“I had the privilege of spending nearly a week in Engelbart’s lab, and stole many great NLS ideas for FRESS” that always seemed to lead back to Bush.

before fress was 'hes' (hypertext editing system, 1967,'68) dam working together with ted nelson and then went on with his students to build "the first hypertext system on commercial hardware, in 1969" (fress)

anyhow. one important part of this new kind of interacting also was achieved by "interdisciplinary centers for material research", 12 very big programs sponsored by arpa, charles herzfeld recalls. it changed teaching at universities as it made hardware cheaper and effortable.

herzfeld_labs (foo/bar, 346 KB)

materials research laboratories: reviewing the first twentyfive years: material labs (application/pdf, 329 KB)

darpa programm 2005 also includes some equal programs, trying to "get titanium down to the cost of aluminum"; anthony tether at a hearing before the committee on science house of representatives, may, 2005.

herzfeld_metallurgy (foo/bar, 276 KB) : "nobody cares enough to kill it, so it will probably happen."

anthony j. tether is nowadays the director of darpa, charles herzfeld was it between 1965 and 1967 (even he worked there earlier on). i am not sure if they still don't cover representation costs, but as herzfeld tells - even there is more to it - one reason he left, even he liked it though, was simply a financial one ...

herzfeld_arpa (foo/bar, 798 KB)

thx for having that one. material research is one of the least publicly visible and one of the most underestimated research 'n' engineering things on the planet. I used to repeat that old joke about it that spaceflight was only a spinoff from frying pan coatiing research. But there's a lot more than teflon and verrry many things wouldn't happen without those geeky new ceramics or compound metals f.e.