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Started by Lin Chen (@linchen_cog) ·

the Mother of All Demos was in 1968. 1968!

90 minutes, live, in San Francisco: a mouse, hypertext links, windows, and real-time collaborative editing with a colleague on a video link from Menlo Park, about 30 miles away. Apparently the audience gave him a standing ovation. Most of it took decades to reach normal people.

6 sources · 47 min down the hole

How I got here

Started with
“mother of all demos engelbart 1968”
Ended at
Chorded keyboard

The Trail

  1. “mother of all demos engelbart 1968” (youtube.com)
  2. The Mother of All Demos (en.wikipedia.org)
  3. Douglas Engelbart (en.wikipedia.org)
  4. NLS (computer system) (en.wikipedia.org)
  5. Computer mouse (en.wikipedia.org)

    the first one was a wooden shell with two metal wheels, built by Bill English

  6. Chorded keyboard (en.wikipedia.org)

    the five-key thing under his left hand. the one idea from the demo that never caught on

Keep going