Assorted Engelbart-Related Material

If you’re fascinated with Douglas Engelbart, who died yesterday, here are some things I’ve found to be really great resources on what he set out to do: Augment human intelligence.

His 1962 paper is well worth the read because it lays down the foundations for his work.

Then of course there’s the retroactively named “Mother of All Demos” presentation. The Internet Archive seems to have the highest quality recordings of it. It’s 100 minutes long, but if you’re a software developer who cares about making computers better, consider it a responsibility.

In 2004, Engelbart gave a video interview with Robert X Cringely, talking about how his ideas came to be, and more importantly what he set out to do. It paints Engelbart as a really good soul with an altruistic vision. And he just seems like the kindest person in the world, too.

Finally, here’s a video interview done by Howard Rheingold featuring not only Engelbart, but also Ted Nelson.

Here’s a bonus image of Doug looking like a badass.