In this extra-ordinary demonstration, Douglas Engelbart reveals the NLS (oNLine System), a system for augmenting the effectiveness of the H-LAM/T in operating with complex information structures.
NLS allows the knowledge worker to manipulate chunks of text, and organize them into categories and hierarchies, or search through them using keywords. By using the system, the researcher develops a spatial sense of the information and has a visible representation that he can manipulate using a mouse (which also makes its premier appearance at this demonstration). With its affordances of association and retrieval, the NLS augments the trained memory of the knowledge worker.
As an illustrative example, Engelbart first demonstrates how NLS can be used to organize a shopping list.
Engelbart describes the team’s approach to “pursuing this monstrous goal (sic) . . . monstrously difficult . . . ” as “Bootstrapping: the specific experimental system (being built, tried, and evolved) is for the real-life use of the system-development team doing the exploration work.”
“Workers in an augmentation-research laboratory are the most natural people in the world to be the very first users of the augmentation means they develop, and we think that they represent an extremely important group of people to make more effective at their work.” (Engelbart [*])
- Engelbart starts working on his shopping list at about 0:08:30;
- He describes the goals and approach to the research starting at 0:24:10.