Editing Augmentation Research Center

{{Short description|Computing research institute}}
{{Infobox company
| name              =  Augmentation Research Center
| logo              =  
| type      =  [[Private company|Private]]
| foundation        =  1960s
| founder           =  [[Douglas Engelbart]]
| location          =  
| area_served       =  
| key_people        =  
| industry          =  [[Computer software]]<br />[[Computer hardware]]
| products          =  
| services          =  
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| net_income        =  
| assets            =  
| equity            =  
| num_employees     =  
| parent            = [[SRI International]]
| subsid            =  
| homepage          =  
| intl              =  
}}
[[File:Augmentation_Research_Center_Wired_Article.jpg|thumb|Don Andrews, Bill English, and Doug Engelbart at SRI's Augmentation Research Center during a meeting with sponsors of the program]]
[[SRI International]]'s '''Augmentation Research Center''' ('''ARC''') was founded in the 1960s by electrical engineer [[Douglas Engelbart]] to develop and experiment with new tools and techniques for collaboration and [[Data processing|information processing]].

The main product to come out of ARC was the revolutionary oN-Line System, better known by its abbreviation, [[NLS (computer system)|NLS]]. ARC is also known for the invention of the "[[Mouse (computing)|computer mouse]]" pointing device, and its role in the early formation of the [[Internet]].

Engelbart recruited workers and ran the organization until the late 1970s when the project was commercialized and sold to [[Tymshare]], which was eventually purchased by [[McDonnell Douglas]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.enolagaia.com/UMUArchive/Engelbart.html|title=Historical Background to CSCW and Groupware: Engelbart's Vision of IT-Driven Organizational Integration|first=Randall|last=Whitaker|publisher=Enola Gaia|access-date=2012-02-24}}</ref>

==Beginnings==
Some early ideas by [[Douglas Engelbart]] were developed in 1959 funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (now [[Rome Laboratory]]).<ref name="work86">{{cite book |date= June 1986 |publisher= ACM |pages= 73–83|location= Palo Alto, California |author= Douglas C. Englebart |title= Proceedings of the ACM Conference on the history of personal workstations |chapter= The augmented knowledge workshop |isbn= 0-89791-176-8 |doi= 10.1145/12178.12184 |chapter-url= http://www.dougengelbart.org/pubs/augment-101931.html |access-date= April 20, 2011 |doi-access= free }}</ref> They focused on methods of improving human intellectual capacity through the use of computers, specifically using interactivity. Ideas proposed center on aligning computer interfaces with the human brain by using displays and "other transducers".<ref name=":0">Engelbart,     D. C. (1958-1986). Journals. Engelbart (Douglas C.) papers (M0638), Green     Library Special Collections (Box 1A), Stanford, CA, United States</ref> Further refinement of these ideas led to a March 10, 1960 essay ''Man-Machine Intelligent-Team Research'' where Engelbart breaks human cognition into "Activity Units", with an information-handling and materials-handling facility. He envisions information and material/objects freely flowing in and out, with a constant exchange of information between facilities. Engelbart takes this idea of "Activity Units" and made an expended functional model for implementation into a computer, looping into his cognition theory processors, displays, storage, and other discrete components.<ref name=":1">Engelbart,     D. C. (1960-1974). Misc. Memoranda, Notes, Reports. Engelbart (Douglas C.)     papers (M0638), Green Library Special Collections (Box 40, Folder 4),     Stanford, CA, United States</ref> By October, 1962, a finalized framework document titled ''Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework'' was published which fully defined his theories dating back to a 1959 collection of notes.<ref>{{cite web |title= Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework |author= Douglas C. Engelbart |date= October 1962 |work= SRI Summary Report AFOSR-3223; SRI Project No. 3578 |url= http://www.dougengelbart.org/pubs/augment-3906.html |access-date= April 20, 2011 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110504035147/http://www.dougengelbart.org/pubs/augment-3906.html |archive-date= 2011-05-04 |url-status= dead }}</ref><ref name=":0" />

[[J. C. R. Licklider]], the first director of the [[United States Department of Defense]]'s [[DARPA|Advanced Research Project Agency]] (DARPA) [[Information Processing Techniques Office]] (IPTO), funded the project in early 1963. First experiments were done trying to connect a display at SRI to the massive one-of-a-kind [[AN/FSQ-32]] computer at the [[System Development Corporation]] in [[Santa Monica, California]].<ref name="work86"/>

==NASA funding==
[[NASA]] began to provide major funding at the behest of [[Robert Taylor (computer scientist)|Robert Taylor]] in 1964. A custom graphical workstation was built around a commercial computer, the [[CDC 160A]], and a [[CDC 3000|CDC 3100]], which handled a single user at a time. In 1965, Taylor became IPTO director, leading to increased funding. In 1968 an [[SDS 940]] computer running the [[Berkeley Timesharing System]] allowed multiple users as part of the [[NLS (computer system)|oN-Line System (NLS)]].

The project was first called ARNAS after the sponsors. For a few years it was then called the Augmented Human Intellect Research Center, which got shortened to the Augmentation Research Center around 1969.<ref name="sul">{{cite web |title= Douglas Engelbart |work= Stanford and the Silicon Valley Oral History Interviews |publisher= [[Stanford University]] |author= Interview conducted by Judy Adams and Henry Low |date= December 19, 1986 – April 1, 1987 |url= http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/hasrg/histsci/ssvoral/engelbart/start1.html |access-date= April 19, 2011 | archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110420212855/http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/hasrg/histsci/ssvoral/engelbart/start1.html| archive-date= 20 April 2011 | url-status= live}}</ref>

==The Mother of All Demos==
During a 90-minute session at the [[Fall Joint Computer Conference]] in December 1968, Engelbart, [[Bill English (computer engineer)|
Bill English]], [[Jeff Rulifson]] and other ARC staffers presented their work with the NLS in a live demonstration, including real-time video conferencing, windowed task management, and interactive editing in an era when [[batch processing]] was still the paradigm for using computers. This was later called "[[the Mother of All Demos]]".

==Further NLS Development==
ARC continued the development the NLS after its appearance at the 1968 Fall Joint Computer Conference, largely in support of existing NASA and ARPA contracts.<ref name=":1" /> This includes a 1969 study for the Rome Air Development Center on using NLS-derived technologies for improved management efficiency<ref>Engelbart,     Douglas; English, William; Evans, David (1969). ''Study for the     Development of Computer Augmented Management Techniques.'' Stanford     Research Institute.</ref> and a more general 1972 report for NASA detailing overall research progress.<ref>Engelbart,     D. C. (1972, February 6). Advanced intellect-augmentation techniques.     Nasa.gov; NASA. <nowiki>https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19720011592</nowiki></ref> The NLS would continue development until its eventual spinoff to Tymshare.<ref name="oral" />

==Reference library service==
Engelbart had volunteered ARC to provide the first reference library service on the [[ARPANET]] while it was being designed. The first message sent on ARPANET was between the ARC computer and [[UCLA]]. [[Lawrence Roberts (scientist)|Larry Roberts]] continued to fund the ARC through DARPA IPTO until he left in 1974. The library service evolved into the [[Internic|Internet Network Information Center]] managed by [[Elizabeth J. Feinler]]. [[Bertram Raphael]] was put in charge of the project in 1976.

==Sale to Tymshare==
The technology was sold to [[Tymshare]] in 1977, with 20 members of the former SRI group (including Engelbart) becoming Tymshare employees.<ref name="sul"/> Only about three or four people were left to continue the NIC, although this group grew quickly along with the [[Internet]]. [[Jon Postel]] left in 1977 to join the [[Information Sciences Institute]].<ref name="oral">{{cite web|title=Oral History of Elizabeth (Jake) Feinler |author=Interviewed by Marc Weber |date=September 10, 2009 |work=Reference no: X5378.2009 |publisher=[[Computer History Museum]] |url=http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/Oral_History/102702199.05.01.acc.pdf |access-date=April 20, 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110811175249/http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/Oral_History/102702199.05.01.acc.pdf |archive-date=August 11, 2011 }}</ref> A number of early participants moved on to careers at [[Xerox]], [[Hewlett-Packard]], [[Apple Computer]], [[Sun Microsystems]], and other leading computer companies.

Tymshare renamed the software ''Augment'' and offered it as a commercial service via its new Office Automation Division. At Tymshare, Engelbart soon found himself marginalized and relegated to obscurity. Operational concerns at Tymshare overrode Engelbart's desire to do further research. Various executives, first at Tymshare and later at [[McDonnell Douglas]], which acquired Tymshare in 1984, expressed interest in his ideas, but never committed the funds or the people to further develop them. His interest inside of McDonnell Douglas was focused on the enormous knowledge management and IT requirements involved in the life cycle of an aerospace program, which served to strengthen Engelbart's resolve to motivate the information technology arena toward global interoperability and an open hyperdocument system.<ref>{{Cite web | url=http://dougengelbart.org/about/ohs.html | title=About OHS - Doug Engelbart Institute}}</ref> Engelbart retired from McDonnell Douglas in 1986, determined to pursue his work free from commercial pressure.

==Books about ARC==
The complex story of the rise and fall of ARC has been documented in a book by sociologist [[Thierry Bardini]].<ref>{{Cite book |title= Bootstrapping: Douglas Engelbart, Coevolution, and the Origins of Personal Computing |author= Thierry Bardini |author-link= Thierry Bardini |year=2000 |publisher=Stanford University Press |isbn=0-8047-3723-1 |url= https://archive.org/details/bootstrapping00thie |url-access= registration }}</ref> From the perspective of the [[Counterculture of the 1960s|1960s counter-culture revolution]], [[John Markoff]], in his book ''[[What the Dormouse Said]]'', also follows Englebart's persistence in creating ARC as not only a collection of talented off-beat engineers working in direct contrast to the [[Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory]] nearby, but also as a sociological experiment that constructed and tested methods for group creation and design.<ref>{{Cite book |title= What the Dormouse Said |author= John Markoff |author-link= John Markoff |publisher= Penguin |year= 2006 |isbn= 978-0-14-303676-0}}</ref>

ARC was also indirectly covered in many other books about [[PARC (company)|Xerox PARC]], since that is where many ARC employees later fled to (and brought some of Engelbart's ideas with them). Taylor had founded the Computer Systems Laboratory at PARC in 1970.

==See also==

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==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
* {{cite journal |title= Special Considerations of the Individual as a User, Generator, and Retriever of Information |author= D. C. Engelbart |journal= American Documentation |date= October 23–27, 1960 |location= Berkeley, California |volume= 12 |number= 2 |pages= 121–125 |doi= 10.1002/asi.5090120207 }}
* {{cite journal |title= The Network Information Center and its Archives |journal= Annals of the History of Computing |publisher= IEEE |author= Elizabeth J. Feinler |author-link= Elizabeth J. Feinler |date= July–September 2010 |volume= 32 |issue=3 |pages= 83–89 |doi= 10.1109/MAHC.2010.54 |s2cid= 206443021 }}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20010221195549/http://homepages.together.net/~jcnorton/welcome.htm Jim Norton, Assistant Director, 1969–1977], SRI International, Augmentation Research Center, Menlo Park, CA

[[Category:History of the Internet]]
[[Category:History of human–computer interaction]]
[[Category:Information science]]
[[Category:SRI International]]
[[Category:ARPANET]]