45 Years Ago, Doug Engelbart Gave The Most Important Tech Demo Ever

On December 9th, 1968, Douglas C. Engelbart — along with 17 researchers from Stanford — gave a 90-minute live public demonstration of the technology they’d been working on for the previous 6 years. It changed the face of technology — and you can watch it in full here.

The presentation was the first time the computer mouse had ever been demonstrated. But there was more, too: that day they also showed off hypertext, object addressing and dynamic file linking, as well as a shared-screen collaboration involving two persons at different sites communicating over a network with audio and video interface.

It was mind-blowing then, and is insanely impressive now. You can watch the full presentation in this video, and you really should. [Stanford]


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