December 9, today, 40 years ago in 1968 Doug Engelbart presented NLS to the public. NLS was a system named after the literal meaning of being on-line with the computer – the oN-Line System – where “on-line” was not used with the sense of today to have a system connected to the Internet. There was no Internet yet. The meaning of on-line in the 1960s was to use the machine interactively! For Engelbart's Augmentation Research Center at the Stanford Research Institute this was made possible by the use of one of the first time-sharing computers.

The presentation at the Fall Joint Computer Conference in San Francisco at December 9, 1968 is often referred to as “the mother of all demos”. Doug Engelbart and his team presented the mouse, windows, interactive text editing, video conferencing and hypertext capabilities of NLS. A kind of magic and religious moment, as Alan Kay recalls.

Here are some excerpts from Vision and Reality of Hypertext and Graphical User Interfaces:

• 2.1.3 Hypertext - NLS/Augment
• 3.1.3 GUIs - NLS/Augment
  

And finally I have some compelling interview clips for you, and of course the original recording from 1968:

• Doug Engelbart's Invisible Revolution -- don't miss the Documentary
• the 40 year old mother of all demos at the famous mouse site
  

Quite some time ago, in the early 1960s, Ivan Sutherland developed an interactive sketching system. Even if you do not consider the bulky house-size computers of the time, Sketchpad remains a remarkable milestone in HCI. Here is a short clip out of a seminar by Alan Kay "Doing with Images Makes Symbols. Communicating with Computers"(Apple 1987) where he comments on Sketchpad:

 Now please fast forward by 46 years an watch what's possible today:

Amazing, isn't it? (Source: IxDA-discuss)

I am happy to announce the early access release of Sun Ray Connector for VMware Virtual Desktop Manager. The ReadMe says:

Sun Ray Connector for VMware Virtual Desktop Manager connects users of Sun Ray clients to Windows virtual machines via the VMware Virtual Desktop Manager (VDM). It provides a Sun Ray kiosk session that allows users to connect to their virtual machines. The kiosk session prompts the user for their Active Directory user name and password. Then the user is shown a list of available desktops, or is logged directly into the desktop if there is only one available. The user does not have to enter their password again at the Windows login.

The Sun Ray Connector for VMware Virtual Desktop Manager requires Sun Ray Connector for Windows OS (included as part of Sun Ray Software 4) to be installed on the Sun Ray server. Also, VMware's VDM agent must be installed on the desktop machines.

Update Aug-26: The Early Access Program is over. Thanks for your feedback! We will be back soon with the final release.

Update Oct-14: The final version has been released.

Credits: Photos courtesy of the Early Office Museum

This photo was taken at the end of the 19th century.  It shows an office worker of the time at a "Wooton Cabinet Office Secretary". The desk itself was invented by William S. Wotton in Indianapolis. A marketing brochure of Wooton's Desk Manufacturing Co. describes the desk as follows:

The Secretary is entirely different from anything ever constructed before. It consists of three sections, the main case and (two) wings or doors, which contain pigeon-holes, shelving, drawers, etc. convenient in arrangement and uniform in appearance. We manufacture four grades, the Ordinary, Standard, Extra and Superior, and three sizes of each grade.  The ornamentation and decorative style increased with each higher grade. Its capacity is more than double that of any other desk manufactured, occupying the same floor space. Every division is within easy reach of the writer; the Secretary can be opened and closed in a moment, and when closed, the contents are secure from dust and intrusion. The lock which fastens the wings is the only one required. (source: wottondesks.com)

Lovely, indeed. A personal desktop, storage for letters, security and single login, assembled in a decent craftsmen's design. How far have we come if we compare Wotton's secretary with today's working environment?

BTW_ have you noticed the mobile phone? Click the image to solve the riddle.

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• Ars Electronica and Mensch und Computer tripreport
• A Hybrid Approach for Qualitative and Quantitative Usability Studies

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