Not long after Doug Engelbart's ground-breaking Mother of All Demos in December 1968, he and his team demonstrated their research at another conference in San Francisco – the 32nd Annual Meeting of the American Society for Information Science (ASIS), in October 1969. This live demo presentation, titled "Augmentation Systems and Information Science," showcased the novel work coming out of Doug's Augmented Human Intellect Research Center (AHIRC) at Stanford Research Institute (SRI), now SRI International.
Lucky for us, they filmed their 90-minute dress rehearsal in front a live audience. This footage is now available online, along with recently unearthed details and memorabilia.
Experience the demo interactively
(chapterized, clickable)
you drive the demo in this navigable, skimmable, browsable guided tour of the demo, puts you in the driver's seat (learn more).
The Demo:
The ASIS conference kicked off Wednesday afternoon, October 1st, with the Opening General Session, during which Doug Engelbart and his team presented their research in live demonstration format. On Thursday, October 2nd, and Friday, October 3rd, he and his crew hosted an "open house" for conference attendees to meet the team and see the system up close and personal.
Their formal presentation on Wednesday featured Doug on the main stage, with his co-presenters Dave Evans (DAE), Mimi Church (MSC), Bill Paxton (WHP), and Jim Norton (JCN), all videoconferenced in from the lab at SRI 35 miles away. Production and logistics were masterminded by lead engineer Bill English (WKE), ably supported by the remainder of their 24-person team, mostly back at the lab. Nothing about this presentation was routine -- from the equipment setup, video mixing, transmissions between sites over specially arranged microwave link (pre-networking). They had pulled it off once before, and had some dry runs with this current setup, but still the whole production was a huge risk, and it came off beautifully.
See concluding "Credits" under Index below, as well as "Opening Remarks" and "Description of presentation setup," for production details and Doug's appreciation.
Memorabilia:
See the Program Excerpt describing Doug's sessions (at left), and browse selected pages from the Conference Program (also at left). Check out Doug's draft agenda, a selection of photos from Doug's lab circa 1969 (at right), and the subsequent
press coverage by the San Francisco Chronicle. Fun fact - this was the one year Doug sported a beard.
'Prequel' to this Demo:
For big-picture background, visit our Doug's Great Demo: 1968 site for related links and in-depth background on Doug's lab at the time, prior demo, special anniversary events and retrospectives looking back on that demo, Herman Miller's collaboration with Doug on his custom console (also used in this 1969 demo), timelines, plus links to online exhibits at SRI International, Computer History Museum, Stanford University MouseSite, and more.
Behold the Dawn of Networking: Since 1967 Doug's team was involved in ARPA's groundbreaking ARPANET project, the precursor to the Internet, which was scheduled go live in a few short weeks following the 1969 demo. During this demo, Doug shares plans for his team's involvement, including plans for a Network Information Center ("the NIC") which they will be simultantously launching to support the ARPANET community, complete with actual case examples. See our online exhibit Engelbart's Role in Early Computer Networking for story, photos, footage, and more.
A Research Center for Augmenting Human Intellect. (the paper written for the conference where they gave the 1968 demo, describing the work they were demoing). Douglas C. Engelbart and William K. English, AFIPS Conference Proceedings of the 1968 Fall Joint Computer Conference, San Francisco, CA, 33, December 1968, pp. 395-410 (AUGMENT,3954,). Republished with articles No. 4, 21, and 23 in "Computer Supported Cooperative Work: A Book of Readings," Irene Greif [Ed.], Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Inc., San Mateo, CA, 1988, pp. 81-105.
Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework. (Doug's seminal report documenting his strategic vision that drove the work) Douglas C. Engelbart, Summary Report, Stanford Research Institute, on Contract AF 49(638)-1024, October 1962, 134 pages (AUGMENT,133182,).
Workstation History and The Augmented Knowledge Workshop. Douglas C. Engelbart, Proceedings of the ACM Conference on the History of Personal Workstations, Palo Alto, CA, January 9-10, 1986, pp. 73-83 (AUGMENT,101931,). Republished as The Augmented Knowledge Workshop in "A History of Personal Workstations," Adele Goldberg [Ed.], ACM Press, New York, 1988, pp. 185-236.
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Program Excerpt 
See photos from Doug's lab ~1969
