Sunday, March 24, 2013

Cut & Paste, GUI, Links in 1968

Douglas Engelbart demonstrates the NLS (“oN Line System”) in 1968.  As Lambert Strether says it took 16 years (1984 – 1968) to  to be adapted successfully for commercialization (e.g. Apple Lisa) . For 45 years ( 2013 – 1968)  Engelbart’s vision or, at least a version of it remains unchanged.
The demo is one hour and forty minutes long,




You will see the first demonstrations of:
  • The mouse
  • The cathode ray tube (CRT) monitor (what we all used before flat screens, if you can imagine such a thing)
  • The graphical user interface (GUI) with windows (as opposed to the previous state of the art, the teletype)
  • The word processor (with cut, copy, and paste)
  • The outliner 
  • Computer generated slides
  • Hypertext with clickable links
  • Video-conferencing
  • More abstractly, “the file,” with file name, creation date, and creator, with navigation through a hierarchy of files
  • And Herman Miller office furniture!

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