2006-03-18
Augment
If you think that we've made great progress in computer systems over the last ten years, take a look at Brad Neuberg's screencast of the Augment system developed in the 60's.
Augment is the first system developed with groupware, email, outlining and interaction with the computer. Many of the 'new' features we see today are evident in the Augment system. It must be a gold mine of prior art for some patent cases!
Mentioned in the screen cast (but not demonstrated) is audio visual conferencing, embedded graphics in documents, 'applet' style programs running within documents, etc.
The documents themselves are all outline based and reminded me a lot of the Userland's outlining facilities. Only developed 30 years ago of course.
Demonstrated are using the outliner, displaying documents, conferencing, and email. Very cool.
Keep an eye on the hyperscope project which is attempting to bring some of this to the web.
