Doug Engelbart

The Man, the Vision, and the Machine

by Nicholas Carroll

"Nicholas Carroll is uniquely qualified to write about
Doug, his vision and his story." – Ted Nelson

This is a beta website for the forthcoming book, with the Introduction, a rough Table of Contents, and an "Unfinished Epilogue."

Publication of the book is scheduled for 2024.

I am writing a biography of Doug Engelbart, focusing on his human-computer and organizational insights rather than his broad social visions or the history of the Stanford Research Institute ARC lab (Augmentation Research Center). To my knowledge this is the only biography written by someone who worked for Doug, and the only one to focus on his human-computer interaction and organizational improvement ideas, many still unrealized.

The book will focus on the HCI features missing from modern PCs, his largely forgotten A-B-C organizational improvement system, and try to answer the question other biographers have struggled with: "What drove Doug Engelbart?"

Nicholas Carroll

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Introduction

I worked with Doug Engelbart for about two years, and stayed in contact with him for years afterwards. Or as I candidly told one of his original colleagues, "I worked with, for, and around Doug." That variety was not unique – though most people who knew Doug did not work on all three grounds.

This writing does not deal with 1960s-70s Stanford Research Augmentation Research Center (SRI ARC) politics and drama; that has already been covered, in many works. I don't name many names, even disguised; they are not relevant to this book.

This is about the man, his vision, and his machine. We argued about the destiny of computing – routinely. (In time I would learn that Doug Engelbart only took the time to argue with those people he thought understood his vision.) We also agreed – regularly. And as I came to know him, I increasingly listened – probably a rare commodity in his life. Or more precisely: I listened to what he wanted to say, rather than fishing for what I wanted him to say. The title is even more precise, because the vision came from the man, and the machine was born of the vision.

Somewhere in the early 2000s I told Charles Irby, former project lead for the development of the SRI NLS (oNLineSystem) that someone who had been "standing there" ought to write up the whole story. I added "... but I won't be the one to do it." On hanging up the phone, I knew I was wrong. I would be the one to write it. I suspect Charles knew it before we hung up.

The quotes are all verbatim, or nearly so; I don't remember everything, but I remember speech quite accurately.

Table of Contents: Introduction; First Meeting With Doug; Prelude: the Open HyperDocument System
The Man: The Drive; The Dream of Global Cooperation; Visions of Leadership
The Vision: The Sweep of the Dream; The Logistics of the Dream: NICs and the A-B-C Process; Influences; A Navy Radar Technician; The Memex?; Trick Bicycle Riding; Ted Nelson; Modern Neurobiology and the Crazy Vision
The Machine: Who Really Invented the Mouse?; Foundations of the oNLineSystem (NLS) and Personal Computing; Architecture: Visual, Spatial, and Physical Memory; Hardware: Chorded Keyset and Pointing Devices (including the mouse); Data Handling; Interfaces: Structure and Plexes; Where NLS Was Headed; What Doug Might Have Thought About the Direction of Computing and Devices Today; An Unfinished Epilogue

An Unfinished Epilogue

“One cannot overestimate the influence of those who combine a new communication technology with a universal enough new meaning.”
– Erik Erikson, Young Man Luther (a historical psychoanalysis of Martin Luther)

That was Doug Engelbart – except, unlike Luther and Gutenberg’s movable type, Doug was 50 or 100 years too early with his communication technology. His “new meaning” might not resonate for even longer, because it requires a fundamental shift in human beliefs about the synthesis of competition and collaboration.

A ridiculous timeframe? No. Nicola Tesla, some of whose ideas are waiting to be understood 100 years after he tested them, is still under-recognized. Could he have beamed North American electricity through the atmosphere to Europe? We don’t know; financier J.P. Morgan panicked and killed Tesla’s funding.

Can germs cause illness? Paracelsus said so in the 1500s, and we believe so now, but doctors did not accept the germ theory of disease until the 1800s.

So that is why this epilogue is unfinished: Doug’s ideas might still win out. Or they might continue to be distorted. Well-executed, his ideas hold promise; misused, they still have potential for wasted effort and massive folly.

When I think back on Doug, I think of the movie The Right Stuff, about America’s first astronauts, celebrities all. In a very credible scene, a reporter asks astronaut Gordon Cooper “Who’s the best pilot you ever met?” Cooper sobers momentarily, murmuring “There was one man …” and then recovering, cockily asks his wife, “Honey, who’s the greatest pilot in the world?”

In Cooper’s moment of sobriety, the camera cuts to the cold dawn light of Edwards Air Force Base, with Air Force pilot Chuck Yeager walking alone towards the solitary shape of the Bell X-1 and the speed of sound – far, far from the glory of Cape Canaveral.

And that is how I remember Doug Engelbart – as the man who drove human-computer interaction “higher, farther, faster than any man had ever flown before.”

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