The Mother of All Demos is a name given to Douglas Engelbart's December 9, 1968, demonstration of experimental computer technologies that are now commonplace. The live demonstration featured the introduction of the computer mouse, video conferencing, teleconferencing, hypertext, word processing, hypermedia, object addressing and dynamic file linking, bootstrapping, and a collaborative real-time editor.
Engelbart, with the help of his geographically distributed team, demonstrated the workings of the NLS ("oN Line System") to the 1,000 computer professionals in attendance. The project was the result of work done at the Stanford Research Institute's Augmentation Research Center, and the session was presented under the title A research center for augmenting human intellect as part of the Fall Joint Computer Conference at the Convention Center in San Francisco. Bill English is listed as the co-author of the conference paper of the same name and is acknowledged as one of the principal engineers responsible for NLS and the demo.
The term "Mother of All Demos" references "The Mother of All Battles," a name used by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to describe the 1991 Gulf War; the term "the mother of all" subsequently became a widely used stock phrase or snowclone. The first known usage of the phrase was in journalist Steven Levy's 1994 book, Insanely Great: The Life and Times of Macintosh, the Computer That Changed Everything :
"... a calming voice from Mission Control as the truly final frontier whizzed before their eyes. It was the mother of all demos. Engelbart's support staff was as elaborate as one would find at a modern Grateful Dead concert. ..." - Insanely Great, page 42
Subsequently, Andries van Dam repeated the phrase in a speech at the 1998 Engelbart's Unfinished Revolution Conference (opening of Session 3), and the phrase was also cited in John Markoff's 2005 book What the Dormouse Said.