Doug Engelbart was born in January 30, 1925. He became an engineer for several reasons. Doug’s father was an electrical engineer and had a shop in Portland, Oregon and Doug’s grandfather worked for hydro power dams in the Pacific Northwest. He would take Doug’s family on tours inside the plants. In high school, when Doug found out that technicians in the Navy were trained to work on a mysterious new technology called Radar, Doug made sure he got in.
Doug, after serving in the Navy as an electrical/radar technician, went on to get an engineering degree from Oregon State. Then Doug got a job at the pre NASA, Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley. While in Silicon Valley, Doug joined a Greek folk dancing class in Palo Alto to find a girl to marry. After the day of Doug’s engagement which was in 1950, Doug was on his way to work and realize all his life goals had been accomplished.
Doug spent two months looking for another good life goal. Doug decided that doing something that would change the world would be an excellent goal. However, Doug figured out that if you tried to solve many sorts of problems than more problems would likely arise. One day Doug realized that if you made something to assist with those various complexities that any problem could be tackled. Having decided that the networking of computers on graphic displays would make it easier to communicate, Doug got down on that. If Doug was going to be able to accomplish that goal, enrollment at Berkley to study computer science and getting a doctorate was a critical step. Doug wanted to make products that would help with what people's brains are not good at doing already. This would do a swell job at taking care of complexity, which is one of those things. This idea is known as Man Computer Symbiosis and Doug wrote on symbiosis, that was almost the length of 1/7 of a Harry Potter book. Doug Engelbart projected intensity in a calm monotone way and that made him sound far away. This also made Doug seem not of this world, it also made it difficult for him to get funding. When Doug went to go get the funds the knowledge was in Doug that the funds would be received since the people being asked shared the same interests as Doug did. Thus both NASA and ARPA gave funds to Doug.
Doug wanted to make easier for the average user to find what was on their monitor since that would be a key part of symbiosis, interactivity. Doug tested multiple examples but there were so many different ways to interact like light pens, trackpads, joysticks, trackballs, tablets with styli, and also one that was supposed to be knee controlled. So Doug made a chart to see which ones would be the best to use. The light pens seemed simple to use but also had to be picked up and put down and that was tiresome.
Doug Engelbart then thought about a device that calculates area by being rolled around the perimeter and realized that if this were a sort of selection tool it would be really easy. Doug Engelbart drew a sketch in the back of a coloring book he was working on about how it would work. The device had two wheels, one horizontal and one vertical. Each would emit high or low volts if rolled up or down, the voltage would then go to the computer and onto the screen so that the cursor would go forth and back. Doug made it easier to interact since the mouse worked on hand eye coordination and that was simple since it was basically like using your eyes to select what one would see.
Doug had sketch created the mouse so he gave his sketch to Bill English to be made. They called it a mouse because the first time it had a cord at the front but then it was moved it because it looked cuter and better as a tail, so that obviously made it a mouse. Doug wanted people to put up to ten buttons on the mouse but the optimum number to show in the test was three.
After working on screen select devices Doug went on to make the oNLine System. At the “MOTHER OF ALL DEMOS” Doug had to make a ninety minute speech in a room of over nine thousand. Doug looked like a “Chuck Yeager of the computer cosmos” according to a tech guru. Doug said that if you could have a computer in your office all day expecting you to ask it for help, then that would be of great use. In the next room down from the demo was a robot that acted like it could hear and see. Doug said that being a developer for Artificial Intelligence wouldn't work since it was too complex and a paradox. On the date July, 2, 2013 Doug Engelbart left his life on this world, perhaps to go back to Doug’s home planet.
For more
Doug go to: http://dougengelbart.org
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