The Mother of All Demos was a presentation done by Douglas Engelbart and his team at the Stanford Research Institute on 1968. Other innovations that Engelbart demoed all in this single presentation include the computer mouse, graphical user interfaces (GUI), hypertext linking (which we now know as our standard hyperlink), real-time collaborative editing, video conferencing and advanced word processor-like tools. These made the computer a real tool rather than just being a calculator, that allowed new ways of thinking, and collaborating.

The demo was important because it introduced the crucial technologies that would later serve as building blocks for contemporary personal computing and the internet. The mouse and GUI made computers easier to use, leading to subsequent projects at Xerox PARC and future initiatives at Apple and Microsoft. That prototype was the first hypertext system, a forerunner of the World Wide Web and dynamic linking. As a result, we saw the potential for inter-networked systems – capabilities such as real-time collaborative editing and video conferencing that were showcased during the demo are now standard protocol in today’s pantheon of remote work tools and online collaboration platforms.

Engelbart’s ideas are credited with foreshadowing the rise of personal computing and his 90-minute demonstration became a tech world legend. It not only demonstrated a kind of such technical achievement at the time, but Kapor went to better legitimized the idea of Human enhancement through computers. The concepts they developed had since taken root around the globe and are standard operating procedure both in how we use computers, as well as each other. That impulse paved the way for a crucial event in The History of Computing, it was the spark that ignited an explosion responsible for Wright Brothers —>Astroplanes.