Imagine a world without the internet, digital photography, MP3 music, e-mail, Fallout 3 and Microsoft Word.
Or, for that matter, without screen crashes, endlessly rotating wheels, pricey software upgrades, trojans, Anubis II and Microsoft Vista.
The age of the personal computer began 40 years ago this month, and for better or worse its development changed the world and the way we live forever.
Douglas Engelbart of California's Stanford Research Institute was the man who ushered in this new era. He unveiled the groundbreaking concept in front of an audience of 1,000 enthralled electronics experts at what was later dubbed the "mother of all demos", and received a standing ovation.
His system had numerous features that would be recognised to today's computer user – on-screen windows, a mouse (made of wood, and also a world first), hypertext links and an interactive display. This is surprising as we tend to think that technology develops at breakneck speed.
In fact, in the case of the mouse, the remarkable thing is how little progress has been made. Yes, you can now get wireless models and more than one button, but the basic point-and-click operation remains unchanged. One manufacturer has just launched a waterproof mouse that you can wash, but that doesn't seem much to show for 40 years' development.
Engelbart edited text and used graphics on screen. He demonstrated live video-conferencing. And he showed the way towards the type of networks that would eventually lead to the creation of the internet.
"No one has ever before or since seen such a collection of great ideas in one demonstration," said Curt Carlson, CEO of SRI International, the new name for the Stanford Research Institute. Eat your heart out, Steve Jobs.
The machine Engelbart used was not like today's desktop models – it was one of a number of terminals attached to a central computer. But it contained so many features that would make the PC revolution possible that he became known as the father of the personal computer.
The film of the demonstration makes remarkable viewing. Engelbart, seen in black and white and using a headset to communicate with colleagues 30 miles away, sits at a console in San Francisco's civic centre. He is operating a qwerty keyboard, a separate smaller keypad and that mouse, and he is engaging and self-deprecating as he puts the PC through its paces. He begins by typing in text, which we see displayed on a screen. He duplicates words, replaces them and edits his document. He even demonstrates a curse of the computer age when he accidentally deletes a section then tries to restore it – only to find he has not saved often enough and cannot recover all his work.
Everything he does is so far ahead of its time it's ridiculous. This is 1968, remember. The first pocket calculators did not appear until 1971 and the first fully featured word-processor did not come along until 1976. Golfball typewriters and little bottles of the recently introduced Tipp-Ex correction fluid ruled the roost in the office.
Engelbart said in a 2004 interview with Wired magazine: "I wanted to demonstrate the flexibility a computer could offer, the world of tomorrow."
Throughout the 90-minute demo he was terrified the system would break down.
"We were depending on things working together that had never worked together before," he added. "When it was all over and nothing had failed – phew. I looked up and everyone was standing, cheering like crazy."
That day in December 1968 was the moment when the future – the world as we now know it – began. But in the public mind it was perhaps not the most auspicious time to announce a momentous computer breakthrough.
Earlier that year 2001: A Space Odyssey had been released and millions of film-goers had watched as the creepily even-voiced HAL 5000 computer wiped out most of the crew of Discovery One. Computers received a better press the following year, however, when one helped the Apollo 11 astronauts to land on the moon.
When Engelbart gave his demonstration computers were expensive room-sized devices that only huge companies and universities could afford. But afterwards, researchers were able for the first time to envisage a world where there was a computer on every desk in every office and in every home – does that sound familiar?
The system Engelbart demonstrated, called NLS, was never developed commercially because it was difficult to operate. But he had shown the way and others took up the baton, including members of his team who later helped to develop products that turned the personal computer vision into reality.
This process took a remarkably long time – so long in the case of the mouse that the patent Engelbart obtained in 1970 expired before the use of the device became widespread, so he received no royalties. One company alone, Logitech, recently announced it had shipped its billionth mouse.
The first computer to come with a mouse, the Xerox 8010 Star, did not appear until 1981. In the same year the landmark IBM Personal Computer established the platform from which today's PCs are descended.
By then there had been a number of other milestones. In 1971 the first microprocessor, the Intel 4004, had appeared – it took them longer to come up with that annoying little jingle. In 1976 Apple was founded to sell a personal computer kit. The first Macintosh did not appear until 1984 and the first iMac was launched in 1998.
Meanwhile Bill Gates – who had been 12 when Engelbart staged his demonstration – founded Microsoft with Paul Allen in 1975 and Windows began to take over the world 10 years later.
While others were making history of their own – not to mention billions of dollars – Engelbart gradually faded into obscurity, possibly because he had not anticipated the scale and commercial potential of what he had created. But as the years passed digital historians acknowledged his pivotal role and earlier this month, at the age of 83, he was honoured at a Stanford University celebration to mark the 40th anniversary of his demo.
You wonder what the next 40 years will bring. Surely the mouse's long reign as the dominant point-and-click device must come to an end soon. The latest Apple laptops have trackpads with much greater functionality than before, so perhaps a similar device for desktops will replace the mouse.
Touch screens have already started to appear on computers such as the remarkable HP TouchSmart and it's a safe bet that in years to come their use will become widespread. The TouchSmart – available now in Dubai – comes with a mouse and keyboard but you can use your finger to move the cursor, type and carry out almost any other task.
Some analysts, on the other hand, believe the personal computer as we know it has had its day. They say PCs will be replaced by much simpler devices linked by the internet to servers that provide processing firepower and storage space, a set-up known as cloud computing.
Or perhaps there is another Douglas Engelbart out there putting the final touches to a package of advances that will turn the world of computing on its head.
Oh, and if you want to watch the mother of all demos you can, thanks to another innovation that exists because of the pioneering work of Engelbart and his team – it's on YouTube.
Other major events in 1968
- Martin Luther King assassinated
- Soviet Union invades Czechoslovakia to end Prague Spring reforms
- Richard Nixon elected US President
- American students demonstrate against Vietnam War
- Mexico City Olympics
- Crew of Apollo 8 become first humans to orbit the Moon
- The Beatles release The White Album
- Manchester United win European Cup
- Jackie Kennedy and Aristotle Onassis marry
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