posted by prof_improbable #
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Underneath the Civic Center in San Francisco is a windowless bunker of an exhibition hall called Brooks Hall.
Currently closed and used as storage, Brooks Hall was the location of the "Mother of All Demos."
On December 9, 1968, computer warlock Douglas Engelbart gave a demonstration at the Fall Joint Computer Conference at Brooks Hall.
For the first time in one computer system, Engelbart demonstrated almost all the fundamental elements of modern personal computing: multiple windows, hypertext, graphics, the computer mouse (which he helped invent), word processing, and several other systems.
After about 1,000 computer scientists gave Engelbart a standing ovation, the attendees went back to their own work, now more fully aware of the new paradigm of possibilities.
