Tuesday, December 9 will mark forty years since Silicon Valley legend Doug Engelbart captivated a crowd at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) with a technology demonstration that was about as cutting edge as it gets.

“If you used a mouse to click to this article, you have Doug Engelbart to thank for it” is how I began an article covering the 30th anniversary. How true. But it wasn’t just the mouse. Engelbart’s 90-minute presentation back in 1968 is considered the first public demo of personal and interactive computing.

A video of the event shows Engelbart using a computer mouse (quite amazing when you consider most people didn’t see a mouse used as a navigation device till the debut of Apple’s Macintosh in 1984), and controlling a networked computer system to demonstrate hypertext linking, real-time text editing, multiple windows with flexible view control, and shared-screen teleconferencing.

The commemorative event at Stanford on December 9 costs $25 general admission or $10 for students. The agenda includes talks by some of the participants in the 1968 demo, including Engelbart and Alan Kay. Among his other accomplishments, Kay basically pioneered the concept of mobile computing with his idea of a ‘Dynabook.’

This should be one of the hotter tickets in Silicon Valley.

If there’s no such thing as bad — or in this case, inaccurate — publicity, Cisco must be very happy today. The company invited a handful of reporters to a ‘TelePresence’ briefing Friday with former basketball star Magic Johnson, CEO and founder of Magic Johnson Enterprises (MJE).

Monday, Computerworld, NetworkWorld and InternetNews.com all had stories on the event which was pretty cool indeed. I was at Cisco’s San Jose headquarters where three big screens connected me with Johnson in Los Angeles, reporters from the tech pubs as well as Sports Illustrated and ESPN in other cities.

The most extraordinary thing about TelePresence, a high end, dedicated video conferencing system costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, is how lifelike the image is. I grew up watching Magic Johnson battle my beloved Celtics, so it was no surprise he comes across as larger than life on a video screen, as I’m sure he does in person. But in the TelePresence meeting, it truly did seem as if all the participants were in the same room even though we were hundreds of miles away from each other. No jerky motions, delays in the audio or video or other problems I’ve seen with less sophisticated equipment; communication is as smooth as an in-person meeting.

A dual agenda

Well, Cisco had a dual-agenda in holding the meeting and its message got a bit lost along the way. One aspect was to publicize its TelePresence system, which is why this wasn’t simply a Web cast or conference call. The other was to tout Johnson and his MJE as a marquee small business customer of Cisco’s unified communications products.

Mission accomplished on that latter point, but the mixed message led to reports (since corrected) in Computerworld and NetworkWorld that said Johnson and MJE use TelePresence systems.

I should also note Cisco offers the TelePresence 500 system with 37-inch display, priced at $33,900, a fraction of the cost of the larger system I saw. But that’s not what MJE is using either, rather it’s using more basic desktop video conferencing with Webcams attached to desktop and notebook PCs.

So perhaps a more accurate message from the event is that Cisco’s fabulous TelePresence is still beyond the budget of most small businesses, but it’s a great way to tout cheaper alternatives.

Tuesday, Cisco CEO John Chambers will be in the Big Apple to announce a partnership with the New York Yankees. Details haven't been announced. The press invite says in part:

"Cisco Chairman and CEO John Chambers, along with a marquee sports franchise, will make a significant news announcement in New York City and discuss not only their partnership and a shared vision for addressing the next generation sporting fan experience, but Cisco will be announcing a game-changing technology advancement."

A confirmation email to those attending referred to it as the Cisco New York Yankees press event. The Yankees are slated to move into a new stadium in time for the 2009 season.

The networking giant is making deep investments and sales to professional sports teams to bring various connectivity products to ball parks and arenas including the NBA, National Hockey League and Major League Baseball.

In the case of baseball, Cisco already has a partnership with the Oakland Athletics, which has agreed to purchase 143 acres of land from Cisco in suburban Fremont, Calif. The new Cisco Field would be designed specifically for baseball and include Cisco's networking technology to help connect fans to instant replays, email and other features at their seats.

However, the A's are still dealing with environmental impact reports, the slowing economy and other issues that may delay its planned 2011 debut.