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Like many developments in the history of computing, some of the ideas for a GUI computer were thought of long before the technology was even available to build such a machine. One of the first people to express these ideas was Vannevar Bush. In the early 1930s he first wrote of a device he called the "Memex," which he envisioned as looking like a desk with two touch screen graphical displays, a keyboard, and a scanner attached to it.
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In 1945, Bush revisited his older ideas in an article entitled "As We May Think," which was published in the Atlantic Monthly, and it was this essay that inspired a young Douglas Englebart to try and actually build such a machine.
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Douglas Englebart completed his degree in electrical engineering in 1948 and settled down in a nice job at the NACA Institute (the forerunner of NASA). However, one day while driving to work he had an epiphany: he realized that his real calling as an engineer was not to work on small projects that might only benefit a few people. Instead, he wanted to work on something that would benefit all of humanity. He recalled Bush's essay and started thinking about ways in which a machine could be built that would augment human intellect. During the war he had worked as a radar operator, so he was able to envision a display system built around cathode ray tubes where the user could build models of information graphically and jump around dynamically to whatever interested them.
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By 1959 he had earned enough recognition to receive funding from the United States Air Force to work on his ideas. In 1962, Douglas published his ideas in a seminal essay entitled "Augmenting Human Intellect." In this paper, Douglas argued that digital computers could provide the quickest method to "increase 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." He envisioned the computer not as a replacement for human intellect, but a tool for enhancing it. One of the first hypothetical examples he described for this technology was of an architect designing a building using something similar to modern graphical CAD software.
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This was a huge leap in thinking for 1962. The only computers that existed at the time were giant mainframes, and typically users would interact with them using what was called "batch processing." A user would submit a program on a series of punch cards, the computer would run the program at some scheduled time, and then the results would be picked up hours or even days later. Even the idea of having users enter commands on a text-based terminal in real-time (called "time-sharing" in the jargon of the day) was considered radical back then.
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korantengA brief introduction to the history of the GUI. The topic, as you might expect, is broad, and very deep. This article will touch on the high points, while giving an overview of GUI development.
technology ui usability interfaces design architecture interaction patterns history
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06 May 05
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05 May 05
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