Of course we all read the newspaper online now. But what did that idea look like in 1981? This video from KRON is fantastic:
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history
This morning the Forum program on KQED is discussing Doug Engelbart’s computer demonstration (see my post yesterday with a link to Engelbart’s presentation video):
Tue, Dec 9, 2008 — 9:00 AM
Forty Years of the PCForty years ago today, the personal computer was unveiled. Concepts such as the mouse, the ability to cut and paste, hypertext and saving a file were introduced to the public in what is remembered as the ‘mother of all demonstrations.’ We look back on the event that introduced the public to modern personal and interactive computing, and discuss the evolution and future of the personal computer.
Host: Michael Krasny
Guests:
- Brian Cooley, editor at large for CNET.com
- Christina Engelbart, executive director of the Doug Engelbart Institute
- Jeff Rulifson, director of the VLSI Research Group, Sun Microsystems
- Paul Saffo, Silicon Valley technology forecaster and a consulting associate professor in the engineering department at Stanford University
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Personal computers have been a driving force (arguably the driving force) in my life, allowing me to earn a living, communicate, write and create, among other things. Computers have become tools nearly all of us use on a daily basis, of course. Perhaps at this point we even take computers for granted. I’m pretty sure we do.
Forty years ago today, Douglas Engelbart and a group of researchers gave a demonstration in San Francisco of a computer system they had been working on since 1962. The machine was called NLS (oN-Line System) and included features such as a mouse and networking that would be further refined at XEROX PARC and elsewhere in the early 1970s, and become the basis for the computers we’ve been using ever since.
A video of the 90 minute presentation is available at http://sloan.stanford.edu/MouseSite/1968Demo.html.
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“To love one”™s city and have a part in its advancement and improvement is the highest privilege and duty of a citizen.” -Daniel Burnham
And who was Daniel Burnham? Some snippets from Wikipedia:
Daniel Hudson Burnham, FAIA (September 4, 1846 ““ June 1, 1912) was an American architect and urban planner. He was the Director of Works for the World”™s Columbian Exposition and designed several famous buildings, including the Flatiron Building in New York City and Union Station in Washington D.C.
Beginning in 1906 and published in 1909, Burnham and assistant Edward H. Bennett prepared The Plan of Chicago, which laid out plans for the future of the city. It was the first comprehensive plan for the controlled growth of an American city; an outgrowth of the City Beautiful movement. The plan included ambitious proposals for the lakefront and river and declared that every citizen should be within walking distance of a park. Sponsored by the Commercial Club of Chicago, Burnham donated his services in hopes of furthering his own cause.
Burnham helped shape cities such as Cleveland (the Group Plan), San Francisco, Washington, DC (the McMillan Plan), and Manila and Baguio in the Philippines”¦
Almost as a tribute to his urban planning ethos, Burnham”™s final resting spot is given special attention, being located on the only island in the park-like Graceland Cemetery, situated in Chicago”™s Uptown neighborhood. Burnham”™s personal and professional papers are held in the Ryerson and Burnham Archives at the Art Institute of Chicago. Because he was the planner and architect of Baguio City in the Philippines, the city”™s Burnham Park was named after him. In his honor, the American Planning Association named a major annual prize the Daniel Burnham Award for a Comprehensive Plan.
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