Re: [unrev-II] National Medal of Technology

From: Peter P. Yim (yimpp@cim-oem.com)
Date: Mon Nov 13 2000 - 18:35:28 PST

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    Wonderful, but nonetheless, a belated gesture of appreciation. The world
    still owes him recognition for what "Bootstrapping", the way Engelbart
    describes it, could mean to the future of humanity.

    -ppy

    ==

    Henry van Eyken wrote Mon, 13 Nov 2000 19:57:14 -0500 :
    >
    > It's official!
    >
    > Douglas Engelbart will be awarded the 2000 National Medal of Technology
    > by President Clinton at a black-tie, gala banquet in the National
    > Building Museum on the evening of Friday, December 1, 2000. Other
    > recipients of the NMT are Dean Karnen, Donald B. Keck, Robert D. Maurer,
    > Peter Schultz, and the IBM Corporation. President Clinton will also be
    > awarding National Medals of Science.
    >
    > Related ceremonies will include a roundtable discussion between the
    > Laureates and young people who have demonstrated an aptitude for science
    > and engineering. This will enable young people to discuss their
    > interests and solicite guidance from the Laureates, who are role models
    > for America's youth. Plans are neing made for a webcast at approximately
    > 10:45 a.m., November 30.
    >
    > On Friday, December 1, at 10:30 a.m., a press roundtable will be held
    > for both science and technology Laureates in the International Trade
    > Center (Ronald Regan Building).
    >
    > Following are the Citation and a brief biography of Doug Engelbart. In
    > the meantime, we are awaiting an electronic reproduction of the medal as
    > we are preparing a special home page (typo-free) for the
    > http://www.bootstrap.org
    >
    > H.
    >
    > Contribution Category: General Product & Process Innovation
    >
    > Citation: For creating the foundations of personal computing including
    > continuous real-time interaction based on cathode-ray tube displays and
    > the mouse, hypertext linking, text editing, online journals,
    > shared-screen teleconferencing, and remote collaborative work.
    >
    > Brief Biography: Dr. Engelbart, more than any other single person, set
    > the stage for that component of the computer revolution now called
    > personal computing. During the early 1960s, when the hallmark of
    > computing was large mainframe computers, he correctly saw that a close,
    > interactive, and continuous relationship between computer and its user
    > would yield enormous benefit in making that person motre efficient and
    > effective. Nor was it all vision. During that time he perfected the
    > notions of on-line, real-time systems that caused machines to deliver to
    > their users what they wanted when they wanted it, all interactively.
    > This work came to define the functionality of personal computing even
    > though some time would pass before the personal computer itself would be
    > affordable for an individual user. As Director of a laboratory at
    > Stanford Research Institute that grew to a staff of 40 to 50 members, he
    > and they created many of the concepts and tools of personal computing
    > that we take for granted over thirty years later. The concepts of
    > point-and-click and hypertext are just two that have come to define the
    > ease with which we now interact with computers. Over two dozen of the
    > properties and capabilities of present computers were demonstrated by
    > the mid-1970s (see Comprehensive Description).
    >
    > As important as these contributions were, they were but stepping stones
    > toward Dr. Engelbart's ultimate goal of elevating the competency of an
    > entire organization through the augmentation of its members through
    > distributed computing systems. Most of the software innovations were
    > embedded in an integrated groupware system he called NLS, one of the
    > first interactibve systems anywhere. All this was made possible for the
    > first time at the Fall Joint Computer Conference in December 1968 in San
    > Fransisco. On a huge screen at the Conference, he jointly edited a
    > document (two cursors) with a collaborator 40 miles away at SRI in Menlo
    > Park.
    >
    > Through video windows on each workstation, they had a full personal and
    > computer-based interaction. His conviction about distributed computer
    > systems led to his group being the second node on the fledling ARPANET
    > and later the Internet. His Network Information Center was the entryway
    > for anyone getting an address for these new networks for over twenty
    > years.
    >
    > This early establishment of what personal and collaborative computing
    > should be helped create a prescription of what for how computers were to
    > evolve. These directions included hardware, such as cathode display
    > tubes and the mouse, which he invented, and network interfaces. They
    > included software directions such as windowing hypermedia and hypertext
    > shared-screen teleconferencing, and, importantly, the concepts and
    > methods of on-line text and graphics processing. These foundations made
    > it clear that computers would have this new role of continuous, proximal
    > support of an individual, working either alone or, through networking,
    > as part of a group. At least four of Dr. Engelbart's staff transferred
    > to Xerox Park where bit-map displays, icons and the desktop metaphor
    > with its overlapping windows were created. When Steve Jobs of fledgling
    > Apple Computer saw all this, he understood immediately the ingredients
    > of what came to be the MacIntosh. SRI has issued licences for the mouse
    > to both Xerox and Apple Computer.
    >
    > So, the enablement of Moore's Law and this personalized functionality
    > for computers opened the doors to one of the most dramatic sector
    > growths in history. That Dr. Engelbart forsaw this kind of impact is
    > illustrated by this quote from his 1970-paper: "There will emerge a new
    > marketplace, representing fantastc wealth in commodities of knowledge,
    > service, information, processing, storage, ...." This anticipation of
    > the way computers should and would ultimately serve individuals clearly
    > helped establish the primacy of the United States in the information era
    > and it still enjoys the competitive advantage of that accelerated
    > growth.
    >
    > The National Medal of Technology is "to recognize technological
    > innovators who have made lasting contributions to enhancing America's
    > competitiveness and standard of living" and whose solid science results
    > in "commercially successful products and services." This could not be a
    > more apt description of Dr. Engelbart and his life's work.
    >
    > (to be continued on the site ...)
    >
    >
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