[dlg]

This article was hugely important.

A radar operator named Doug Engelbart read this on the trip home from WWII. He realized that the computer was the tool that would make this possible. He went on and created everything from the mouse to lots of modern interactive computing. Many of you may have seen his "mother of all demos". If not, watch http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8734787622017763097...

That demo, in turn, influenced a generation of young computer scientists to invent interactive computing. Notably Ted Nelson & Andries van Dam who created hypertext and Alan Kay who, while at PARC, invented the desktop GUI and the concepts for tablet computer.

I recommend reading "What the Dormouse Said" by Markoff for a history of that era.

(I consider this the "NLS thread" of computer history. The other major interactive thread is from PLATO to Ray Ozzie/NOTES to Mitch Kapor, et al.)

[zandorg]

I worked with Ted Nelson in Nottingham in 2003 (and again in Jan 2006 in Oxford) and it was a blast. He has so many ideas and brilliant endless anecdotes. I hope he works on his autobiography.

[MaysonL]

Pick up a copy of Nelson's book: "Computer Lib/Dream Machines" for some more fun history of the pre-PC era.

[zandorg]

I have signed copies of all Nelson's works but Future of Information. Not boasting, but I love collecting books. The Home Computer Revolution (inscribed "We haven't got to the future yet") is a stunning book, it predicts so many things in 1977.

[Create]

I find it very hard to believe, that he independently invented the mouse (ten years later?), given both spent their youths in the military as radar operators doing tracking.

http://ewh.ieee.org/reg/7/millennium/fp6000/fp6000_datar.htm...

Is Markoff the one, who trashes his MB Air along with the old Times, just because it is so slim (in accordance to the PR message)? Believe him if you want to...