Today is February 4th, Chris Petersen: Okay, today I would like to begin with a couple of topics of current interest, and the first one is Doug Engelbart. You went to a memorial for him last week, and he died last year.
Can you share any memories of Doug that you have? JB: Well Doug, the first memory was, I gave a talk down in San Francisco, and Doug was in the audience; in fact he was in the first row. And his attention to what I was saying was notable. I don't know what I was talking about, but anyway, Doug was in on it. And as we got to know Doug, we gave him an honorary degree. And the thing I remember is we used to do a little reception in the President's House before the commencement, for the people we were honoring, and their local host.
And that was the case with Doug. And it turned out that the host had, for one reason or another, not set up a dinner for Doug and his wife the evening before the commencement. So, you know, I thought, that's not really appropriate.
We need to take care of that. I called the restaurant owner at the Gables, and they said, "Oh yeah, we'll take care of you. So we sat down with Doug and his wife Ballard, and the thing I remember was, in the course of the conversation, Doug said something to the effect that as he was getting older, his memory was getting worse and worse.
His wife chimed in. She said, "Doug, you don't remember how bad your memory used to be. We got to know the family pretty well. And if I had to use one word to describe Doug Engelbart, the inventor of the computer mouse, hypertext, a whole bunch of other things, I would say it was humility.
