The live demonstration featured the introduction of a complete computer hardware and software system called the oN-Line System or, more commonly, NLS. The 90-minute presentation essentially demonstrated almost all the fundamental elements of modern personal computing: windows, hypertext, graphics, efficient navigation and command input, video conferencing, the computer mouse, word processing, dynamic file linking, revision control, and a collaborative real-time editor (collaborative work). Engelbart's presentation was the first to publicly demonstrate all of these elements in a single system. The demonstration was highly influential and spawned similar projects at Xerox PARC in the early 1970s. The underlying technologies influenced both the Apple Macintosh and Microsoft Windows graphical user interface operating systems in the 1980s and 1990s....
During the 90-minute presentation, Engelbart used his mouse prototype to move around the screen, highlight text, and resize windows. This was the first time that an integrated system for manipulating text onscreen was presented publicly....
Prior to the demonstration, a significant portion of the computer science community thought Engelbart was "a crackpot." When he was finished, he was described as "dealing lightning with both hands."
December 9, 2018
It was 50 years ago today: "The Mother of All Demos."
"'The Mother of All Demos' is a name retroactively applied to a landmark computer demonstration, given at the Association for Computing Machinery / Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (ACM/IEEE)—Computer Society's Fall Joint Computer Conference in San Francisco, which was presented by Douglas Engelbart on December 9, 1968," says Wikipedia.
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I was in India, starting college, wish I could have known this then.
Xerox PARC had all if it and gave it away. The suits at Xerox thought they were a copier company.
If Xerox gave it away what part is in public domain and what's being monetized?
It seems that patents on all this stuff will have long since expired.
I think the best comparison to explain what rehajm said... is to look at
1. Bill Gates, and his wisdom to both buy up a clone of RDOS, when IBM came knocking and to license it into every PC IBM made. Zero creative energy, maximum business acumen.
2. XEROX, that creates a truly revolutionary SW framework/toolset/interface and let's others, namely Apple and MS make 100 billion off their work.
maximum creative energy, zero business acumen
Jobs on his visit to PARC, via Cringley
Beggars Banquet was released just three days before on December 6, 1968. Fifty years ago just doesn’t seem like that long ago.
It didn't affect me. I had my own IBM 360/65 nights.
The killer was cost, not features.
what rhhardin said; except gilbar said
360's were pieces of Shit, 370/158's, NOW you're talking!! :)
was there alot (by which i mean ANYTHING?) that Parc had that SAGE didn't do, Back in the 1950's?
IBM's antitrust problems meant that they wouldn't develop new systems to the extend the could.
Thus, the outsourcing of the PC.
was there alot (by which i mean ANYTHING?) that Parc had that SAGE didn't do, Back in the 1950's
SAGE forsooth which begat PARC, who begat Microsoft, Apple, who forsooth begat the sons Amazon, Facebook and Pets.com...
a cool history of the Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (the precursor to Skynet)
https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2013/03/28/the-largest-computer-ever-built/
The SAGE system had many firsts: it was the first nation wide networked computer system. While it used special leased telephone lines and some of the first modems (at a blistering 1300 baud), it was effectively the internet, long before the internet.
It was the first to use CRT screens.
The first to use a “touch screen interface” via the use of light pens on the CRT.
It was the first to use magnetic core memory.
It was the first real time, high availability computer system.
It was the first computer system to use time sharing
sorry, people; i heart SAGE
Xerox had bigger fish to fry. They acquired Scientific Data Systems in 1969 and changed its name to Xerox Data Systems. Their reasoning was that they had entree to a vast customer base because of their copier business, a virtual monopoly at the time. The problem was that copiers were sold to purchasing agents while computers were sold to the board of directors.
at a blistering 1300 baud
In 1985, I was helping someone who accessed the supercomputer at Los Alamos on DARPANET at 300 baud, IIRC. Might have been more, but less than 1300.
Ran a nuclear weapons effects program that calculated how many US citizens would die from the blasts of various attacks, and then made maps showing intensity of fallout for various weather. Northern tip of Maine was the only safe spot, assuming Canada wasn't attacked, too.
A year later, I was using an Apple Lisa to make vugraphs for the Air Staff. Wow!
I was helping someone who accessed the supercomputer at Los Alamos on DARPANET at 300 baud, IIRC
There's video!
rhhardin and gilbar
I was on operator on an IBM 360/70 back in the early 80s. It was replaced by a mini-computer whose name I don't recall, not that it matters, it was developed specifically as a semi-trailer transportable computer for the US Army. It was my first exposure to UNIX.
The problem was that copiers were sold to purchasing agents while computers were sold to the board of directors.
Automation was considered risky. You were making profound changes to the business processes. And it was all new and computers were expensive, therefore ROI was rather hard to calculate.
> The SAGE system had many firsts
My father said that the basic design for the system was sketched out by Irving Reed during a lunch break.
The thing to keep in mind is that 50 years ago the 370 had 132 bit addressing. Due to poor design modern computers have a 100 bit bus. We have gone backwards. Computer designers have disguised the problem with quad-cores, bigger RAMS and solid state BUT computers today are not as fast as 50 years ago.
And you can blame Bill Gates and Microsoft for that regression!!!!!
And IBM and OS2 for failing to provide a path forward for DOS users.
Finally, if you’re a believer in Spengler and the Decline of the West, this is the quintessential example....
Jack Wayne said...
"The thing to keep in mind is that 50 years ago the 370 had 132 bit addressing. Due to poor design modern computers have a 100 bit bus. We have gone backwards. Computer designers have disguised the problem with quad-cores, bigger RAMS and solid state BUT computers today are not as fast as 50 years ago."
What on Earth do you think you are talking about?
Xerox built office word processing systems called STAR which used all the PARC developments. They sold for $20,000 apiece and took up a lot of space. I used to repair them and I carried in large hard drives about three quarters the size of a 21 inch carryon suitcase. And heavy because of all the data they held - as much as 8K. Can a woman do this job and carry that heavy drive? Yes, but meanwhile Steve Jobs developed a PC that did all the same things as STAR and sold for much less. It was about the size/weight of a STAR drive. Apple, 'well they just make toys, you don't try to stay ahead of them,' the Xerox executives thought. They just couldn't imagine a world where you counted on people who played games on computers to keep you ahead of IBM. That is why Xerox lost out.
Well Jupiter, if we had true 132-bit addressing on modern computers with quad-core, solid state, etc, how much faster would modern computers be?
And really, by now we should have 256-bit addressing.
i had the honor and pleasure to operate system/390 machines until i foolishly decided that i should complete my degree in Com Sci, and become a database admin :(
Jack is right; computers would be faster if we hadn't gone down into the x86 tarpits
As i type, i'm looking at my name plate from a 370/158 that i operated in 1982. That's Right; I'VE KEPT THE NAME PLATE!!!
I'll second Jupiter here -- someone who conflates address space with processor speed took a terribly wrong turn somewhere.
Xerox PARC had all if it and gave it away
No, actually, Xerox sold it. Xerox got a good, solid, and remunerative chunk of Apple stock in exchange for giving Apple access to PARC and rights to the designs. Given that Xerox pretty thoroughly proved they weren't able to actually commercialize the Alto given the failure of the Star, getting a share of Apple was a decent deal. Ideas are one thing, but execution is important, too.
Apple is the company that gave it away. In 1985, they signed a license giving Microsoft extensive and perpetual rights to Macintosh technology for Windows in order to renew the rights for the Microsoft-written Applesoft BASIC provided on the Apple II.
Granted, a switch back to Integer BASIC would have been disruptive to the last few years of Apple II sales, but there were other alternatives possible (like buying some other firm that had licensed Microsoft's BASIC for the 6502), or they could have signed a better deal (like getting a solid chunk of Microsoft stock in emulation of the Xerox-Apple deal).
If extending address space to more bits would be useful, people would do it. There are no serious barriers to extending ARM to 128 or 256 bits, for example. It's just that nobody needs to replace 18 quadrillion bits of address space with 340 undecillion or 115 quattuorvigintillion.
(I'd have done a more traditional 2 exbibytes of address space compared to the larger prefixes instead of using the names of the numbers, but there are no large-enough prefixes for the 128- and 256-bit equivalents, because nobody needs them enough for the system to have been extended that far.)
Jack Wayne,
What on earth does having a larger addressing space have to do with speed? And OS/2 had a working copy of DOS inside it, completely virtualized. OS/2 was absolutely technically the right thing--IBM just had zero ability to market it to the masses. Bill Gates was much smarter about that.
What you know of as Windows NT (and Windows 7, 8, and 10) are descendants of OS/2. It's the same processing / threading model, and the Windows UI adapted most of the "Workplace Shell" paradigm from OS/2.
We had a 360 at Speed Scientific School and you had to reserve time on it. Output was a printer or stack of cards. Gotran and Fortran were used by us engineers. I was absolutely convinced there was no utility for a computer in the home.
Then ten years later time sharing was the thing. We had one calculator the size of a laptop today, that was shared by the whole office because it cost nearly a thousand bucks.
There were a couple of such efforts then.
In 1977, I saw a demo of the Interlisp Debugger environment. It had the whole modern GUI too. It really wowed the audience, myself included.
By the way:
Everybody by now has heard the story of how Steve Jobs saw a demo of this stuff at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (Xerox PARC). And he decided to build the Lisa and then the Macintosh with those same ideas.
What fewer people know is why Xerox management continued to fund this R&D at PARC when they themselves had no intention of ever commercializing it.
The reason is that Xerox PARC had a big customer for it that was secretly willing to pay big bucks for it: the CIA in Langley VA.
Their information officer, Angela Coppola, was a visionary in her own way. She realized that for CIA analysts to "connect the dots" in intelligence gathering, this type of graphical user interface was a vast improvement over the line-oriented displays they had before.
The CIA bought many such workstations, which back then cost tens of thousands of dollars each. Computer scientists like Alan Kay and Adele Goldberg were secretly shuttling back and forth between Palo Alto and Langley to get this technology into the CIA.
Almost no one today has ever heard of Angela Coppola. But thanks to CIA techies like her, the technology got proven and tested with a large user base--until Steve Jobs could come along and rip it off.
And as Paul Harvey used to say: "And now you know...the REST of the story."
The demonstration was highly influential and spawned similar projects at Xerox PARC in the early 1970s. The underlying technologies influenced both the Apple Macintosh and Microsoft Windows graphical user interface operating systems in the 1980s and 1990s....
Here's the 1h:45m YouTube video of the demonstration...
While substantively impressive for the time, superficially, what the low quality black and white video reminds me of is the Apple "1984" ad.
“1. Bill Gates, and his wisdom to both buy up a clone of RDOS, when IBM came knocking and to license it into every PC IBM made. Zero creative energy, maximum business acumen.”
As I understand it, the clone was QDOS, and the cloned OS was CPM/86 by Digital Research (DRI). About 20 years ago, I was privileged to read the unpublished autobiography of Garry Kildall, the inventor of CPM. A mutual friend of ours had a couple copies of it, and had been out with Kildall the night he had fallen down, hit his head, and died a day or two later. And I talked several times with his second wife. They got some of the story right with the “Revenge Of The Nerds” documentary, but much of it was written to keep Bill Gates, MSFT, and IBM from looking bad. The victors got to write the history.
The story started out innocently enough. IBM went to the naiscent MSFT in Seattle to find an OS for its new PC. MSFT had apparently been bundling their compilers with CPM (MSFT has always written good compilers, definitely better than their OS’s), and IBM apparently thought that it was theirs. Ultimately, IBM came down to the Bay Area to meet with DRI, and I think that Gary Kildall wasn’t there that first day, but his first wife was (the one shown in the documentary). They apparently didn’t come to a resultion, so IBM went back to WA and MSFT, where Gates had the bright idea of selling them the clone. It isn’t clear whether MSFT bought it before or after doing a deal with IBM, but in any case, MSFT got a steal there. The first part of the story left out of the documentary was that the reason that IBM couldn’t get an agreement with DRI, was that they were offering a license for unlimited copies at a fixed cost, less than what DRI was already making with CPM. Knowing what we know today, DRI should have taken the deal, despite the possibility of losing money the first years from lost sales of its flagship product. The other thing was that they were still bargaining with DRI the night before they formally announced their new PC running PC-DOS, which had ultimately been derived from DRI’s CPM/86 OS. That was one of Kildall’s big complaints, that IBM had strung them along to the last minute, despite having already done the deal with Gates and MSFT.
The other interesting part of the story was the question of how MSFT and IBM could get away with selling the CPM clone. The answer is that at the time, copyright only extended to copying of the source code. It was the interface, the command names and formats, that were copied, and not the source code. Several years later, US copyright law had shifted to cover “look and feel”, the non-literal aspects of software. But by then, DRI had entered into a hold harmless agreement with IBM, that applied to MSFT too, in exchange for listing DRI software (including CPM/86) in the IBM software catalog. Unfortunately for DRI, it was listed at the pre-PC price of maybe $250, and was competing with PC-DOS and MS-DOS that were being bundled into new computer sales. It never really sold. This is part of why, of course, MSFT never sued DRI for selling DR-DOS, because it was descended from the original, and MS-DOS was descended from the clone. Later, MSFT added code to Win 95 and 98 to flag running it on top of DR-DOS, and were successfully sued for antitrust by the company that had bought DR-DOS and the DoJ.
We were speaking of John McPhee in the post on audiobook earlier today. Then I spent most of the day sitting in the mall while my grandson and his buddies went nuts go-karting, ziplining and generally having fun.
So I got a chance to get into McPhee's Draft #4 book which is about his techniques for writing. I am hoping to pick up some tips but holy-moly does he put a lot of work into it. Much more than I am willing to do. I guess that's why he's John McPhee and I'm John Henry
Anyway, there is a great digression about how he used to type all his notes then cut them into slips, arrange them in folders with codes and so on. He told how he started out with a manual typewriter, moved to an IBM Selectric, then someone at Princeton built him a writing system for a computer (pre-PC) that handles his notes the way he likes.
He is still using the system today, though upgraded to Windows.
It is an interesting discussion of computers and writing, particularly from a historical standpoint.
John Henry
And OS/2 had a working copy of DOS inside it, completely virtualized
OS/2 1.x did not, because it had to run on 286s (because IBM had promised their customers), and 286s didn't support v8086 mode. The result was support for DOS so bad that it was quickly nicknamed the "penalty box". It wouldn't have mattered how IBM marketed it, because it wouldn't run most people's DOS apps.
OS/2 2.x did, but it required 8 MB of RAM to run acceptably at a time where the standard 386 PC shipped with 2 MB. (A memory price spike caused by trade sanctions on Japan caused a stagnation in memory sizes.) At the same time, Windows had been shipping for a good long while with full support for DOS in V8086 mode while running reasonably in 2 MB by the time OS/2 2.0 came out. The result was lots of Windows sales to corporations that had to use DOS app, wanted a GUI, and didn't want to pay a fortune for RAM. It wouldn't have mattered how IBM marketed it, because it came out later and wouldn't run reasonably on most computers.
So by the time OS/2 was a reasonable successor to DOS (Warp managed to squeeze down to 4 MB at a time where the entry-level PC was 4 MB), Windows had spent years consolidating the market and ISVs had already started their transition to Win32. It wouldn't have mattered how IBM marketed it, because it wouldn't run new versions of apps, particularly Microsoft Office.
If OS/2 Warp had shipped in 1987 to contend with Windows/386 and failed, one could plausibly blame IBM marketing. But it didn't; OS/2 1.0 (no GUI and the Penalty Box) did. If OS/2 Warp had shipped in 1990 to contend with Windows 3.0 and failed, one could reasonably blame IBM marketing. But it didn't; OS/2 1.3 (still with the Penalty Box) did. If OS/2 Warp had shipped in 1992 to content with Windows 3.1 and failed, one could still make a case for marketing. But it didn't; OS/2 2.0 (the relative resource hog) did.
In 1994? Sure, OS/2 Warp could run all existing Windows applications. But everybody was developing for Win32, and IBM's attempt to bribe companies to develop for OS/2 couldn't overcome that.
In his discussion of Kedit, the writing program that he still uses, he digresses a bit. (It's part of why he is John McPhee)
Not remotely in the way, certainly, that Steve Jobs would object, in 1983, to what he characterized as Bill Gates’s theft of Apple’s mouse-driven Graphical User Interface. In an interface-to-interface encounter—described by Andy Hertzfeld, a Macintosh system designer who was present—Jobs shouted at Gates:
“You’re ripping us off! I trusted you, and now you’re stealing from us!” But Bill Gates just stood there coolly, looking Steve directly in the eye, before starting to speak in his squeaky voice.
“Well, Steve, I think there’s more than one way of looking at it. I think it’s more like we both had this rich neighbor named Xerox and I broke into his house to steal the TV set and found out that you had already stolen it.”
John Henry
Ultimately, IBM came down to the Bay Area to meet with DRI, and I think that Gary Kildall wasn’t there that first day
the Apocryphal story that i heard was, that IBM's suits were told that he was 'out surfing' by someone (his wife?) and that IBM's suits thought: Fuck THAT Shit
I don't know if it's true; but i DO know that at that time, when IBM's service technicians would show up at 4 in the morning to work on my machine, they would ALWAYS be wearing suit&tie.
I can easily see Armonk NOT being impressed by a mom&pop shop that took time off to catch some waves
I'd like to Thank Professor Althouse for having a readership that is aware of things like this, makes me feel at home.
I still use /bin/ed as my text editor. Long habit and it works fine.
It had the advantage that it worked well even with long internet delays, which a visual editor does not.
Gilbar said
I don't know if it's true; but i DO know that at that time, when IBM's service technicians would show up at 4 in the morning to work on my machine, they would ALWAYS be wearing suit&tie.
In the 70s and early 80s the IBM techs who serviced our typewriters and copiers wore dark suit and tie with white shirt. None of these fancy/schmancy pastels for IBM. No matter how deep into the copier they got, I don't recall them ever removing their jacket. I'd read about it but had never believed it until we got IBM copiers.
BUT:
In 1979 I went to a 3 day conference on high purity water for the process industries in New Jersey. There were several IBM engineers there, all dressed in the IBM uniform dark suit, tie, white shirt. Suits, BTW. Not sports coats.
There was also this guy, probably in his 40's, long ratty hair, big bushy beard, bib overalls, flannel shirt, wellington boots. Not neatly pressed overalls and shirt. He looked like he had just come in from slopping the hogs. Probably the only one at the conference without at least a sport jacket and tie.
His name tag identified him as being from IBM. During a break I asked one of the IBM guys if he was really from IBM. I said he didn't have the IBM uniform.
They told me that he was Dr somebody or other, he was an IBM "Fellow" (which I later found means a VERY highly valued employee) and held several dozen key patents. They had no idea what he did, figured that there were probably only a couple people in the world who understood what he did.
But they did know he was allowed to dress however he wanted.
So apparently some exceptions to the dress code.
John Henry
Blogger rhhardin said...
I still use /bin/ed as my text editor. Long habit and it works fine.
It had the advantage that it worked well even with long internet delays, which a visual editor does not.
I used Ashton-Tate's Framework and loved it. It combined word processor, spreadsheet, database and telecomm into a single, seamless DOS program.
When I finally moved to Windows in 96 or so my school gave me a WordPerfect package that included WP, SS, a presenter like PowerPoint and some other things. I moved to MS-Word in 2002 or so when I started doing a lot of writing for publication and my editors insisted.
I still miss WordPerfect. Hell, I still miss DOS and Framework. I still have the 3-1/2 Framework installation floppies in case DOS ever makes a comeback.
John Henry
Best set of comments at Althouse I can remember reading. Bravo everyone!
FYI "SAGE" was developed by/for the USAF in the 50s as the heart of a continental Air Defence Missile & Radar System which went by that name ..
Sorry gilbar, when I skimmed I didn't hit the link so all I saw was lack of military connection as a driving developmental force..
Re: Gary Kildall: Bill Gates says he went flying, but Gary left financial negotiations to his wife Dorothy. IBM wouldn't even give the purpose of their visit to DR without a non-disclosure, and ultimately Gary & Dorothy balked. Typical IBM bs (which is why they've become insignificant & eventually will become kaput unless RedHat mgmt rises to the top after their acquisition closes). Even tho Gates did tell IBM to speak to Gary, ultimately Gates & Paul Allen found & bought the SCP Dos clone and the rest is history.
Back to the subject: Stewart Brand of Whole Earth Catalog fame was one of the camera operators of the Demo. Major fact that gets overlooked.
And a final aside: In the late 90s I worked at Com21, a cable modem technology company founded by Paul Baron, who co-invented packet-switching (aka the internet). His son was my boss, so many times we'd all sit together at lunch. Short summary is Paul's stories were captivating with my mind blown regularly.
- pv, working in silicon valley for 40 years.
Typical IBM bs (which is why they've become insignificant... unlike Digital Research ?
Yep, when you look at THE KINGS OF THE WORLD, you look at Digital Research!!
They SURE Stuck it to IBM!!! HA HA HA
remember! it was IBM bs that had them have their wife do all the business, and have their wife not discuss things without his approval (this is known as FUBAR)
What crippled IBM was the federal government's antitrust concerns, IBM had to work with both hands tied behind it's back to avoid breakup.
So about the same time as Woodstock, there was this. I wonder which will be considered more significant a hundred years from now.
Roger Sweeny said... So about the same time as Woodstock, there was this. I wonder which will be considered more significant a hundred years from now.
Don't forget, at The Exact Same Time as Woodstock, Apollo 11 was going to the Moon.
I Wonder which of these three will be considered more significant a hundred years from now.
{though, Woodstock DID have Sha Na Na, so there's that}
How diverse was the audience, though? How many women were a part of the presentation?
If there wasn't enough diversity then we have to retroactively invalidate the demo. These are the rules.
You cannot believe the resistance to this user interface among the Computer Cognoscenti. It came to be known in many circles as the WIMP interface - (Windows, Icons, Mouse and Pointer).
Strictly for the wimps who couldn't stand up to a good old fashioned "C:>" prompt!
Wow, thanks for this, nostalgia. I recall using a Xerox Alto available to comp sci folk at Stanford in 1978, and thinking it was great, but not really for sale.
What was for sale were Apple IIs and C-64s and Ataris (among other stuff); I got a C-64.
Yes, the thread is great for old Sili Valli folk. FORTRAN, DRI, Steve Jobs & Bill Gates; plus Steven very correctly noting how IBM was about 2 years too late in lots of tech stuff.
Plus 132 bit address space ... not yet needed, still.
The User Interface wars will not be settled until we have much much better thought-writing (brain to comp interface). Novice users like windows & mice; experts prefer command line when working on text, & files. I recall Lotus 1-2-3 and how it, plus IBM's name on the IBM PC, is why tech Finance Departments were willing to leave their IBM mainframe budget process and go to PCs. Just before that, in 1980, our Budget Director started using VisiCalc on an Apple II.
VisiCalc >> Lotus drove the PC explosion ($4k for XT, AT rather than $10k for Lisa), with mice & windows still in the future. Windows 1.x, & 2.x were terrible dogs; only 3.11 started being OK, tho by Windows 95 it was about as good as the early Macintoshs. And more compatible.
gilbar said, "Don't forget, at The Exact Same Time as Woodstock, Apollo 11 was going to the Moon. I Wonder which of these three will be considered more significant a hundred years from now."
Woodstock without a doubt. Apollo was a dead end. We discovered what we already knew. There's nothing there. And the only ways to get there or live there are uncomfortable and take a lot of time.
Oops, that should have begun, "It won't be Apollo."
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