Douglas Engelbart
Inventor of the computer mouse and pioneer of interactive computing
- Lived
- 88 yrs
- 1925 – 2013
- Works listed
- 2
- Report, Computer system
- Honours
- 3
- Most recent 2000
- Profile views
- 2
- 0 followers
Douglas Engelbart was an American engineer who invented the computer mouse and led the team behind NLS, a system that showed hypertext, windows, video conferencing and shared editing in 1968 — the event now called “The Mother of All Demos”. He received the Turing Award in 1997.
Biography
A vision
Engelbart grew up near Portland and served as a radar technician in the Philippines during the Second World War. Inspired by Vannevar Bush’s essay “As We May Think”, he decided to devote his career to using computers to augment human intelligence.
Augmenting human intellect
After a PhD at Berkeley he founded the Augmentation Research Center at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI). His 1962 report “Augmenting Human Intellect” set out his vision of people working with computers interactively.
The mouse and the Mother of All Demos
With engineer Bill English he built the first mouse, a wooden box with two wheels, in 1964. On 9 December 1968 he demonstrated NLS in San Francisco, showing the mouse, hypertext links, on-screen windows, real-time collaborative editing and video conferencing to about 1,000 people.
Recognition
Many of his team moved to Xerox PARC and shaped the personal computer. Recognition came late: the Lemelson–MIT Prize and the Turing Award in 1997 and the National Medal of Technology in 2000. He died in 2013.
Timeline
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1925
Born in Portland, Oregon, United States
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1962
Augmenting Human Intellect report
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1964
First mouse built with Bill English
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1968
The Mother of All Demos
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1969
SRI becomes the second node of ARPANET
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1997
Turing Award; Lemelson–MIT Prize
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2000
National Medal of Technology
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2013
Died, aged 88
Notable works
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1962
Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework Report
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1968
NLS (oN-Line System) Computer system
Awards and honours
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Lemelson–MIT Prize
1997
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Turing Award
1997
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National Medal of Technology
2000
Did you know?
-
1
He never earned royalties from the mouse — SRI held the patent, which expired before mice became common.
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2
The name “mouse” came from the cable that looked like a tail.
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3
His lab was one of the first two nodes on the ARPANET.
Connections
Related people
Frequently asked
Who is Douglas Engelbart?
Douglas Engelbart was an American engineer who invented the computer mouse and led the team behind NLS, a system that showed hypertext, windows, video conferencing and shared editing in 1968 — the event now called “The Mother of All Demos”. He received the Turing Award in 1997.
When did Douglas Engelbart die?
Douglas Engelbart died on 2 July 2013 at the age of 88.
Where is Douglas Engelbart from?
Douglas Engelbart was born in Portland, Oregon, United States.
What is Douglas Engelbart known for?
Douglas Engelbart is best known for Computer mouse; NLS; “The Mother of All Demos” (1968); Turing Award 1997.
What awards has Douglas Engelbart received?
Notable honours include Lemelson–MIT Prize (1997), Turing Award (1997), National Medal of Technology (2000).
References
- Douglas Engelbart — Wikipedia. Wikipedia. Retrieved 4 November 2026.
- Douglas Engelbart — Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved 4 November 2026.
- Douglas Engelbart — Hindi Wikipedia. Wikipedia (Hindi). Retrieved 4 November 2026.
- Official website. dougengelbart.org. Retrieved 4 November 2026.
- Douglas Engelbart (Q92614) — structured data. Wikidata. Retrieved 4 November 2026.
Includes material from the Wikipedia article “Douglas Engelbart”, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. That text is available under the same licence. Learn more
External links
About this profile
- Researched by the TrackFame editorial team; reviewed by Sanjay Sokal under our editorial policy
- First published 4 November 2026
- Last updated
Cite this page
“Douglas Engelbart.” TrackFame, last updated 5 November 2026. https://trackfame.com/person/douglas-engelbart
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