Contents

Abstract

NLS, or the "oNLine System", was a revolutionary collaboration system designed by Douglas Engelbart and his team in the Augmentation Research Center (ARC) at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) during the 1960s and 1970s. NLS was the first to employ the practical use of hyperlinked documents (hyperdocs), the mouse (co-invented by Engelbart and colleague Bill English), raster-scan video monitors, information organized by relevance, screen windowing, computer presentation, and other modern computer concepts. The ARC team used NLS to collaborate in ways that are just now becoming available with today's Web 2.0 social networking software.

The goal of the NLS project is to preserve NLS, as well as related documentation, videos, schematics, and specialized hardware created for NLS. We plan to prepare and release the full NLS system and related historical material for the benefit of the community, on a not-for-profit basis, towards the end of Q1 2007. We also hope to develop a cyber exhibit on NLS sometime in 2007. Watch this site for updates on progress and future announcements.

Volunteer Opportunities

Releasing NLS and creating a cyber exhibit is a big job, and we need enthusiastic volunteers to be successful. The following are examples of opportunities that are currently available:

• Assembling and organizing NLS release content
• Writing and editing introductory material for the release
• Upgrading, completing, and packaging key support software (C, Java, SmallTalk)
• Verifying ownership and obtaining authorization to use supporting content
• Cataloging new NLS material in several local archives for the release
• Develop overall design concept and proposal for an NLS cyber exhibit

Content Navigation

• Acknowledgements
• Committee Announcements
• System Clone
• Source Code
• Bibliographies
• Documentation
• Correspondence / memoranda
• Papers and lecture notes
• Precursors of NLS-Augment
• By NLS-Augment team members
• By others
• Interviews / Biographies of Douglas C. Engelbart
• Oral Histories
• Photographs / Films
• Realia / Artifacts
• Simulators / Emulators
• Related resources

Acknowledgements

• Douglas Engelbart, Jonathan Cheyer, Jake Feinler, Philip Gust, Ken Harrenstien, Raylene Pak, Peter Yim, Scott Griffin, Lew Platt

Committee Announcements

• A slide set on the project can be found by selecting the contents tab at the top of this screen.

System Clone

• Permission has been received to clone the only existing NLS system in the world from Douglas Engelbart.
• June 2005 - system clone is proceeding. Personal files are being deleted from the clone.
• August 2005 - Clean, working TOPS-20 (v7.0) system, installed. Able to boot the PDP-10 and then start TOPS-20 (no network yet) successfully.
• August 2005 - Attempting to mount the four Augment structures cloned from Dr. Englebart's system.
• August 31, 2005 - "I am now able to start Augment!"
• September 21, 2005 - Augment is running on the stand alone Linux machine and responds to basic commands, but the networking is not functioning. It seems to be an issue with the TOPS-20 configuration.
• October 2005 - Network is now running on the test machine. Some chunks of source code have been discovered for the system (written in L-10) and additional source seems to be available for two different clients, Augterm and VAT.
• January 18, 2006 - Demonstration of the system clone running on Linux and of the version on Doug Engelbart's machine for the SCC. The demonstration was video taped and should be visible soon on the SCC web site.

Source Code

• April 2005 - Software IP tracked to sale of assets to Boeing Company. Board member Lew Platt has agreed to locate the correct person at Boeing to initiate discussion with museum about the software.
• June 2005 - The committee is in contact with The Boeing Company, last known owner of the software, to negotiate a right to own the software and display a working system at the Museum. We have every expectation of Boeing's cooperation in this endeavor.
• August 2005 - The museum, with the help of Boeing, is still trying to track the assets of the NLS/Augment system, and gain permissions.
• October 2005 - No additional news on the IP negotiations, but some source code seems to be recoverable from the system clone. We are not yet certain what is there, and what is not.
• November 2005 - The "Augment" US Trademarks, serial number 73256814 and 73647182 are currently listed by the USPTO as "Dead".
  One was a service mark filed for "Educational Services-Namely, Classes and Training in Office Automation". It was first filed by Tymeshare Inc. in 1980 and registered on September 28, 1982. First use and first use in commerce was listed as June 22, 1978. Its last listed assignee was MCI Communications corporation. The service mark was cancelled on July 5, 2003.
  The other was a goods and services mark for "computer programs for use in providing organizational information management". It was filed by McDonnell Douglas Corporation in 1987 and registered on May 3, 1988. First use and first use in commerce was listed as January 28, 1987. This mark was cancelled on November 7, 1994.
• January 2006 - Work continues on tracing the intellectual property ownership. The committee is in contact with several former "owners" and hope to have some resolutions soon.

Bibliographies

Some papers are also available on one of these commercial database systems, where there may be free abstracts, but a fee to access the papers:
ACM Digital Library
IEEE Xplore

Articles by Donald I. Andrews

• Line Processor -- A Device for Amplification of Display Terminal Capabilities for Text Manipulation. Donald I. Andrews, AFIPS Conference Proceedings, National Computer Conference, 1974, pp. 257-265 (AUGMENT,20184,).  

Articles by Charles P. Bourne - project manager

• Facets of the Technical Information Problem. Charles P. Bourne and Douglas C. Engelbart, The Magazine of Datamation, September/October 1958 (AUGMENT,133180,).   HTML
• 40 Years of Database Distribution and Use: An Overview and Observation. Charles P. Bourne, 1999 Miles Conrad Memorial Lecture, NFAIS Annual Conference, Philadelphia, PA, February 23, 1999. HTML

Articles by Douglas C. Engelbart
Edited from a list dated August 23, 2003 compiled by the Bootstrap Insititute.

http://www.bootstrap.org/institute/bibliography.html

• Special Considerations of the Individual as a User, Generator, and Retriever of Information. Douglas C. Engelbart, American Documentation, 12: 2 ( April 1961), pp. 121-125. Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Documentation Institute, Berkeley, CA, October 23-27, 1960 (AUGMENT,133181,).  
• Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework. Douglas C. Engelbart, Summary Report, Stanford Research Institute, on Contract AF 49(638)-1024, October 1962, 134 pages (AUGMENT,133182,).   HTML
• A Conceptual Framework for the Augmentation of Man's Intellect. by Douglas C. Engelbart, "Vistas in Information Handling," Howerton and Weeks [Ed.], Spartan Books, Washington, D. C., 1963, pp. 1-29 (AUGMENT,133183,). Republished with other articles in "Computer Supported Cooperative Work: A Book of Readings," Irene Greif [Ed.], Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Inc., San Mateo, CA, 1988, pp. 35-65. Also republished in "Organization and Groupware," T. Nishigaki [Ed.], NTT Publishing, 1992. 
• Display-Selection Techniques for Text Manipulation. William K. English, Douglas C. Engelbart and Melvyn L. Berman, IEEE Transactions on Human Factors in Electronics, HFE-8: 1 (March 1967), pp. 5-15 (AUGMENT,133184,).   HTML
• A Research Center for Augmenting Human Intellect. Douglas C. Engelbart and William K. English, AFIPS Conference Proceedings of the 1968 Fall Joint Computer Conference, San Francisco, CA, 33 (December 1968), pp. 395-410 (AUGMENT,3954,). Republished with other articles in "Computer Supported Cooperative Work: A Book of Readings," Irene Greif [Ed.], Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Inc., San Mateo, CA, 1988, pp. 81-105. See also the video "A Research Center for Augmenting Human Intellect, 1968."   HTML
• Intellectual Implications of Multi-Access Computer Networks. Douglas C. Engelbart, Proceedings of the Interdisciplinary Conference on Multi-Access Computer Networks, Austin, TX, April 1970 (AUGMENT,5255,).   HTML
• Coordinated Information Services for a Discipline- or Mission-Oriented Community. Douglas C. Engelbart, Proceedings of the Second Annual Computer Communications Conference, San Jose, CA, January 24, 1973 (AUGMENT,12445,). Also published in "Computer Communication Networks," R. L. Grimsdale and F.F. Kuo [Ed.], Noordhoff-Leyden, 1975.   HTML
• Design Considerations for Knowledge Workshop Terminals. Douglas C. Engelbart, AFIPS Conference Proceedings, 42, National Computer Conference, June 4-8, 1973, pp. 221-227 (AUGMENT,14851,).   HTML
• The Augmented Knowledge Workshop. Douglas C. Engelbart, Richard W. Watson and James C. Norton, AFIPS Conference Proceedings, 42, National Computer Conference, June 4-8, 1973, pp. 9-21 (AUGMENT,14724,).   HTML
• NLS Teleconferencing Features: The Journal and Shared-Screen Telephoning, Douglas C. Engelbart, COMPCON '75 Digest: Proceedings of the COMPCON Conference, September 9-11 1975, pp. 173-176 [IEEE Catalog No. 75CH0988-6C] (AUGMENT,33076,).   HTML
• Toward Integrated, Evolutionary Office Automation Systems. Douglas C. Engelbart, Proceedings of the Joint Engineering Management Conference, Denver, CO, October 16-18 1978, pp. 63-68 (AUGMENT,71279,). Republished with the article directly below in "Emerging Office Systems," Robert Landau, James Bair and Jeannie Siegman, [Ed.], Ablex Publications Corporation, Norwood, NJ, 1982, pp. 297-308.   HTML
• Evolving the Organization of the Future: A Point of View. Douglas C. Engelbart, Proceedings of the Stanford International Symposium on Office Automation, March 23-25, 1980 (AUGMENT,80360,). Republished with the article directly above in "Emerging Office Systems," Robert Landau, James Bair and Jeannie Siegman, [Ed.], Ablex Publications Corporation, Norwood, NJ, 1982, pp. 287-296.   HTML
• Toward High-Performance Knowledge Workers. Douglas C. Engelbart, OAC '82 Digest, Proceedings of the AFIPS Office Automation Conference, San Francisco, CA, April 5-7 1982, pp. 279-290 (AUGMENT,81010,). Republished with other articles in "Computer Supported Cooperative Work: A Book of Readings," Irene Greif [Ed.], Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Inc., San Mateo, CA, 1988, pp. 67-78.   HTML
• Collaboration Support Provisions in AUGMENT. Douglas C. Engelbart, OAC '84 Digest: Proceedings of the AFIPS Office Automation Conference, Los Angeles, CA, February 20-22 1984, pp. 51-58 (OAD,2221,).   HTML
• Authorship Provisions in AUGMENT. Douglas C. Engelbart, COMPCON '84 Digest: Proceedings of the COMPCON Conference, San Francisco, CA, February 27 - March 1, 1984, pp. 465-472 (OAD,2250,). Republished with other articles in "Computer Supported Cooperative Work: A Book of Readings," Irene Greif [Ed.], Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Inc., San Mateo, CA, 1988, pp. 107-126. Also in "Groupware: Software for Computer-Supported Cooperative Work," D. Marca and G. Bock [Ed.], IEEE, 1992.   HTML
• Workstation History and The Augmented Knowledge Workshop. Douglas C. Engelbart, Proceedings of the ACM Conference on the History of Personal Workstations, Palo Alto, CA, January 9-10, 1986, pp. 73-83 (AUGMENT,101931,). Republished as The Augmented Knowledge Workshop in "A History of Personal Workstations," Adele Goldberg [Ed.], ACM Press, New York, 1988, pp. 185-236. See also the video "Augmented Knowledge Workshop, 1986."   HTML
• Working Together. Douglas C. Engelbart and Harvey Lehtman, BYTE Magazine, December 1988, pp. 245-252 (AUGMENT,133186,).   HTML
• The Augmentation System Framework. Douglas C. Engelbart and Kristina Hooper, a chapter in "Interactive Multimedia," Sueann Ambron and Kristina Hooper [Ed.], Microsoft Press, 1988, pp. 14-31 (AUGMENT,133187,).  
• Bootstrapping and the Handbook Cycle. Douglas C. Engelbart and Christina Engelbart, Telematics and Informatics, 7: 1 (January 5 1990), pp. 27-32 (AUGMENT,132418,).  
• Knowledge-Domain Interoperability and an Open Hyperdocument System. Douglas C. Engelbart, Proceedings of the Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work, Los Angeles, CA, October 7-10, 1990, pp. 143-156 (AUGMENT,132082,). Republished in "Hypertext/Hypermedia Handbook," Emily Berk and Joseph Devlin [Ed.], McGraw-Hill, 1991, pp. 397-413.   HTML
• Bootstrapping Organizations into the 21st Century - A Strategic Framework. Douglas C. Engelbart. Bootstrap Institute, December 1991. (AUGMENT,132803).   HTML
• Toward High-Performance Organizations: A Strategic Role for Groupware. Douglas C. Engelbart, Proceedings of the GroupWare '92 Conference, San Jose, CA, August 3-5, 1992, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers (AUGMENT,132811,).   HTML
• Toward Augmenting the Human Intellect and Boosting our Collective IQ. Douglas C. Engelbart, Communications of the ACM, 38: 8 (August 1995), pp. 30-33 (AUGMENT,133188,).  
• Dreaming of the Future. Douglas C. Engelbart, BYTE, 20: 9 (Special "20 Years" Issue, September 1995), p. 330 (AUGMENT,133189,).   HTML
• A Draft OHS-Project Plan. Douglas C. Engelbart, October 2000 (unpublished).   HTML
• Enhanced a2h: Moving AUGMENT files and browsing functionality onto Bootstrap Web. Douglas C. Engelbart, December 7, 2001.   HTML
• "The Augmentation Papers - A Collection since 1960". Published by Bootstrap Institute.  

Articles by Charles H. Irby - Chief Architect of NLS

• Display Techniques for Interactive Text Manipulation. Charles H. Irby, AFIPS Conference Proceedings, National Computer Conference, 1974, pp. 247-255 (AUGMENT,133185,).  
• The Command Meta-Language System. Charles H. Irby, 1976 [written for the 1976 National Computer Conference but not published] (AUGMENT,27266,).  

Articles by Kenneth E. Victor

• The Design and Implementation of DAD, A Multiprocess, Multimachine, Multilanguage Interactive Debugger, Kenneth E. Victor, Proceedings of the Tenth Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, University of Hawaii, 1977, pp. 196-199 (AUGMENT,29079,).   
• A Software Engineering Environment. Kenneth E. Victor, Proceedings of AIAA/NASA/IEEE/ACM Computers In Aerospace Conference, Los Angeles, CA, October 31-November 2, 1977, pp. 399-403 (AUGMENT,29292,).   HTML

Articles by Richard W. Watson

• User Interface Design Issues for a Large Interactive System, Richard W. Watson, AFIPS Conference Proceedings, 45, National Computer Conference, June 6-7, 1976, pp. 357-364 (AUGMENT,27171,).   HTML

Articles by James E. White

• A High-Level Framework for Network-Based Resource Sharing. James E. White, AFIPS Conference Proceedings, 45, National Computer Conference, June 6-7, 1976, pp. 561-570 (AUGMENT,34263,).  

Miscellaneous ARC papers

• RFC 1012: A Bibliography of Request for Comments 1 Through 99, J. Reynolds and J. Postel, June 1987. HTML
• An Interactive Network Experiment to Study Modes of Acess the Network Information Center, Richard W. Watson. February 12, 1971 PDF PDF
• A Mail Box Protocol, Richard W. Watson. July 10, 1971. PDF
• A Mail Box Protocol, Version-2, Richard W. Watson. August 25, 1971. PDF
• The Nic's View of Standard Host Names, Richard W. Watson. October 5, 1971. PDF
• More on Standard Host Names, Richard W. Watson. October 18, 1971 PDF
• NIC Course, Richard W. Watson. November 8, 1971 PDF
• Notes on a Conversation with Bob Kahn on the ICCC, Richard W. Watson. July 12, 1972. PDF

Documentation

Correspondence and memoranda

Papers and lecture notes

• Finding Aid for the Douglas C. Engelbart Papers
  http://sloan.stanford.edu/mousesite/EngelbartPapers/FindingAid.html

• Bardini, Thierry. Bootstrapping: Douglas Engelbart, Coevolution, and the Origins of Personal Computing. Stanford University Press, 2000.
• Bardini, Thierry and Michael Friedewald. Chronicle of the Death of a Laboratory: Douglas Engelbart and the Failure of the Knowledge Workshop.
  History of Technology vol. 23, 2002. PDF

Interviews / Biographies of Douglas C. Engelbart

Oral Histories

• Englebart - The Stanford Interviews transcript HTML

Photographs / Films

A Photo Gallery featuring roughly 600 photographs taken at the SRI Augmentation Research Center in the early 1970s can be found at The MouseSite. These pictures were donated to them by by Douglas Engelbart in 1999. Some have comments on the images supplied by various sources. HTML

Additional photos can be found at other sites:

• Group meeting using the NLS / Augment system, date unknown, (late 1960's). JPG
• Diagram of NLS / Augment system modules. JPG
• NLS system circa 1968. JPG
• San Francisco's Brooks Hall set up for the demonstration during the Fall Joint Computer Conference 1968. JPG
• Screen capture shot from the 1968 demo. JPG
• Augment/NLS Installation and Setup (Smalltalk client) log in screen JPG
• Augment/NLS Installation and Setup (Smalltalk client) home page. JPG
• Together We Can Get There! 1991.
  Patricia Seybold interviews Engelbart, covering the Bootstrap Seminar highlights in a dynamic Q&A format. 90 minutes, with slide handouts. Available from Bootstrap Institute.
• Augmented Knowledge Workshop, 1986.
  Engelbart speaking on the history of NLS. Includes design rationale for all his pioneering firsts, plus historic photos and movie footage. 82 minutes, with reprint of companion paper. Available from Bootstrap Institute.
• A Research Center for Augmenting Human Intellect, 1968.
  Videotape copy of the original film footage from Engelbart's now-famous 90-minute multimedia presentation of his work at the Fall Joint Computer Conference in San Francisco, CA, December 9, 1968. This was the debut of the mouse, hypermedia, on-screen video teleconferencing, shared white-boards, outline processing, windows, etc. Videotape footage excerpted from this film is on display at the Smithsonian Museum Exhibit on The Information Age (see below). Reprint of the paper Engelbart delivered at the 1968 conference is included. Available from Bootstrap Institute. 
• A Research Center for Augmenting Human Intellect, 1968.
  The Stanford online copy. Streaming media

Realia / Artifacts

Simulators / Emulators

Related resources