
Bill English has died - gjvc
https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-07-31/bill-english-dies-at-91
======
kbumsik
I was so surprised when I watched "The Mother of All Demos" from 50+ years ago
(1968) and saw what they predicted and actually implemented.

They demonstrated what's happening in 2020, video conferencing, real time
collaborative word processing, and etc. Truly amazing.

[1] [https://youtu.be/yJDv-zdhzMY](https://youtu.be/yJDv-zdhzMY)

[2]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_of_All_Demos](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_of_All_Demos)

~~~
cxr
> what they predicted

From Bret Victor's "A few words on Doug Engelbart"[1]:

> _Almost any time you interpret the past as "the present, but cruder", you
> end up missing the point. [...] If you attempt to make sense of Engelbart's
> design by drawing correspondences to our present-day systems, you will miss
> the point, because our present-day systems do not embody Engelbart's intent.
> [...] If you truly want to understand NLS, you have to forget today. Forget
> everything you think you know about computers. Forget that you think you
> know what a computer is. Go back to 1962. And then read his intent._[2]

1\. [http://worrydream.com/Engelbart/](http://worrydream.com/Engelbart/)

2\.
[http://www.dougengelbart.org/pubs/augment-3906.html](http://www.dougengelbart.org/pubs/augment-3906.html)

------
ftio
Whenever I see comments about Engelbart and co focusing on their invention of
the mouse, I'm reminded of a tribute[0] Bret Victor wrote about Engelbart
after his passing.

The NYTimes headline for Engelbart's obituary read "Douglas C. Engelbart,
Inventor of the Computer Mouse, Dies at 88". In response, Victor writes, "This
is as if you found the person who invented writing, and credited them for
inventing the pencil." That is to say: English, Engelbart, and the other folks
working on NLS had a much larger goal: augmenting human intellect. The mouse
(along with the chorded keyboard and other mechanisms for interaction) was one
component of that. An important one, but one nonetheless. It has been
transformative, yes. But perhaps the most important aspect of the legacy of
Bill English and his colleagues is not in what they built, in what they
shipped, but rather in what their goals were.

I highly recommend reading Bret Victor's piece (as well as his other
writings). There's also a really solid book on the era in which NLS was
created, the ups and downs of building (and funding) it, and its impact. It's
called _What the Dormouse Said_ [1] by John Markoff.

[0] [http://worrydream.com/#!/Engelbart](http://worrydream.com/#!/Engelbart)
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_the_Dormouse_Said](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_the_Dormouse_Said)

------
justin66
It's possible he'll stop in here and write something himself, so I hope
sharing this is not somehow presumptuous, but Alan Kay had a beautiful
remembrance of Bill English on quora:

[https://www.quora.com/How-important-was-William-English-
to-t...](https://www.quora.com/How-important-was-William-English-to-the-
evolution-of-the-personal-computer/answer/Alan-Kay-11)

------
peter303
Ironically, the talking computer HAL was introduced in the same year as
English's mouse. (Though the Star Trek oral computer beat this by a couple
years.) Of the various human-computer interfaces- keyboard, graphical, oral- I
suspect oral will dominate shortly. Oral is most natural, but required some
A.I. to work well.

~~~
skj
I think that oral control will only really take off once we can record it sub
vocally, in the style of "speaker for the dead" ("ender's game" sequel).

I like the flexibility, but I really really don't like people to hear what I'm
saying. Imagine three people in a room trying to do this. It'd be total
nonsense. Subvocal commands would be really nice, if that's a thing that is
actually possible.

Or maybe constant chattering from everyone around you becomes the new normal.
I can totally imagine old me (38 now) being completely overwhelmed by this
technology and all my grandkids wondering why I'm having such a hard time, and
rolling their eyes when I say I just want a mouse and keyboard, dammit!
Everything was simpler back then! I didn't have to listen to all this
yabbering all the time and I could just tell the dang computer what I want it
to dang darn do!

~~~
tushar-r
>I can totally imagine old me (38 now) > I just want a mouse and keyboard,
dammit!

About the same age, and I feel this way about mobile devices/touchscreens
already!

~~~
eecc
I’m pretty annoyed by the inscrutability of some new UIs, their total lack of
interactive cues and discoverability. It makes me feel old and most
importantly it reminds me that often if not always, it’s not the potential
utility that motivated my interest in applications, but a primal curiosity to
tinker. The reward comes fryom just fidgeting with the widget and nothing
more. Essentially a form of procrastination.

------
ChuckMcM
I knew Bill as the "I18N"[1] guy. SunOS 4.0 had this new feature that let you
type things in languages other than English and Bill was there solving a lot
of the weird problems that came up. That said, the systems folks "hated" all
the scut work of adding complicated layers of interfaces everywhere the system
printed a message.

I knew he had been at PARC but it wasn't until the Computer History Museum
Fellows dinner for Englebart that I found out his part in that demo.

[1] A quick way to write Internationalization which has 18 letters between I
and N.

~~~
simonebrunozzi
Same reason why Andreessen Horowitz is also "A16Z" \- not a lot of people know
this.

(and same reason why Mission and Market is "M14T" \- a small micro-vc fund
that I co-founded with two other friends - not a plug, as the fund is fully
closed (e.g. raised all the capital intended to raise) and is fully deployed,
and we don't need to market it anymore).

------
kanobo
They say it takes on average around 30 years for groundbreaking technology
like the mouse and touch interfaces to become mature and commonplace. It must
have been exciting for those who worked at places like PARC and SRI building
the future and slowly seeing the fruits of your labor as you age. RIP Bill
English.

------
cbsmith
Wow, he passed away several days ago. Totally missed this.

------
brian_herman
We should get a black bar for the co-inventor of the mouse.

~~~
rvz
Indeed, he should get a black bar in recognition for his contributions just
like other co-inventors did. [0]

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14549809](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14549809)

