Banner 
Outline offers a bird's eye view; Numbers and Labels show hotlinks you can click to Jump to, or right click to Copy Link to; Numbers show where you are. Learn more.
Engelbart Timeline Highlights 0Following is a rough timeline evolution of Doug Engelbart's foundational research, from initial ephany onward, spanning multiple decades and organizations. See also our Engelbart Historic Firsts gallery, and watch his historic talk "The Augmented Knowledge Workshop," covering his epiphany and SRI Years. Epiphany at NASA Ames - 1951 2With a Bachelors Degree in Electrical Engineering and two years in WWII-era Naval Radar and Radio Electronics training and experience, Doug Engelbart joined NACA Ames Research (forerunner of NASA) at Moffett Field. On a personal note, by the end of 1950 he was engaged to be married, which prompted him to revisit his life's goals. His process landed him a clear epiphany, a path for humanity and his own research goals. 2a
"Genesis" in "Workstation History and the Augmented Knowledge Workshop"
- (101931,) 1985 SRI Years - 1957-1978 3
Foundational framework, technology, and evolutionary strategy at key points in time . Sampling of representative documents below, more in Doug's Bibliography #1-18. 1959-1960 - Revelations re: Microelectronics Engelbart presents findings on his recent study on miniturization of electronic components, potentially influencing Moore's Law, while influencing his own thoughts on societal impact of exponential scaling -- call it Engelbart's Law. Study premise: we already know how to scale up from development-model airplanes or ships to the real thing; little is known about how to scale down today's electronic devices; Engelbart's findings below: 3a1
1960-1962 - Augmenting Human Intellect - A Manifesto: Engelbart completes a two-year study fleshing out his vision as a comprehensive conceptual framework for Augmenting Human Intellect, an executive summary on advancing human effectiveness, and published article summarizing the work. This is the driving force for his career. See: 3a2
1963-1965 - Early Display and Mouse Experiments: First published release of display editor, included addressable text and hypertext, operating on single-user computer with one display workstation, used for system development tasks, and to evaluate speed and accuracy of various input and pointing devices, for which the Mouse was invented. 3a3
1966-1968 - Multi Display and Public Debut: Software now ported onto multi-user SDS-940 with innovative display technology, offering full engineering team support, evolving features, used to power the 1968 Mother of All Demos and its 1969 Demo Sequel; 3a4
1969-1973 - ARPA Network and the NIC: Now on the ARPANET, NLS will be available network wide, establishing the Network Information Center (NIC) in tandem with UCLA's Network Measurement Center; also presented the 1969 Demo Sequel. 3a5
1974-1977 - User Communities: Serving a community of user organizations and their liaisons over the network as next step in their "bootstrapping" tech transfer strategy. Note the terms "Knowledge Workshop" (a facility for crafting, coordinating, integrating, and applying knowledge, implying set of tools, methodologies and practices, language/terminology, training), "Augmented Knowledge Workshop" (AKW), Workshop Utility Service, Knowledge Workshop Architect (KWA), Knowledge Workshop Architects Community (KWAC) -- a special community of the architects of their respective organization's Knolwedge Workshops, tasked with converting to Augmented Knowledge Workshops, sharing and exchanging experience, strategies, and co-design of the NLS evolution. 3a6
Tymshare - 1978-1984 4User community co-design as a research strategy at SRI was seen more as a multi-client business. The Augmentation group was sold to Tymshare Inc. NLS was renamed Augment and became the principal line of business in Tymshare's newly formed Office Automation Division, where the focus of his team was switched from highly innovative R&D to commercialization. Doug Engelbart did not have a role in this spinoff effort, he continued speaking at conferences, writing papers and proposals, soliciting interest in the research, while staff lunged into the commercial world. Sampling of representative documents below, more in Doug's Bibliography #19-23. 4a
McDonnell Douglas - 1984-1988 5In 1984, Tymshare was acquired by McDonnell Douglas Corporation, where Engelbart began working closely with the aerospace components on issues of integrated information system architectures and associated evolutionary strategies, and collaborated on some pilot projects there. It was a welcome extension of his work from SRI. Here Doug gained critical insights that fundamentally shaped the final phase of his life's work, including the paradigm shifts needed in organizations pivoting to the future, and began formulating requirements for world-wide Open Hyperdocument Systems (OHS), Dynamic Knowledge Repositories, Networked Improvement Communities, and more, which he refined and published in his subsequent Bootstrap era. 5a Bootstrap and the Doug Engelbart Institute - since 1988 6In 1988, Doug Engelbart retired from MDC to establish a neutral platform to pursue the next phase of his work. This morphed from the Bootstrap Project at Stanford, to the Bootstrap Institute, Bootstrap Alliance, eventually renamed the Doug Engelbart Institute. 6a 1989-1992 - Bootstrap Seminars: Together with daughter Christina Engelbart, who had previously worked in the group at Tymshare, Doug Engelbart received funding to prepare and deliver a 3-day management seminar at Stanford University, once each quarter for 2+ years 1989-1992. 6a1
1997-2003 - Bootstrap Alliance: Not to be deterred, efforts shifted to offering half-day and one-day seminars, soliciting interest among a new set of organizations to join forces. By 1997 a new Bootstrap Alliance was established, this time as a non-profit organization with Board of Directors. Renewed interests also grew from Doug's Colloquium at Stanford, Winter 2000. 6a2
2008-present - Doug Engelbart Institute: As Doug Engelbart transitioned to Emeritus status, the organization was renamed The Doug Engelbart Institute, now led by daughter and long-time business partner Christina Engelbart, collaborating on projects like Bootstrapping Brilliance, HyperScope 2.0, the Demo Interactive, and commemorative events, while focused on making his considerable legacy available and actionable online, producing such as: 6a3
See Also 8for context. as well as our current HyperScope and Engelbart Academy initiatives.About NLS/Augment - curated at the Doug Engelbart Institute 3f1 Engelbart's Historic Firsts - curated at the Doug Engelbart Institute 3f1 Listing of ARC Proposal Titles - curated at Computer History Museum's Archive Center 3f1 Listing of ARC Contracts and Deliverable Reports - curated at Computer History Museum's Archive Center 3f2 |