NLS (computer system)

[1] As a short-term measure, the team developed a system that allowed off-line users—that is, anyone not sitting at the one available terminal—to edit their documents by punching a string of commands onto paper tape with a Flexowriter.

[1] It had an approximately 96 MB storage disk and could support up to 16 workstations, each comprising a raster-scan monitor, a three-button mouse, and an input device known as a chord keyset.

The input text was then sent to a 5-inch (127 mm) cathode-ray tube (CRT), enclosed by a special cover, and a superimposed video image was received by a professional-quality black-and-white TV camera.

NLS was demonstrated by Engelbart on December 9, 1968, to a large audience at the Fall Joint Computer Conference in San Francisco.

This has since been dubbed "The Mother of All Demos", as it not only demonstrated the groundbreaking features of NLS, but also involved the assembly of some remarkable state-of-the-art video technologies.

Engelbart's onstage terminal keyboard and mouse were linked by a homemade modem at 2400 baud through a leased line that connected to ARC's SDS 940 computer in Menlo Park, 30 miles southeast of San Francisco.

[6] One of the most revolutionary features of NLS, "the Journal", was developed in 1970 by Australian computer engineer David A. Evans as part of his doctoral thesis.

[a] The Journal was a primitive hypertext-based groupware program, which can be seen as a predecessor (if not the direct ancestor) of all contemporary server software that supports collaborative document creation (like wikis).

[9] Most Journal documents have been preserved in paper form and are stored in Stanford University's archives; these provide a valuable record of the evolution of the ARC community from 1970 until the advent of commercialization in 1976.

[11] By mid-1971, the TENEX implementation of NLS was put into service as the new Network Information Center, but even this computer could handle only a small number of simultaneous users.

[9] Access was possible from either custom-built display workstations, or simple typewriter-like terminals which were less expensive and more common at the time.

The chord keyset, which complemented the modal nature of NLS, forced the user to learn a 5-bit binary code if they did not want to use the keyboard.