childhood Doug's formative years.

What we need to convey: Where did he come from? Why did he turn out the way he did?

His innocence, curiosity, 'outsider' status and tendency to want to push/augment his abilities, as illustrated by his interest in doing tricks with his bikes.

Mood: The mood of this piece is probably one of curiosity, Fleur probing to learn more of the man behind the work. Lots of light hearted questions even though there were some negative issues when he grew up, such as poverty and no father.

Background: His rural childhood, the loss of his father, the support of his mother, his fascination playing with his Ford Model T (the start of the engineers brain) and his school years where he felt inadequate and isolated.

We learn about his early years in a farm in Oregon.

Interviewee's: ?

Visuals: Oh, family photographs, of which we need to re-scan, as the ones we got last time got lost with the laptop. Maybe some archival stuff?

Q:   What were your early years like?
A:   Living on a farm, geeky childhood, mother working hard, bikes, the Ford model T, loosing father.

Q:   How old were you when you lost your father? How did it affect you?
A:   I was about 14. I had no male role model.

Context: The transistor had just been invented and the world is slowly crawling out of the wreckage of the second world war. The sound barrier is broken by Chuck Yaeger. Polaroid cameras and holograms are invented. So is the microwave oven. We see the arrival of credit cards and the first human organ transplant takes place. But still no personal, interactive computing.

: Douglas Carl Engelbart was born on January 30, 1925.

His parents had worked at the shipyard in Washington, where they met.

After getting married, they moved to Portland.

Doug's father started a radio store. He was working hard, going to the shop every night. They didn't see very much of him. The depression hit and clobbered his business.

Doug's fathers health failed and his parents couldn't afford to keep up the rent payments.

They moved to the country, to a small farmstead. A real rural childhood.

Then in 1934 his father caught a cold. In a few days it got much worse. An ambulance came to pick him him up. Doug said 'so long dad'.

During the night sometime he died.

Doug was 9.

He had no male role model.

His mother brought him and his brother up which was hard during the depression but she worked hard and they were very close.

Doug didn't know how she did it.

Doug and his brother practiced tricks on bikes.

In 1938, when he was 13, he gets and old model T Ford.

He was very proud. He bought it with about 40 hours worth of labour. It didn't have working tires and it was not in the best condition. He worked over the next year to get it functioning.

People in the community whould help him with knowledge and they would lend him the right tools.

Doug went to high school in Oregon. Getting there was an adventure in itself. After walking for a mile they could take a bus. Or they could hitch hike. Sometimes one of the nieghbours would drive him, the only man in the village who had gone to college. But even then it was a mile walk on the other end. Of course, this was after waking up at 5:30 to milk their cow.

School was a bit of culture shock. He was too shy to get to know even the people with lockers next to him. He noticed that they were wearing fancy shoes. He only had one pair of shoes, working shoes. Complete with cow shit. It hadn't occured to him to clean his shoes. But he got good grades.

After graduating from high school in 1942, he went on to study Electrical Engineering at Oregon State University.