Douglas C. Engelbart. Study for the Development of Human Augmentation Techniques. Final Report under Contract NAS1-5904, SRI Project 5890 for NASA Langley Research Center, Stanford Research Institute, Menlo Park, Ca., July 1968.

VI CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

1 The activity of the project involves a large collection of innovations, implementations, experiments, and analyses.
    1A They are all highly interactive, and all in a state that is best described as "initial exploratory."

    1B We cannot give conclusive assessments of any of these, but we can give some relative evaluations on various aspects of the program.

2 "Bootstrapping," as a basic research strategy, is beginning to work, and will be much accelorated by the increased on-line service provided by the multiconsole facility.
    2A It seems to be paying off in terms of stimulation and orientation.

    2B When a person using the system meets a given problem and is also aware of other needs and possibilities arising for users, analyzers, specifiers, and implementers of the system, there is a much increaset integration, flexibility, refinement, and speed of innovation.

3 The structuring conventions for our working text are of significant value. Added conventions of this sort will be encouraged.

4 The off-line text-manipulation system has proven very valuable in our past and current operational environment, in cases where on-line time is limited.

    4A It seems very likely that such a system could be valuable in writing/publishing activities without having any associated on-line aids.

    4B We feel that it will be worth while to implement an off-line system for the new multiconsole system, even though we now have much more display-console availability than before.

5 Our on-line text-manipulation system has now developed to the point where it begins to be significant in the experiment of evaluating what on-line work can really do to augment human intellect.
    5A It will be necessary to use NLTS for hundreds of hours per user before a true perspective of its value will develop.

    5B Within that period, there is little doubt that tho system will evolve considerably further.

6 On-line aids require easy access to be effective.

7 The televised display system developed for our multiconsole system is economical and flexible. It has several important features:

    7A Console cost is very low, since the display is a mass-produced commercial unit (costing about $600).

    7B A black-on-white image is optionally possible. This is preferred by users over the usual bright-on-dark CRT display.

    7C Video signals from other sources can easily be superimposed on the computer-generated display, to display (for example) a picture of the computer room or of another person's face. The latter should be valuable for cooperative on-line work.

8 There is a very promising field of possibilities relative to new concepts, conventions, techniques, skills, methods, etc. to be developed for users of NLTS (and its descendants). 9 The one-hand keyset, as used within our on-line working environment, is definitely worth the trouble of mastering for those who will devote any appreciable amount of their professional time to working on-line.
    9A Extensions toward more keys and more sophisticated encoding are worth pursuing.
10 There will be a large tand complex) body of knowledge and skill to be mastered in order to capitalize effectively on the potential of real-time computer aids.
    10A Our experience verifies that an ever more sophisticated interactive language will evolve within our program.

    10B This complexity has grown more than was expected. We need to inaugurate a more formal approach to the indoctrination of new people to our conventions and techniques.

11 The features developed to date for our multiconsole system are quite promising, particularly the Control Metalanguage approach to specification, design, and documentation of the Control Language.

12 Our best future research strategy involves the development of a Bootstrap Community for coordinated activities aimed at the most payoff in terms of better augmentation of our own personnel, and better techniques for analysis, design, and implementation of augmentation systems.

13 The development of the Bootstrap Community must be coordinated with the capacity of our consoles, computer service, and file storage to support Community needs, and with our ability to integrate and coordinate people and activities.

 
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