The Demo

http://sloan.stanford.edu/mousesite/1968Demo.html

by sturadnidge • 13 years ago

232 36 13 years ago

sloan.stanford.edu

LAMike• 13 years ago

Wow hearing him explain the concept of a mouse to a room full of people who may or may not be convinced that computers are the future is really interesting.

One of the most important demos in tech next to the invention of fire and the iPod

hkmurakami2• 13 years ago

love the wit

posting this before someone inevitably rails against your obviously genuine belief that the iPod was the greatest invention ever. X_X

PanickedOmlette• 13 years ago

That's sarcasm.

drcode• 13 years ago

Way more important than iPod

nooneelse• 13 years ago

Whenever I've watched this, I've stopped it several times and just tried to think of/like the people in the audience. What were they thinking? What previous and familiar techniques and technologies were they using as the lens to see this through? If you had them brainstorm in small groups about how they could use this if they had it for the next year, what would they think it was good for? Is it something they saw as useful for themselves or just for record-keepers and report writers?

hkmurakami2• 13 years ago

Main Engelbart discussion going right now on HN (in case it drops off): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5986307

danso• 13 years ago

I read "1968" as "!986" and when looking at it again, still read "1986"...as in, the mouse was a pretty big deal back in 1986, from what I barely remember. But 1968? My mental picture is just circuit boards and punch cards. How amazing this technology must have seemed.

seanmcdirmid• 13 years ago

Well....Sutherland's SketchPad demo was done in 1963.

aidos• 13 years ago

The SketchPad demo is just amazing. Whenever I work with a crappy interface I think about SketchPad and wonder how we collectively haven't set higher standards for the way we interact with computers.

InclinedPlane2• 13 years ago

The interesting thing is how much this was straining technology at the time, and how it predated the innovations (such as microprocessors) which would make this sort of thing not just feasible but inexpensive enough for many folks to make use of it in the home.

neona• 13 years ago

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJDv-zdhzMY

^ Youtube link to the demo, as I can't get the video on the site to work.

EDIT: better quality version

teej• 13 years ago

Reflecting on the fact that this video was recorded before the unix epoch was humbling.

roryokane2• 13 years ago

This led me to wonder why 1970-01-01 is the Unix epoch. Answer: http://stackoverflow.com/q/1090869/578288. In short, Unix was developed in 1969 and first released in 1971.

mortehu4• 13 years ago

This reminded me of the original presentation of the iPhone, which I didn't watch until recently:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hUIxyE2Ns8

Points of similarity:

1. Both presentations happened in San Francisco (at the same convention center?)

2. Both demonstrate major advances in user interfaces

3. Both include demonstrations of remote communication :)

glurgh3• 13 years ago

Other than the fact that they are both demos and happened in SF (in different locations, Brooks hall has been closed for many years), they're almost entirely dissimilar.

One is a demonstration of new technologies, previously unseen by many in the audience. The other is the introduction of a new product integrating many existing technologies. You could buy an iPhone a few months after that introduction. Computers with mice didn't become generally available to consumers till 1984. You're either underestimating the impact of Engelbart's demo, overestimating the importance of the iPhone or both.

gfodor2• 13 years ago

I'm going to disagree and say that Jobs' unveiling of the iPhone will be up there with The Demo in terms of watershed moments in computer, and indeed human history. It wasn't the iPhone per se, but what the iPhone represented and the clear inflection point it has proven to be for realizing much of the vision originally hatched by those at PARC.

mortehu4• 13 years ago

I have some trouble seeing how Engelbart's demo wasn't just integrating many existing technologies. For example, live television had existed for decades, so teleconferencing would seem like a small leap. While Engelbart's team did independently[1] invent the mouse, Apple made the first consumer mouse, and by also inventing drag gestures, they didn't have to go with the frankly shitty UI suggested by Engelbart.

1. Telefunken was selling a mouse several weeks before this demo -- http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Auf-den-Spuren-der-de...

[This comment has been edited a couple of times]

sowhatquestion• 13 years ago

Did anyone else notice that the "word processor" demoed here is really more of a flexible outliner, like WorkFlowy ( http://www.workflowy.com )? Actually, the more features he ran through, the more I was struck by the similarity.

jared314• 13 years ago

It is things like this that show why every college should have a history of CS course.

roryokane2• 13 years ago

Archive.org has this video, too, and lets you download it: http://archive.org/details/XD300-23_68HighlightsAResearchCnt...

Also, this demo has a Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_of_All_Demos

marcosscriven2• 13 years ago

I absolutely love all the buzzing and whirring in the video. Combined with the fairly heavy reverberations of his voice, it's almost ethereal.

voidlogic• 13 years ago

I was actually thinking about writing something to generate these computery sounds as I work. :)

marcosscriven2• 13 years ago

Drop everything, and do it now. I need this :)

laacz• 13 years ago

And reflecting on this demo, today's XKCD is nice: http://xkcd.com/1234/

The Demo

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