Celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the launching of the ARPANET
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Historic Firsts:
Engelbart's Role in Early Computer Networking 0

Before the Internet there was the ARPANET – the first major computer network – which launched in 1969.

Doug Engelbart's lab at Stanford Research Institute (SRI) was the second site connected to this network, and received the first trans­mission sent over the ARPANET from UCLA. He was also tasked with running the Network Information Center (NIC) to serve the ARPANET user community. Engelbart was already demon­stra­ting what the web could become, and net­work­ing was a natural exten­sion of his broader vision.

In 1970, Doug wrote of the potential:

A Convergence of Visions 1

Since the early 1950s, Doug Engelbart had envisioned a future where people worked together with extraordinary effectiveness to solve the toughest challenges of the day, navigating within a vast information space via interactive computer work stations. By 1963 he had launched a budding research center for "augmenting the human intellect" to prototype the organization of the future, along with the enabling technology. By 1967 he and his team had created an interactive computer system called NLS as a vehicle for their exploration, which integrated rudimentary graphical interface with computer mouse, hypermedia, onscreen authoring, document sharing, digital libraries, collaboration support, teleconferencing, and more. You can see most of these features demonstrated operationally in his 1968 "Mother of All Demos" Trailer at right. NLS was used extensively by his team in all aspects of their work, and now they were looking forward to engaging a broader user community outside their lab.

At the time, the bulk of Doug's research was sponsored by the US Dept of Defense, Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). In fact Doug's was one of the first computer research labs funded by ARPA's new Information Processing Techniques Office, initially through its founding Director J.C.R. "Lick" Licklider, and soon also through Bob Taylor [1] from his post at NASA Langley. In 1960 Lick had written Man-Computer Symbiosis, and in 1962 circulated a memo on the Intergalactic Computer Network, and Bob was a psychologist interested in computing for human/communication purposes, and Doug's proposals were right up their alley.

By 1965 Bob Taylor found himself directing ARPA's IPTO, and soon turned his attention to making computer networking a reality, recruiting colleague Larry Roberts to manage the effort. They decided to begin by first networking the computers in the labs ARPA was funding, and expand from there. In 1967 Bob Taylor announced his plans at a meeting of his Principal Investigators. There were many skeptics around that table, but Doug Engelbart was absolutely thrilled – 'networking' would dovetail beautifully into his research agenda, and he offered on the spot to host an online information center to support the network user community. And so Doug Engelbart's lab was among the first selected for the initial beta installation of the ARPANET, along with UCLA, University of Utah, and UC Santa Barbara. In 1968, Bolt, Beranek and Newman (BBN) won the bid to develop the underlying network technology for the ARPANET – a smallish computer (the size of a refrigerator) called an Interface Message Processor, or IMP, to be installed at every host site to form the network, linking in the host computer(s). Representatives from the four beta host sites, including Doug's chief architect Jeff Rulifson, began meeting in the summer of 1968 to hash out the details and protocols for participation, ably led by UCLA's Steve Crocker. Thus the Network Working Group was born (RFC#1). See Retrospectives below to watch Bob Taylor and Vint Cerf recall these early beginnings.

By years' end, with preliminary plans for the ARPANET now in motion, Doug announced his participation during his session at the 1968 Fall Joint Computer Conference, which lucky for us was filmed(!) -- this session later became known as the "Mother of All Demos."

On October 1, 1969 Doug and his team again presented their work in a conference session, in live demonstration format, this time with much more to say about the imminent ARPANET and their planned participation.

See Watch Doug & Others below for select footage from his 1968 and 1969 demo presentations.

2nd Host receives 1st Transmission 2

The ARPANET went live the following year on October 29, 1969. The first two sites to come online were Len Kleinrock's lab at UCLA, and Doug Engelbart's Augmentation Research Center at SRI. At each site an IMP was installed to interface the onsite host computer with the network, which required some programming at both ends.

When it came time to test transmission over the network between the two sites, the task fell to two young programmers – Bill Duvall in Doug's lab at SRI in Menlo Park, CA, and Charlie Kline at UCLA, in Los Angeles, CA.

Watch Bill and Charlie tell their story under Retrospectives below.

The NIC 3

The UCLA team had been tasked with running a Network Measurement Center for the ARPANET to monitor network performance, while Engelbart's team was tasked with running a Network Information Center (NIC) to support the ARPANET user community. Through the NIC, ARPANET users would access information about the network, the hosts, fellow users, and the resources available, as well as tools for navigating the information. Doug's lab set to work extending NLS provisions for community support, as well as information system support services which included integrated hyper-email and an automated online publish-retrieve facility called the "Journal".[3]

The year 1972 was a turning point for both the ARPANET and the NIC. In 1972, BBN's Bob Kahn spearheaded a public demonstration of the ARPANET, which now boasted 29 IMPs online, with more in the pipeline. The demonstration would be held at the first International Conference on Computer Communications in Washington, D.C. Doug recruited Elizabeth "Jake" Feinler from SRI's internal Library Research Services to begin developing an ARPANET Resource Handbook to be showcased at the demonstration. Jake worked closely with Doug's team, with the Network Working Group, and others to develop the handbook and much more.

The ARPANET was taking off, and the Network Information Center right along with it. Soon BBN released the first 'killer app' – e-mail, which really ignited the ARPANET user base. By 1974 the NIC was funded as a separate project, with Jake as its Principal Investigator. The NIC grew and evolved under her leadership until 1991 when, having grown beyond ARPA's purview, what had originally launched as the ARPANET Network Information Center was transferred to Network Solutions in Virginia, where it became the InterNIC.

Watch Jake Feinler recount the NIC beginnings and growth under Retrospectives below.

By 1978 there were over 70+ nodes on the ARPANET, interfacing even more host computers. Among them were 5-6 mainframes running NLS, remotely accessed by dozens of end-user organizations, including ARPA's Information Processing Techniques Office:

From ARPANET to Internet 4

In the Fall of 1972, when BBN's Bob Kahn staged the first public demonstration of the ARPANET, there were 29 nodes on the ARPANET and counting. See Exhibits below to watch the fabulous 1972 documentary produced for that demonstration, touting the wonders of computer networking. Click the map at right to watch the ARPANET grow.

Soon more networks were springing up, such as the commercially-available Telenet and Tymnet. Each operated in isolation of the other, as yet there were no provisions for communicating between networks. The Internet emerged from the ARPANET program as an architecture for internetworking, among any number of networks, to allow any host in a network to communicate with any host on any other network.

It was Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf who primarily spearheaded that effort in 1973. Bob Kahn was now at ARPA, and Vint Cerf, formerly one of Len Kleinrock's graduate students on the ARPANET launch team at UCLA, was now at Stanford. Bob approached Vint to see about solving the network silos issue. Out of this collaboration emerged TCP/IP protocols for internetworking, which earned Bob and Vint the joint title "Father of the Internet," and numerous awards for their visionary work.

Watch Vint Cerf's brief history of the ARPANET/Internet (at right), beginning with J.C.R. Licklider coming to ARPA and meeting Doug Engelbart. More under Retrospectives below.

Watch Doug & Others 5

Watch selected archive footage from the time of the 1969 launch of the ARPANET, showing Doug and team presenting their research goals, results and activities in a live demo format.

In 1968

Watch Doug and team from his Augmented Human Intellect Research Center (AHIRC) presenting at the Fall Joint Computer Conference in December 1968:

In 1969

Watch Doug and his team presenting at the ASIS Conference on Information Science in October 1969, just 28 days before the first ARPANET transmission:

In 1972

The 1972 ARPANET documentary, titled "Computer Networks - The Heralds Of Resource Sharing," was produced for showing at the 1972 public demonstration of the ARPANET held at the first International Conference on Computer Communications in Washington, D.C. The documentary features interviews with JCR Licklider, Larry Roberts, Bob Kahn, and more, including Dick Watson from Doug's Lab:

Retrospectives

Watch selected footage from two interviews by NY Times' John Markoff, the first with Bob Taylor at the 2008 Engelbart and the Dawn of Interactive Computing symposium at Stanford, and the other in 1999 with Doug's team members Bill Duvall, Bill English, and Doug Engelbart in Markoff's "White Rabbit" interview series:

Doug's Forward Vision 6

Most histories and timelines of computer networking recount the evolution of the technology, and the expansion of nodes and networks. Doug Engelbart's contributions were largely focused on the human side of the equation.

Following are references to the passages from Engelbart's early papers which highlight his lab's orientation for Network Implications prior to and during the formation of the ARPANET, still relevant to today's Internet and World Wide Web, still not fully addressed.

• 1962: Doug "backcasts" a picture of networked professionals
  
  "By "augmenting human intellect" we mean increasing the capability of a man to approach a complex problem situation, to gain comprehension to suit his particular needs, and to derive solutions to problems. Increased capability in this respect is taken to mean a mixture of the following: more-rapid comprehension, better comprehension, the possibility of gaining a useful degree of comprehension in a situation that previously was too complex, speedier solutions, better solutions, and the possibility of finding solutions to problems that before seemed insoluble. And by "complex situations" we include the professional problems of diplomats, executives, social scientists, life scientists, physical scientists, attorneys, designers謡hether the problem situation exists for twenty minutes or twenty years. We do not speak of isolated clever tricks that help in particular situations. We refer to a way of life in an integrated domain where hunches, cut-and-try, intangibles, and the human "feel for a situation" usefully co-exist with powerful concepts, streamlined terminology and notation, sophisticated methods, and high-powered electronic aids." [...]
  
  "Let me mention another bonus feature that wasn't easily fore seen. We have experimented with having several people work together from working stations that can provide inter-communication via their computer or computers. That is, each person is equipped as I am here, with free access to the common working structures. There proves to be a really phenomenal boost in group effectiveness over any previous form of cooperation we have experienced. [?] The whole team can join forces at a moment's notice to 'pull together' on some stubborn little problem, or to make a group decision."
  
  – Douglas C. Engelbart, in Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework, SRI Report, 1962. See especially what he envisioned for accessing the computers remotely via 'workingstations' in this 'backcast' on Team Collaboration.


• 1970: Doug writes about the implications of networking
  
  "there will emerge a new 'marketplace,' representing fantastic wealth in commodities of knowledge, service, information, processing, storage, etc. In the number and range of transactions, and in the speed and flexibility with which they are negotiated, this new market will have a vitality and dynamism as much greater than today's as today's is greater than the village market."
  
  – Douglas C. Engelbart, Intellectual Implications of Multi-Access Computer Networks, in Proceedings of The Interdisciplinary Conference on Multi-Access Computer Networks, Austin, Texas, April 1970. This paper given at a small conference organized by Larry Roberts, Bob Taylor's Program Manager for the ARPANET initiative. Each invited speaker was to address his relevant "Implications of Multi-Access Computer Networks." For instance, Larry's was "Economic Implications." Engelbart's was "Intellectual Implications."

The ARPANET Network Information Center was one tangible channel for infusing some of Engelbart's human-centered vision. His core research emphasized human process evolution equally important as the evolution of technology, stressing the importance of co-evolving the two in an integrated manner to achieve the best results. His concern from the beginning was that technology would race ahead of mankind's ability to cope.

Watch in 1972 Dick Watson from Doug's lab and J.C.R. Licklider from ARPA voice these very concerns.

Fast forward to the early 1990s when Doug reemerged with a Call to Action on the order of a Grand Challenge to spur proactive industry-government exploration into what it would take to boost our collective intelligence in business and society to the fullest extent possible. He proposed spinning up a number of specially-endowed pilot teams leveraging the most advanced modes of working together, enabled by highly evolved information technology and organizational processes. To speed things along he detailed what he saw to be the baseline requirements for the technology, which he called "open hyper document systems" (OHS) and which he pointed out as a serious matter were largely missing from then prevailing IT paradigm. It is important to note that most of these requirements are still largely unmet in any coherent way in today's web/IT paradigm, his Grand Challenge as yet unheeded (now referred to as "Engelbart's Unfinished Revolution" in contrast to the revolution(s) inspired by his work that did take hold).

• 1990: Knowledge-Domain Interoperability and an Open Hyperdocument System
• 1992: Toward High-Performance Organizations: A Strategic Role for Groupware.
• 1995: Boosting Our Collective IQ: A Selection of Readings
  
• 2000: The Engelbart Colloquium at Stanford - 10 week management seminar
• Current: The Engelbart Academy - what he wanted you to know to bootstrap the future

Awards & Recognition 7

Press 8