50 years later, both creators and keepers of the flame for the ‘Mother of All Demos’ reflect on how 1968 changed the world — for all of us.
On 9 December 1968, Doug Engelbart gave the ‘Mother of All Demos’ – and the world changed.
On 9 December 2018, some of the luminaries of the Internet gathered to commemorate the Golden Anniversary of the Mother of All Demos.
We had a chance to talk with some of them, weaving their stories together into one of our own…
Elizabeth ‘Jake’ Feinler ran the Network Information Center for SRI.
Marc Weber is a curator at the Computer History Museum.
Charles Irby walked into the Demo by accident – and it changed his life.
Jeff Rulifson was lead software architect for the oNLine System.
Bob Taylor was head of the IPTO at ARPA – taking over from Ivan Sutherland, who took over from JCR Licklider. The Demo was his idea.
Andy van Dam is a professor at Brown, and a luminary in the field of computer graphics.
Vint Cerf is the father of the Internet.
Howard Rheingold was so impressed by NLS that he talked his way into Doug’s Human Augmentation Research Center at SRI.
Sir Tim-Berners Lee is the father of the Web.
Tony Parisi is the Global Head of VR/AR Brand Solutions at Unity – and co-creator (with Mark Pesce) of the Virtual Reality Modelling Language (VRML).