Trailblazers

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The Trailblazers Collection includes source material related to computing pioneers who made intellectual and technical contributions to the development of the information services and interfaces that we have today.

MIT/Brown Vannevar Bush Symposium

The Trailblazers Collection a complete authorized set of video tapes of the MIT/Brown Vannevar Bush Symposium held at MIT in 1995. Hopper discovered that the MIT Networked Multimedia Information Services project she was working on had been a partner for the event, and it was the funding source for broadcasting it over the Mbone. At that point in time videos of the event were not posted online. The New Media Archive includes correspondence between Hopper and Michael L. Dertouzos at MIT about permission to obtain a full set of the videos for review in an attempt to get permission to publish them and use them for academic purposes. There is also correspondence with Rosemary Simpson at Brown University about obtaining permission. It was not granted, but most of the videos were eventually published by the Doug Engelbart Institute. However, some videos in the New Media Museum’s collection are not included there.

Symposium Celebrates Vannevar Bush vision (October 4, 1995)
MIT/Brown Vannevar Bush Symposium (Doug Engelbart Institute)

Hypertext in Historical Context

Some of the material in this collection was also acquired during preparation for a presentation that Mary Hopper and Mark Bernstein gave at the MIT Communications Forum that featured clips from the MIT/Brown Vannevar Bush Symposium tapes. The transcript of that event is available online.
Hypertext in historical context: Vannevar Bush and Ted Nelson revisited (Mary Hopper & Mark Bernstein, MIT Communications Forum/Media in Transition, October 1, 1998)

Engelbart

Douglas Engelbart Presentation, Video, MIT 1995

Englebart's Unfinished Revolution, 4 Videos

The New Media Museum holds extensive resources related to Douglas Engelbart and his work. Highlights of the collection include a large poster of an image from his “Mother of all demos” and a complete set of videotapes of the event Engelbart’s Unfinished Revolution (Doug Engelbart Institute).

Nelson

As We Will think by Theodor H. Nelson (reprint 1972)

Literary Machines by Theodor Holm Nelson

The New Media Museum holds extensive resources related to Ted Nelson and his work. Highlights of the collection include email correspondence between Nelson and Hopper (including an email from the future sent at the dawn of the 21st century), a signed copy of Literary Machines and a video of the movie Son of Kong 🙂