When: 9th-11th December 1968.

Where: The Fall Joint Computer Conference 1968, here in San Francisco

What: Doug Engelbart demonstrates a wooden box with wheels which moves a “tracking spot” on the screen. Click here for the presentation. He then went on to demo hyperlinking in clip7, clip8 here. I found the entire presentation oddly reminded me of the movie “Dr Strangelove“, maybe it was the dress code, B&W camera angles and voice echos, but still…surreal!

Talking points:

• he showed two different mice – one with the wire out the front, one with the wire out the back.
• quote of the day: “I dont know why we called it a mouse, sometimes I apologize; it started that way, and we never did change it”.
• seems that integrating todo lists with maps is still a killer app!
• in related news, Logitech built its billionth mouse last week – that is billion with a B!!