Thursday, July 4, 2013

Douglas Engelbart - the "Father" of Computer Mouses and ARPANET - passed away


People sit down at their desks and immediately put their hand over a mouse to interact with the computer screen in front of them; windows move around the screen, allowing you to do multiple things at the same time; you click on a hyperlink and immediately expect to see a page on your screen that is being served by a computer on the other side of the planet. We consider all this to be "common", and we might even be tempted to think that things are possible just because... it "happens".

But it isn't so. Things are possible because someone had the vision to turn them into reality. And all of the things I mentioned before are possible, in large part, thanks to Douglas Engelbart - a technology pioneer that brought us the graphical user interfaces, the computer mouse, and even the foundation of what  would grow to become the Internet.

Nothing better to remember him by watching the amazing "Mother of All Demos", that reminds us that everything we now take for granted... had to be invented first.

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