1997 道格拉斯·恩格尔巴特

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DOUGLAS ENGELBART DL Author Profile link
United States – 1997
CITATION
For an inspiring vision of the future of interactive computing and the invention of key technologies to help realize this vision.

SHORT ANNOTATED
BIBLIOGRAPHY
RESEARCH
SUBJECTS
The first error people make about Doug Engelbart is to confuse him with a computer scientist. He is not a computer scientist, but an engineer by training and an inventor by choice. His numerous technological innovations (including the computer mouse, hypertext, and the split screen interface) were crucial to the development of personal computing and the Internet. His work helped to change the way computers work, from specialized machinery that only trained technicians could use, to a medium designed to augment the intelligence of its users and foster their collaboration. In every text, conference talk, and media appearance for the past fifty years, this stubborn man, this hopeful man, has constantly repeated the same thing:

As human matters are getting increasingly complex and urgent, long terms solution will more likely come through the development of more powerful problem solving tools than through piecemeal solutions on specific problems.

Attempting to solve these ever more complex/urgent problems with the help of computer hardware and software has been the story of Douglas Engelbart’s professional life, his “crusade”.

Douglas C. Engelbart was born in Portland, Oregon, in 1925, the second of three children of a couple of Scandinavian and German descent. His father was an electrical engineer who owned a radio shop until he died (when Douglas was nine years old). He graduated from high school in 1942, and went on to study Electrical Engineering at Oregon State University, where he was trained as a radar technician, before he was drafted into the military in 1944. The radar training proved to be central for the rest of his career, and first triggered an absolute fascination in his young mind. He was in the Navy from 1944 to 1946, and was stationed for a year at the Philippines Sea Frontier, in the Manila bay. During that year he read Vannevar Bush's As We May Think article—a crucial influence on his later work. After the war, he went back to university in Corvallis, Oregon to finish his degree in Electrical Engineering. He graduated in 1948, and then took a job in California at the Ames Navy Research Center, where he stayed for 3 years.

Douglas Engelbart's decision to get involved in computing research happened in a complex move that encompassed most aspects of his personal and professional life. Engelbart identifies with a specific American generation, the depression kids—a generation born in adverse conditions that came of age during World War II. The war had left these kids in a paradoxical situation where science and technology had been the key to a Pyrric victory, and where an idealistic opening of new era was both full of hopes and fears, including a moral obligation to prevent such events to ever happen again. This paradoxical situation implied a specific way to situate oneself, in respect to ambivalent feelings and goals, toward the general good of mankind, best expressed in Engelbart’s military-religious metaphor of his crusade for the augmentation of human intellect.

Engelbart decided to go to graduate school at Berkeley, where he earned his Ph.D. in electrical engineering in 1955 (John Woodyard was his advisor). This degree at Berkeley had reinforced his commitment to his crusade but had not provided him, at least directly, with the means to research and implement his ideas. He decided to form a corporation, Digital Techniques, to capitalize on his Ph.D. work on gas discharge devices. The experience did not last long as Digital Techniques closed down in 1957 after an assessment report from a team of experts concluded that solid state devices would soon doom their project.

Engelbart joined Stanford Research Institute (SRI, now Stanford Research International) in the Summer of 1957. SRI provided him with an environment best suited for the implementation of his Research Center for the Augmentation of Human Intellect (ARC), which soon became the source of many crucial hardware and software innovations such as: the mouse, integrated email, display editing, windows, cross-file editing, idea/outline processing, hypermedia, shared-screen teleconferencing, online publishing, and groupware—all integrated into their oN-Line System (NLS hereafter). Demonstrated for the first time in the famous May,1968 Mother of All Demos in San Francisco, NLS was designed to allow Computer-Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW), a field he essentially created.

Engelbart’s strategic vision began with the recognition of a major reason why some large-scale problems continue to elude humankind’s best efforts. His radical scale change principle asserts that as a complex system increases in scale, it changes not only in size but also in its qualities. This principle, in fact one of the three basic laws of Hegelian dialectic, seems at odds with the common-sense view that large-scale systems are reducible to smaller-scale parts without loss of qualities. Even if Engelbart knew that the computer was just another artifact at a time when more engineering was not necessarily the solution, he also knew that this specific language artifact was offering unusual characteristics. He understood that the computer was opening the cognitive realm to more dimensions than the usual three, allowing non-linear thinking. But, most importantly, it was extremely fast; it could calculate, display and help organize ideas at a blazing speed. He realized that the introduction of the computer, as a powerful auxiliary to human intellect, could turn a quantitative change into a qualitative change. Facing numerous too urgent and complex problems, the little inelastic mind of the human being could, with the augmentation of the computer, become up to the challenge. Most importantly, this basic tenet of his philosophy ended up playing as important of part in the human system as in the tool system.

That the existence of a critical mass of augmented humans necessary to bootstrap, and thus augment the whole species, afforded no doubt in Engelbart’s mind. That is, in essence, what his notion of co-evolution between man and computer, tool system and human system, means. Human beings need a methodology and training that organizes their efforts at the levels of scale that are appropriate to the problems they are trying to solve. His intellect augmentation is such a method. The method provides a human-centered design for information technology that stands in contrast to the common automation approach to technology. In the automation approach, technology serves to replace human effort, thus saving time and freeing users to concentrate on more important matters. Automation, like Artificial Intelligence, does not alter the fundamental capabilities of the human users. In contrast, Engelbart’s intellect augmentation provides a model of technology that is deliberately designed so that human abilities will increase in response to using it.

An excellent example of intellect augmentation is the computer mouse (U.S. Patent # 3,541,541). Prior to Engelbart’s x-y position indicator, computer input was entered as symbols via keyboards or punch cards. The mouse allows a direct manipulation of elements within the computer environment and thus crosses the physical boundary between human and computer. It makes the interface an extension of human action rather than a mediator between the human and the machine. It extends, or augments, a very basic human ability, two-dimensional hand movement, into the ability to manipulate digital media. All of Engelbart’s efforts aim at extension of human capabilities in combination with technological innovation. The result is not merely people who have less to do thanks to the machine (automation) but people who have abilities to do more with the machine (augmentation).

Engelbart slipped into relative obscurity after 1976 due to various misfortunes and misunderstandings. Several of Engelbart's best researchers had become alienated from him and left his organization when Xerox PARC was created in 1970. The Mansfield Amendment, the end of the Vietnam War, and the end of Project Apollo reduced his funding from ARPA and NASA. SRI's management, which did not understand what he was trying to accomplish, fired him in 1976. In 1978, a company called Tymshare bought NLS, hired him as a Senior Scientist, and offered commercial services based upon NLS. Engelbart soon found himself marginalized and relegated to obscurity—operational concerns superseded his desire to do further research. Various executives at Tymshare and McDonnell Douglas (which took over Tymshare in 1982) expressed interest in his ideas, but never committed the funds or the people to further develop them. He left McDonnell Douglas in 1986.

Since the mid 1990s, several important prizes and awards have recognized the seminal importance of Engelbart's contributions: In 1996 he was awarded the Yuri Rubinsky Memorial Award; in 1997 the Lemelson-MIT Prize, the world's largest single prize for invention and innovation, and the Turing Award. In 1999 Paul Saffo, from the Institute for the Future, hosted a large symposium at Stanford University's Memorial Auditorium, to honor Engelbart and his ideas. In December 2000 he was awarded the American National Medal of Technology, and in 2001 he was awarded the British Computer Society's Lovelace Medal.

Until his death in 2013 he served as the director emeritus of the Douglas Engelbart Institute (formerly Bootstrap Institute), which he founded in 1988 with his daughter, Christina Engelbart. It is located in Fremont, California and promotes the latest refinement of his philosophy, the concept of Collective IQ, and development of what he called Open Hyper-Document Systems (OHS), and HyperScope, a subset of OHS.

Additional Links
Douglas Engelbart Institute: http://dougengelbart.org/

Stanford University MouseSite: http://sloan.stanford.edu/MouseSite/MouseSitePg1.html

Video of the 1968 Demo: http://www.archive.org/details/XD301_69ASISconfPres_Reel1

Stanford Oral History interviews by Henry Lowood and Judy Adams, edited by Thierry Bardini: http://www-sul.stanford.edu/dept ... t/engfmst1-ntb.html

Frode Hegland & Fleur Klijnsma, Invisible Revolution: The Doug Engelbart Story, a web documentary: http://www.invisiblerevolution.net/

Author: Thierry Bardini



DOUGLAS ENGELBART DL作者简介链接
美国 - 1997年
褒奖
因为他对交互式计算的未来有一个鼓舞人心的愿景，并发明了帮助实现这一愿景的关键技术。

短篇注释
书目
研究
题目
人们对道格-恩格尔巴特的第一个错误是把他和计算机科学家混为一谈。他不是计算机科学家，而是一个受过训练的工程师和一个选择的发明家。他的众多技术创新（包括计算机鼠标、超文本和分屏界面）对个人计算和互联网的发展至关重要。他的工作帮助改变了计算机的工作方式，从只有训练有素的技术人员才能使用的专业机器，变成了一种旨在增强用户的智力和促进他们合作的媒介。在过去的五十年里，在每一篇文章、会议演讲和媒体亮相中，这个固执的人，这个充满希望的人，不断重复着同样的事情。

随着人类事务越来越复杂和紧迫，长期的解决方案将更有可能通过开发更强大的问题解决工具来实现，而不是通过对具体问题的零散解决。

试图在计算机硬件和软件的帮助下解决这些越来越复杂/紧迫的问题，是道格拉斯-恩格尔巴特职业生活的故事，是他的 "十字军"。

道格拉斯-C-恩格尔巴特于1925年出生于俄勒冈州的波特兰，是一对斯堪的纳维亚和德国血统夫妇的三个孩子中的第二个。他的父亲是一名电气工程师，在他去世前一直拥有一家无线电商店（当时道格拉斯9岁）。他于1942年高中毕业，然后在俄勒冈州立大学学习电气工程，在那里接受雷达技术员的培训，然后于1944年被征召入伍。雷达培训被证明是他余下职业生涯的核心，并首次引发了他年轻心灵中的绝对迷恋。1944年至1946年，他在海军服役，并在马尼拉湾的菲律宾海上边疆驻扎了一年。在那一年，他读到了范尼瓦尔-布什的《如我们所想》一文--对他后来的工作产生了至关重要的影响。战后，他回到俄勒冈州科瓦利斯的大学，完成他的电子工程学位。他于1948年毕业，然后在加利福尼亚的埃姆斯海军研究中心找了一份工作，在那里呆了3年。

道格拉斯-恩格尔巴特决定参与计算机研究，这发生在一个复杂的动作中，包含了他个人和职业生活的大部分方面。恩格尔巴特认同美国特定的一代人，即大萧条时期的孩子--在恶劣条件下出生的一代人，在第二次世界大战期间成年。战争使这些孩子处于一种矛盾的境地，在这种境地中，科学和技术是皮里克胜利的关键，而理想主义的新时代的开端既充满了希望又充满了恐惧，包括防止这种事件再次发生的道德义务。这种自相矛盾的情况意味着，在矛盾的情感和目标方面，有一种特定的方式来定位自己，以实现人类的普遍利益，这在恩格尔巴特的军事-宗教隐喻中得到了最好的表达，即他为增强人类智力而进行的讨伐行动。

恩格尔巴特决定去伯克利读研究生，1955年他在那里获得了电子工程的博士学位（约翰-伍德亚德是他的导师）。在伯克利的这个学位加强了他对他的十字军的承诺，但至少没有直接为他提供研究和实施他的想法的手段。他决定成立一家公司，即数字技术公司，以利用他在气体放电装置方面的博士工作。这种经验并没有持续很久，因为在一个专家小组的评估报告得出结论，固态设备将很快结束他们的项目后，数字技术公司于1957年关闭。

1957年夏天，恩格尔巴特加入了斯坦福研究所（SRI，现在的斯坦福国际研究所）。SRI为他提供了一个最适合实施他的人类智力增强研究中心（ARC）的环境，该中心很快成为许多关键硬件和软件创新的来源，如：鼠标、集成电子邮件、显示编辑、窗口、交叉文件编辑、想法/大纲处理、超媒体、共享屏幕远程会议、在线出版和群件，所有这些都集成到他们的oN-Line系统（以下简称NLS）。在1968年5月在旧金山举行的著名的 "所有演示之母 "中，NLS被设计为允许计算机支持的协作工作（CSCW），这是一个由他创造的领域。

恩格尔巴特的战略远见始于对一些大规模问题仍然无法得到人类最佳努力的主要原因的认识。他的激进的规模变化原则断言，随着一个复杂系统规模的增加，它不仅在规模上发生变化，而且在质量上也发生变化。这一原则，实际上是黑格尔辩证法的三个基本定律之一，似乎与常识性的观点不一致，即大规模系统可以被还原为较小规模的部分而不损失质量。即使恩格尔巴特知道，在一个更多的工程不一定能解决问题的时代，计算机只是另一个人工制品，他也知道，这个特定的语言人工制品提供了不寻常的特性。他知道，计算机正在为认知领域打开更多维度，而不是通常的三个维度，允许非线性思维。但是，最重要的是，它的速度极快；它能以极快的速度计算、显示和帮助组织思想。他意识到，计算机的引入，作为人类智力的强大辅助工具，可以将量变转化为质变。面对无数太过紧迫和复杂的问题，人类那没有弹性的小脑袋，在计算机的辅助下，可以应对挑战。最重要的是，他哲学的这一基本原则最终在人类系统和工具系统中发挥了同样重要的作用。

在恩格尔巴特的脑海中，存在一个临界质量的增强型人类是必要的，从而增强了整个物种，这一点是毫无疑问的。从本质上讲，这就是他提出的人与计算机、工具系统与人类系统之间共同进化的概念的含义。人类需要一种方法和训练，在适合他们要解决的问题的规模层次上组织他们的努力。他的智力增强法就是这样一种方法。该方法为信息技术提供了一种以人为本的设计，与常见的技术自动化方法形成鲜明对比。在自动化方法中，技术的作用是取代人的努力，从而节省时间，使用户可以集中精力处理更重要的事情。自动化，像人工智能一样，并不改变人类用户的基本能力。相比之下，恩格尔巴特的智力增强提供了一个技术模型，该模型是特意设计的，以便人类的能力会随着使用它而增加。

电脑鼠标（美国专利号：3,541,541）就是智力增强的一个很好的例子。在恩格尔巴特的X-Y位置指示器之前，计算机输入是通过键盘或打卡机以符号形式输入的。鼠标允许直接操纵计算机环境中的元素，从而跨越了人与计算机之间的物理界限。它使界面成为人类行动的延伸，而不是人类和机器之间的中介。它将人类非常基本的能力--二维手部运动--延伸或增强为操纵数字媒体的能力。恩格尔巴特的所有努力都是为了结合技术创新来扩展人类的能力。其结果不仅仅是人们因为机器而减少了工作（自动化），而是人们有能力用机器做更多的事情（增强）。

1976年后，由于各种不幸和误解，恩格尔巴特陷入了相对默默无闻的状态。恩格尔巴特的几个最好的研究人员已经与他疏远，并在1970年施乐PARC成立时离开了他的组织。曼斯菲尔德修正案，越南战争的结束，以及阿波罗计划的结束，减少了他从ARPA和NASA获得的资金。SRI的管理层不理解他所要完成的任务，于1976年解雇了他。1978年，一家名为Tymshare的公司收购了NLS，聘请他为高级科学家，并提供基于NLS的商业服务。恩格尔巴特很快就发现自己被边缘化了，并被降级为无名小卒--业务上的考虑取代了他做进一步研究的愿望。Tymshare和麦道公司（1982年接管了Tymshare）的多位高管对他的想法表示了兴趣，但从未投入资金或人员来进一步开发这些想法。他于1986年离开麦道公司。

自20世纪90年代中期以来，一些重要的奖项和奖励已经承认了恩格尔巴特的贡献的开创性意义。1996年，他被授予尤里-鲁宾斯基纪念奖；1997年，世界上最大的单一发明和创新奖--莱姆森-麻省理工学院奖，以及图灵奖。1999年，来自未来研究所的保罗-萨福在斯坦福大学的纪念礼堂主持了一个大型研讨会，以纪念恩格尔巴特和他的思想。2000年12月，他被授予美国国家技术奖章，2001年，他被授予英国计算机协会的洛夫莱斯奖章。

直到2013年去世，他一直担任道格拉斯-恩格尔巴特研究所（原Bootstrap研究所）的名誉主任，该研究所是他与女儿克里斯蒂娜-恩格尔巴特于1988年创立的。它位于加利福尼亚的弗里蒙特，促进他的哲学的最新完善，集体智商的概念，以及他所谓的开放超文件系统（OHS）和OHS的子集HyperScope的发展。

其他链接
道格拉斯-恩格尔巴特研究所：http://dougengelbart.org/

斯坦福大学鼠标网站: http://sloan.stanford.edu/MouseSite/MouseSitePg1.html

1968年的演示视频：http://www.archive.org/details/XD301_69ASISconfPres_Reel1

斯坦福大学口述历史访谈，由亨利-洛伍德和朱迪-亚当斯撰写，由蒂埃里-巴迪尼编辑：http://www-sul.stanford.edu/dept ... t/engfmst1-ntb.html

Frode Hegland & Fleur Klijnsma, Invisible Revolution: 道格-恩格尔巴特的故事》，一部网络纪录片：http://www.invisiblerevolution.net/

作者。蒂埃里-巴尔迪尼