A Few Words on Doug Engelbart
4th July 2013
Engelbart’s vision, from the beginning, was collaborative. His vision was people working together in a shared intellectual space. His entire system was designed around that intent.
From that perspective, separate cursors weren’t a feature so much as a symptom. It was the only design that could have made any sense. It just fell out. The collaborators both have to point at information on the screen, in the same way that they would both point at information on a chalkboard. Obviously they need their own pointers.
Likewise, for every aspect of Engelbart’s system. The entire system was designed around a clear intent.
Our screen sharing, on the other hand, is a bolted-on hack that doesn’t alter the single-user design of our present computers. Our computers are fundamentally designed with a single-user assumption through-and-through, and simply mirroring a display remotely doesn’t magically transform them into collaborative environments.
If you attempt to make sense of Engelbart’s design by drawing correspondences to our present-day systems, you will miss the point, because our present-day systems do not embody Engelbart’s intent. Engelbart hated our present-day systems.
An excellent piece, and a model for its kind.