I’ve solved the mystery. The mystery of the poster on the wall from the photo from 1970s.
I am studying the live and work of Douglas Engelbart. He is the closes to someone can call a personal hero or role model. He was great, and everyone should read about him.
Here is the photo of him using NLS terminal at SRI.
See that poster on the wall? That’s my mystery.
I thought, Engelbart would not put just anything on the wall of his office, it must be meaningful, it must be important.
But what it is? A blob and “ONE“ in caps? With small print at the bottom?
I’ve searched everywhere. Movie poster collections from 60s and 70s. Movie databases. I’ve created a sketch for Image search. No results.
Then, on the second watch of The Augmentation of Douglas Engelbart documentary I’ve spotted another shot.
Here it is in it full hi-res glory …
“FLOW SHOT ONE” Now we are cooking! Is there a tree?
Back to search. Image search, posters collection, movie databases. I even enlisted my spouse to helps. She is a beast of a researcher. No results!
In another interview or book, Stewart Brand mentioned that when he crossed the orbit of Engelbart and researchers in his group helped them out with The Mother of all Demos, he noticed that they have music playing in the office and funky posters on the walls, so he thought that those guys are not as square as the rest of the academia (do not quote me on that). I thought, why not ask the man himself.
The man himself had no idea.
Then I searched. I searched until my muscles burned and my veins pumped battery acid. Then I searched some more.
Until I decided to search library catalogs and immediately hit on something. An item in Hamilton College Library, of all places.
Title match.
Time period match.
One hunk of a poster sized sheet … match.
Plus, from another interview I knew that The Augmentation had some interactions with, as Bill English puts it, `the domes guy`.
The only thing left for me to do is to shoot an email to Hamilton College Library and ask them to send me a copy. But first I have put it aside for a year, because I need another unfinished project on my conscious.
Anyway, I sent that letter, got the poster back if a few hours. Here’s poster.
What have I learned? I don’t know. Maybe ask your spouse, and then, if that an option, seek an a librarian and ask when. They are the best, and they love to help.
Everything mentioned and some more:
NLS stands for oN-Line System, the system envisioned by Engelbart, and implemented by researchers at the Augmentation Research Center at SRI or Stanford Research Center. They demoed the system in 1968 in what become known as The Mother of All Demos.
The Augmentation of Douglas Engelbart on YouTube is worth watching twice.
The domes guy interview, looking back at it, I can see that Engelbart was zero recollection about domes guy, probably the poster was not all that meaningful for him.
“muscles burned and my veins pumped battery acid“ is of course paraphrase from Fight Club.
Short lived Twitter exchange with Stewart Brand.