Douglas Engelbart

Inventor of the computer mouse, pioneer of human-computer interaction, including graphical user interface, hypertext, and networked computers. Douglas C. Engelbart was the primary force behind the design of the Stanford Research Institute[?]'s On-Line System, or NLS.

As a World War II radio tech based in the Philippines, Engelbart was inspired by Vannevar Bush's article 'As We May Think' After the war, following his inspiration, Engelbart quit his job as an engineer, got a PhD at U.C. Berkeley, and worked on the earliest version of the Internet, called ARPANet[?]. He and the team he led at his Augmentation Research Center developed computer-interface elements such as bit-mapped screens, multiple windows, groupware, and the graphical user interface. He also invented the world's first computer mouse. He developed many of these ideas back in 1968, long before the personal computer revolution. He continues (at age 75 in 2003) to work at the Bootstrap Institute[?], which he founded.

In 1997 he was awarded the Lemelson-MIT Prize. In 2001 he was awarded a British Computer Society's Lovelace Medal[?].

See also:

• History of the graphical user interface

External Links

• The Man behind the Mouse by BBC Online:
  • http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid-1633000/1633972.stm
• Bootstrap Institute Bio at:
  • http://www.bootstrap.org/engelbart/