He gave us a look at ‘tomorrow’

@Mark Ollig

In 1968, the most widely used mainframe computers in corporate data-processing centers were IBM System/360 models.

The IBM System/360 Model 40 mainframe handled about 80,000 instructions per second or 0.08 million instructions per second (MIPS).

Today, a modern desktop or laptop central processing unit (CPU) can reach thousands, even tens of thousands of MIPS.

People interacted with 1960s mainframe computing systems using console typewriters or Teletype machines with a keyboard.

Many also typed on IBM’s 2260 display station featuring a cathode ray tube (CRT) screen and keyboard for interaction with the mainframe.

In the 1960s, a programmer entered each line of a computer program, such as a payroll run or an inventory report, into a keypunch machine.

The machine created holes in 80-column paper punch cards.

The completed stack of cards was then transported to the data center, where an operator loaded it into a card reader.

The machine processed the cards sequentially, feeding the program into the mainframe to execute the entire batch job.

It produced printed results, a process that often took several hours.

Human operators managed the computing system via front-panel switches, indicator lights, and console terminals.

Output data from the mainframe was printed on wide “fanfold” paper using printers such as the IBM 1403 or displayed on CRTs.

“Mother of All Demos,” Douglas Engelbart demonstrated advanced NLS (oN-Line System) features from his console terminal in a San Francisco auditorium Dec. 9, 1968, while engineer Bill Paxton worked at the same time from an SRI (Stanford Research Institute) console terminal in Menlo Park, CA.

Both terminals were connected in real time to an SDS (Scientific Data Systems) 940 mainframe running NLS, with Engelbart’s onstage terminal linked over a dedicated four-wire leased telephone circuit.

In the SRI lab, broadcast-style television cameras captured Paxton and his NLS screen.

The video was sent over two microwave links to the auditorium, where it was combined with the shared NLS display.

The final picture was projected on a large screen for the audience.

The demonstration Dec. 9, 1968, was one of the earliest public presentations of shared-screen, real-time collaboration between people in different locations using the same computer system.

In 1968, Engelbart’s Augmentation Research Center at SRI had 17 staff members.

It received funding from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA).

Support also came from the Rome Air Development Center at Griffiss Air Force Base in Rome, NY.

SRI held the mouse patent, US Patent 3,541,541, filed in 1967 and granted in 1970, and collected licensing fees as the patent holder.

Engelbart and his colleagues later explained in interviews and oral histories that while they patented the mouse, they did not seek patents for their other groundbreaking interface ideas.

Features such as on-screen windows and hypertext linking were never patented.

This decision meant these innovations could be freely adopted.

Therefore, companies like Xerox, Apple, and IBM were able to integrate Engelbart’s concepts into their own graphical systems without restriction.

Engelbart’s lab at SRI was among the first places connected to the ARPANET, the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network.

At SRI, the Network Information Center (NIC) used Engelbart’s NLS tools to offer online directories and services for ARPANET users.

From 1972 to the late 1980s, Elizabeth Jocelyn Feinler (now 94) and her NIC team managed host name tables, handbooks, and early request for comments (RFC) documents.

In a 2009 oral history at the Computer History Museum, Feinler recalled, “In 1972, Engelbart asked me to take over [the NIC] as principal investigator . . . that’s when we really began providing service to the ARPANET.”

She helped manage the first domain names on the ARPA network, which later became today’s internet.

The Xerox Alto, an experimental workstation developed at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in the early 1970s, was heavily influenced by Engelbart’s work at SRI.

PARC was the research lab founded by Xerox in 1970 in Palo Alto, CA.

Some of Engelbart’s key team members moved to PARC.

They brought many features from the 1968 “Mother of All Demos” to the Alto, such as the graphical user interface and the mouse.

The Xerox Alto, developed in 1973 at PARC, was one of the earliest computers with a graphical user interface featuring windows, icons, and a mouse, but it wasn’t sold to the public.

Its portrait-oriented screen, three-button mouse, and graphical user interface (GUI) enabled users to point and click rather than type commands.

Designed for Ethernet Local Area Networks (LANs) and laser printers, the Alto allowed sharing of files, email, and resources within Xerox offices.

About 1,500 to 2,000 Altos were manufactured for company and research use.

In 1978, during Jimmy Carter’s presidency, a Xerox Alto desktop computer with a graphical user interface and a mouse was installed in the Oval Office, but was removed in 1981 during the Reagan administration.

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs visited Xerox PARC in December 1979 and witnessed how people there used Alto computers with graphical user interfaces and a mouse.

Jobs later said he realized that someday all computers would work this way.

In April 1981, Xerox introduced the Xerox Star 8010, a public business computer workstation developed from its PARC research, complete with a graphical interface and a mouse.

Although it was the first commercial personal computer to offer graphical windows, icons, and mouse control, sales lagged due to its steep price of $16,595 (about $60,500 today).

In 1981, Apple and IBM offered systems with business configurations typically priced around $4,000, far less than the Xerox Star 8010, which was discontinued by 1985.

President Bill Clinton presented Douglas Engelbart with the National Medal of Technology Dec. 1, 2000, for creating the foundations of personal computing, including the mouse, hypertext, text editing, and shared-screen teleconferencing.

Douglas C. Engelbart died July 2, 2013, at age 88.

In 1968, he gave us all a look at tomorrow.