Douglas Engelbart passed away on July 3rd 2013.

Douglas Engelbart, who invented the first computer mouse and helped develop the PC user interface, passed away this July. Dr. Engelbart died at 88 at his home in Atherton, California. The New York Times obituary cited the cause of death as stated by his wife Karen was kidney failure.

Douglas Carl Engelbart was born in Portland, Oregon on Jan. 30^th, 1925. He spending his childhood years on a farm in Portland, graduated from high school in 1942 and then proceeded to attend Oregon State College. According to the New York Times, “towards the end of World War II, he was drafted. He spent two years in the Navy, one of them in the Philippines, as a radar technician.
One day he was in a reading library on a small island when an article titled “As We May Think” caught his eye. The article, by Vannevar Bush, a physicist and inventor who oversaw the United States Office of Scientific Research and Development during the war, described a universal information retrieval system called Memex. The idea stuck with Dr. Engelbart, and he made it his life’s work. “

Without question Engelbart was one of the most influential people in the development and power of the personal computer.

A.M.

 __________________________________

For More about Douglas Engelbart …

“Computer Visionary Who Invented the Mouse,” nytimes.com, July 3^rd 2013.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/technology/douglas-c-engelbart-inventor-of-the-computer-mouse-dies-at-88.html?pagewanted=all&_r=3&

"From the archives: Douglas Engelbart's lasting legacy, 1999," the Mercury News, July 3, 013.

http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_23592605/mouse-man-douglas-engelbart-early-ideas-computing?

” Remembering Douglas Engelbart,” Communications of the ACM, Vol. 56 No. 9, Pages 24-25

http://cacm.acm.org/news/167151-remembering-douglas-engelbart/abstract

-------------

 HCI International NEWS – September  2013 - Number 61