Douglas Engelbart Essay examples

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James Matthew Gary III
Professor A. Sanders
CIS 102—Introduction to Computers and Information Systems
26 August 2014
Douglas Carl Engelbart Douglas Carl Engelbart was an American engineer and inventor, he also was an early computer and Internet pioneer. He is best known for his work on the challenges of human-computer interaction. Engelbart invented the computer mouse, developed hypertext, networked computer and precursors to graphical user interfaces. He was a computer visionary of the 1960’s, and focused his time on making the world a better place through the use of computers. (Engelbart 1) Douglas Engelbart was born in Portland, Oregon on January 30, 1925. He was the middle of three children, with a sister Dorianne (3 years older), and a brother David (14 months younger. He graduated from Portland’s Franklin High School in 1942 and his father died a year later. Midway through his college studies at Oregon State, he was drafted into the United States Navy, and served two years as a radar technician in the Philippines. After the Navy, he returned to Oregon State and completed his Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering in 1948. While attending Oregon State, he was a member of Sigma Phi Epsilon social fraternity. Engelbart met a woman by the name of Ballard Fish while folk dancing, the two became engaged in 1950, and then eventually got married a year later. Engelbart’s career was inspired in December 1950 when he realized that he had no career goals other than “a steady job.”(Engelbart 2) He enrolled in graduate school studying electrical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, graduating with a Master of Science degree in 1953, and a Ph.D. in 1955. Engelbart stayed at Berkeley as an assistant professor to teach for a year, and left when he realized he could not pursue his vision there. He formed a startup company by the name of Digital Techniques, but after a year in business he decided instead to follow the research he had been dreaming of since 1951. Engelbart developed a research team, and their main objective was to accelerate the rate of innovation and interaction through the use of computers. In the early 1960’s Engelbart founded SRI International’s Augmentation Research Center in an effort to further research information processing and computer-sharing tools and methods. Engelbart applied for a patent in 1967 and received it in 1970, for the wooden shell with two metal wheels (which we know today as the mouse). He developed the mouse with
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