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Re: [ontology-summit] Doug Engelbart passed away last night

To: ontology-summit@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
From: John F Sowa <sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 04 Jul 2013 09:52:36 -0400
Message-id: <51D57E24.7040500@xxxxxxxxxxx>
On 7/3/2013 6:22 PM, Jack Ring wrote:
> Doug's favorite input device was a set of keys on two levels
> (like piano or court reporter).    (01)

 From http://sloan.stanford.edu/mousesite/1968Demo.html
> On December 9, 1968, Douglas C. Engelbart and the group of 17
> researchers working with him in the Augmentation Research Center
> at Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park, CA, presented
> a 90-minute live public demonstration of the online system, NLS,
> they had been working on since 1962. The public presentation was
> a session of the Fall Joint Computer Conference held at the
> Convention Center in San Francisco, and it was attended by about
> 1,000 computer professionals. This was the public debut of the
> computer mouse. But the mouse was only one of many innovations
> demonstrated that day, including hypertext, object addressing
> and dynamic file linking, as well as shared-screen collaboration
> involving two persons at different sites communicating over a
> network with audio and video interface.    (02)

Most of that group later migrated to Xerox PARC, where they developed
the WIMPy interface (Windows, Icons, Menus, and Pointing device).
Xerox sold some very expensive workstations based on that technology.
But they occupied a tiny niche until Steve Jobs visited PARC and
adapted the ideas.    (03)

Following is a shorter excerpt from the 1968 demo combined with a short
talk by Doug E. in 2004.  It also shows the piano-like keys on the left
of the usual keyboard:    (04)

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23174052    (05)

For more detail about the visit to PARC by Steve Jobs and his crew,
see http://lowendmac.com/orchard/05/apple-lisa-history.html    (06)

 From that article:
> Convinced that the technology at PARC could help Apple usher in the 1980s,
> Jobs offered Xerox a killer deal: Apple, which was privately owned at the 
>time,
> would allow Xerox to invest $1 million in Apple, which was sure to soar in
> value when the company went public in 1981 - in exchange for two guided tours
> of PARC's technology. Xerox happily accepted and gave Jobs and a team of Lisa
> project engineers a tour.    (07)

That's a good example of the famous "Reality Distortion Field" generated
by Steve Jobs:  "If you allow me to steal your company's secrets, I'll
allow you to invest a million dollars in my company."    (08)

John    (09)


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