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55 years ago, the ‘Mother of All Demos’ foresaw modern computing
opb.org
Engelbart grew up on a small farm in Southeast Portland where his father operated a radio store.
He graduated from Franklin High School in 1942 and enrolled at Oregon State College, now called Oregon State University, to study electrical engineering.
When World War II interrupted his studies, he spent two years working as a Navy radio and radar technician in the Philippines.
In a 1986 oral history, Engelbart said the radar training was critical to his later work: “I knew about screens, and how you could use the electronics to shape symbols from any kind of information you had. If there was information that could otherwise go to a card punch or a computer printer, you could convert that to any kind of symbology you wanted on the screen. That just all came from the radar training.”