The First Mouse

martin writes "On Dec. 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, Calif., presented a 90-minute live public demonstration of the on live system, NLS, they had been working on since 1962. The public presentation was a session in the 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. The original 90-minute video of this event is part of the Engelbart Collection in Special Collections of Stanford University. Hyperlinks Mouse Web-board Kinda knocks BT's patent for hyperlinking out of the water" The stuff is in Real format.

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See Also: Vennevar Bush

[kzinti]

"Kinda knocks BT's patent for hyperlinking out of the water"

1962, huh? Take a look at the Vannevar Bush essay "As We May Think", which appeared in The Atlantic Monthly in July 1945. The technology Bush talks about includes photography and typewriters -- nothing so modern as a "mouse". But those are mere implementation details; the ideas contained in his essay very much resemble the kinds of things we are now doing on the WWW. In fact, in Bush's discussion of users appending an annotating encyclopedia articles, we can see glimpses of Slashdot itself! (Though Bush says nothing about moderation or Anonymous Cowards.) Fascinating reading, and highly recommended.

--Jim