 |
 |
History of the gui http://www.webmasterbase.com/article/511 but doesn't get going until http://www.webmasterbase.com/article/511/29 Gives good coverage - from Vannevar Bush & Engelbart up to the present day, including the "infamous" trip to Xerox by Steve and his crew. My first GUI was that of a Research Machines pc - I programmed Noughts&Crosses in basic. In fact, that was my first program. I've often had the fancy that poems have the features of an interface. My attempts at self-publishing have been more costly than I'd care to admit. Usually too ambitious with too few tools. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Lawrence Upton" <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Friday, August 24, 2001 21:03 Subject: Re: Self-publication -- a costing. > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Robin Hamilton" <[log in to unmask]> > To: <[log in to unmask]> > Sent: 24 August 2001 18:06 > Subject: Re: Self-publication -- a costing. > > | Hm ... Think both Jobs and Gates ripped this. Who "invented" the iconic > | environment? > > It was developed at XeroxPARC and like many things developed there not > greatly developed after going further than anyone else - it seems they did > the same with genuine networks years before anyone else, developed the idea, > prototyped it, ran it, dropped it > > I bet the iconic idea could be traced back into prehistory; but I think > Xerox were the first to demonstrate the electro-mechanical nous to actually > produce one... 20 + years ago > > I once (89 - 92 or 3) had extended use of a Xerox Documenter of unknown age > which is one of the most wonderful machines I have ever used, a dedicated > machine, producing high quality camera ready prints. I was told that it > would take weeks to learn but managed to pick it up in a few hours, not out > of cleverness but because it was so like the basic Mac - this was in an > otherwise PC environment and I was the only one who had used a Mac > > It was way beyond the PC and the laser printer / photocopier produced copies > better than anything I have ever seen - It was eventually thrown on a skip > by a Director of I.T. who bought WordPerfect over WfW because he was told > that WP was the best wordprocessor in the world by ...er... WordPerfect > > But that's what happens when you promote salespersons on the basis of their > patter > > The only thing bad about it - the Documenter - was its slowness. It took a > long long time to boot and fully load; and it seemed to me that the files > were more or less serial so that one character change required the whole > thing to be rebuilt, & very slowly. Apple always says that it did its own > coding to achieve the effect it had seen at PARC but time efficiently - and > it was object oriented from the start I think - and my little experience > would bear that out. The first and many versions of Windows were always > hamstrung because of the hardware and software they were running on > > It was the iconic concept coming from PARC that holed the "look and feel" > suits > > since which there have been endless interviews in which one or other of the > many involved in the many teams says "Ah yes but we invented fluffy menus" > etc > > One of the big guys, Wozniak perhaps, said he always thought graphics should > be part of it; but the fact is that Xerox did it first > > I think with Apple it was the design qualities which attracted them to the > desktop environment and with MS it was the money-making (I'm thinking of the > apparently true stories of Gates & Co persuading the makers of Altair that > they had a BASIC for the machine before writing a line of code and buying > someone else's code to be the first version of DOS - the apple people talk > of always wanting to do it better, more elegantly. I think it's Wozniak who > said if he could build a board with 200 chips that just made him want to > make one with 100 chips... I never get that kind of feeling out of Gates. I > think with him it's the one upmanship that gives him the buzz and the love > of machines is a consequence of that warp > > L >