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IDEA No 5
GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACE
At the 1968 Joint Computer Conference – a live demonstration that has since become known as the ‘Mother of All Demos’ – Douglas Engelbart demonstrated his vision for the future of computing. It was the graphical user interface (GUI).
Inspired by the work of Vannevar Bush and Ivan Sutherland, Engelbart’s oNLine System (NLS) was the first implementation of a GUI, a virtual desktop incorporating windows, menus, icons and folders. For an industry used to dealing with punch cards and command lines, this was radical thinking. While most computer scientists were focusing on making computers smarter, Engelbart was interested in how computers could make humans smarter.
Several of Engelbart’s team ...
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