[ih] ARC's NLS (was: Re: FTP Design)

[John Day]

Snip

>>No, but Englebart was pushing the limits of what could be done with the
>>current hardware.  If you talked to him at the time, they definitely
>>believed it would be over multiple machines.  That was the intent.  But
>>it took 20 years for the hardware to catch up.
>
>I was describing the behavior, not the intent.  I've no doubt they 
>would have enhanced the syntax over time.  I don't think that 
>hardware limits had anything to do with it.  At base, ARC was not a 
>networking (distributed processing) project, in spite of the fact 
>that the SRI guys were heavily involved in the networking work. 
>Still from my recollections of their work, I believe the incremental 
>processing for going cross-net to access documents wouldn't have 
>been all that onerous.  Rather, the project wound down about the 
>time I'd have expected that enhancement to be pursued.

I wouldn't be too sure about this.  The conversations I remember it 
was part and parcel of their thinking.  No cross-net access to 
document wouldn't have been hard, but I don't remember anyone wanting 
to run the core NLS system but them.

>
>>Remember NLS screens were TV camera shots of 4 or 6 inch higher
>>resolution screens in the machine room.
>
>Initially, yes.  But they eventually supported remote IMLAC graphics 
>stations across the net.  Somewhere around '73 or '74 I was a beta 
>tester for it, down in L.A.  It's when I first learning how 
>challenging a mouse-tracking algorithm can be in a noisy 
>environment...  (It's also the only time I needed to write a 
>machine-boot program.)

Yes, we had one of the IMLACs as well.  In fact, a friend of mine 
still has it and the mouse that went with it.  But that was for using 
NLS over the Net and as far as I know the IMLACs were never used as 
the primary access at SRI.

Take care,
John