezucha]

I'm really impressed they made graphical output on the screen. I thought these were only capable of text.

[@smcracraft]

Doug was the head of ARC. My sponsor into the AIC at SRI worked for Doug in ARC before he came over to AIC. Although I never met Doug, I feel like I knew him. I learned my trade at AIC and am happy with the association to this day.

[@kingozzy7075]

Absolutely fascinating and nobody had even seen anything like this and none of it had a name yet. And don't forget about Bill English, his lead engineer. Everybody please go read What the Dormouse Said.. especially chapter 2: Augmentation and chapter 5: Dealing Lightning

[@cendrieeR]

I am always amazed at how tenacious those people were, struggling with those enormous unpractical machines. How far we are now thanks to them...

[@DanielJudahMoss]

It amazing to think that this was the pinnacle of technology then and now we have children running around with iPhone with no aspect of how it used to be.

[@rationalcoder]

This goes to show you just what computers are capable of. What we see now is _nothing_ compared to what we could do with our computing resources which are many orders of magnitude larger, faster, cheaper, and smaller. You start to catch a glimpse when AAA games innovate, but then there's...the web. There are "modern" websites that manage to be slower than the games I play on my gaming PC, and they do it with JavaScript, CSS, and loading ads. Absolutely incredible.

[@echopathy]

thanks for sharing a consolidated version of this. the res is lovely to boot. cheers.

[@Budsport_TV]

Man, their video meetups were smoother and clearer than some zoom calls I’ve had recently lol 🐁

[@MA-zo6tb]

Amazing... back in 1968, mouse, keyboard, computer interaction, skype communication, hyperlinking text, concept of spreadsheets, design spec, video display, and style of demo... I am amazed that there are only 620k views not like over a billion like for Steve Jobs. Amazing team work and coordination of so many concepts. If someone funded and supported this man, we might not lot of conflicts, and social dissonance we have in the world. Just look at the link below ... he is the real genius behind modern day Apple computers, AutoCAD, Internet, gaming, collaboration, AI... www.dougengelbart.org/about/patents.html

[@saqibshafin]

240p of pure Gold.

[@PeteOliva]

I hope that as time goes on this will increasingly become seen as one of the major epochal moments in human history. I remember seeing parts of this at a technology class I took in college and was utterly blown away. Makes you think about how the rudimentary steps we're making into "VR" right now will end up in about 50 years. I think we'll be right around where Ready Player One has it, it seems so distant now but as this video helps us understand, we'll get there.

[@yahootooloo]

I can't even imagine ....

[@tanin34]

We hadn't even been to the moon yet and this guy was already in the freaking future!

[@lime-ne1vo]

This is great! This is the beginning of the modern day information technology revolution. Doug, you and the team are inspirational beyound ... Thanks for the great work.

[@sugoruyo]

Can we take a moment to appreciate the live demo curse? Even from the very first one, it never goes according to plan :P

[@tschak909]

The only irritating thing is that you can't see the command bar, at the very top, very well... To really understand this system ,you _REALLY_ need to pay attention to this bar, and the commands he is executing (with the arrows below to show what he is triggering.

[@him7676]

This is incredible. Put my daily life in perspective as an IT professional. I take all of this for granted and only 50ish years ago, we had nothing I use everyday

[@jonidimo]

No Apple, no Xerox...1968 epic, excellent...

[@SongsOfDragons]

This video should be shown in computing classes. It's vital for people to know how their favourite tools were created - and how far they've come in such a short time. My IT lessons at school (left Year 13 in 2005) were awful.

[@DeathstroketheTerminator]

1968 this dude is the first streamer and he already uses a a streamdeck

[@MikkoRantalainen]

The shopping list demo around 11:00 has way more features than Google Keep in 2024, 56 years after this presentation. We sure have nicer graphics nowadays but the features are still not there after half a decade!

[@mrs7195]

And to think that just 20 years prior to this presentation, the cutting edge stuff in computing were ENIAC-like monster computers.

[@Diachron]

I won't add to the voluminous body of comments praising the innovation and foresight of this demo. What I'll say instead is that there are sections of it that are positively musical in nature. From the blips and drones to the clatter of keys to the booming echo of the hall. There's a few tracks in here awaiting some kind of release.

[@bethcn1]

This is incredible technology for the time, or even our time really. Online learning in it’s early days! It actually seems like we haven’t made that much progress with technology really just made it more accessible to everyone not just a few people in higher education. It’s really interesting to see that the keyboard and mouse look very similar to what we use now.

[@hoilst]

Can you imagine seeing so far...and then seeing us all reach that focus of your vision?

[@willrogers8131]

we're not even there yet :l his work on augmenting human intellect has basically atrophied

[@fygarOnTheRun]

Utterly stunning and I also wonder why this is not much more popular. I started playing around with computers in the early 80s and have never come across this until today. On a side note (a bit far stretched maybe), this presentation and the level of collaborative genius (they worked on this for years) at display might help convince some of the advocates of the moon-landing conspiracy, that back then people were already able to pull of incredible things that even experts would not have believed to be possible. That video should be shown at every single school in the world!

[@bobdouglass8010]

There's nothing magic about this demonstration. Genius, yes, and thousands of hours of work and cooperation. But it's all understandable at the end of the day. The moon landings, by contrast, required actual magic if they happened. Oh and by the way, this demo lead indirectly to Xerox's Alto research which inspired Jobs, Gates, and others. That team would write Word, found Adobe, etc etc. That's how new technology works - it inspires and leads to adoption and refinement. See where I'm going with the moon landing nonsense?

[@gblargg]

The system is basically HTML. Multiple files, hyperlinks, named anchors (statement names), frames (frozen statements), stylesheets (view parameters)