4 ms·

Doing Windows, Part 7: Third Time’s the Charm

90 points by sanqui 8y ago

cm2187 8y ago
It’s interesting, I had not realized that Apple’s practice of bullying the competition with lawsuits dated from its early days.
- ansible 8y ago
  It wouldn't have characterized it as bullying. They were defending their IP which they had spent a lot of time and effort developing... though a lot of the concepts they themselves had taken from Xerox PARC. In retrospect, there was a ridiculously long gap between a GUI standard on the PC platform vs the rival platforms at the time. Part of that was the slow transition to 32-bit.
  - mamp 8y ago
    I believe Apple licensed tech from Xerox, but Xerox didn’t understand its worth. A bunch of ex-Xerox people later joined Apple (Larry Tesler, Alan Kay).
    - rahoulb 8y ago
      Plus if you look at old Smalltalk systems they are nothing like the GUI used in the Lisa or Macintosh. The concepts (mouse, bitmapped display, menus, object-orientation, networking) were Xerox's but the implementation (pull down menus, icons, drag and drop) were Apple's. (object-orientation and networking were two things Steve Jobs later said he wished he had taken to Apple, so instead made sure he used them in NeXT - hence Objective-C and the BSD layer in NeXTStep and now macOS)
      - slededit 8y ago
        It was certainly a lot less refined, and you couldn't just sit down in front of an Alto and get to work using today's knowledge. However they were very close, the original Lisa and Mac OSs were essentially polish on the broader theme. That doesn't diminish the fact they actually brought it to the masses - however their work was undeniably derivative.
        Aloha 8y ago
        I have actually sat down and used an Alto - it was not impossibly hard, if you'd used or touched some early XWindows stuff
- rodgerd 8y ago
  They went after HP, as well; at stake was whether anyone else in the world would be allowed to make a windowing GUI. I find it fascinating that so much of the nerd world can never let go of hating Microsoft, but Apple, who have a far worse track record, get a free pass.
  - digi_owl 8y ago
    The "nerd world" of today is nothing like what it was. Much of the "nerds" used to identify as geeks, to separate themselves from what is these days labeled as "neckbeards". the influx of media/design people via web dev, and them bringing with them their Apple "religion", has altered the landscape. Back when i first go interested in computers, never mind first got online, just about the only people owning a Mac were people deeply involved either with print media or music. The twofold change was that web design/development branched off from print media, and OSX bringing an off the shelf unix.
doppp 8y ago
Duplicate: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17680958 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17680958
- zhte415 8y ago
  That submission has no comments and less votes than this one. Reasonable dupe.
digi_owl 8y ago
The dawn of the wintel, perhaps?

90 points by sanqui 8y ago

It’s interesting, I had not realized that Apple’s practice of bullying the competition with lawsuits dated from its early days.

ansible 8y ago
It wouldn't have characterized it as bullying. They were defending their IP which they had spent a lot of time and effort developing... though a lot of the concepts they themselves had taken from Xerox PARC. In retrospect, there was a ridiculously long gap between a GUI standard on the PC platform vs the rival platforms at the time. Part of that was the slow transition to 32-bit.
- mamp 8y ago
  I believe Apple licensed tech from Xerox, but Xerox didn’t understand its worth. A bunch of ex-Xerox people later joined Apple (Larry Tesler, Alan Kay).
  - rahoulb 8y ago
    Plus if you look at old Smalltalk systems they are nothing like the GUI used in the Lisa or Macintosh. The concepts (mouse, bitmapped display, menus, object-orientation, networking) were Xerox's but the implementation (pull down menus, icons, drag and drop) were Apple's. (object-orientation and networking were two things Steve Jobs later said he wished he had taken to Apple, so instead made sure he used them in NeXT - hence Objective-C and the BSD layer in NeXTStep and now macOS)
    - slededit 8y ago
      It was certainly a lot less refined, and you couldn't just sit down in front of an Alto and get to work using today's knowledge. However they were very close, the original Lisa and Mac OSs were essentially polish on the broader theme. That doesn't diminish the fact they actually brought it to the masses - however their work was undeniably derivative.
      - Aloha 8y ago
        I have actually sat down and used an Alto - it was not impossibly hard, if you'd used or touched some early XWindows stuff
rodgerd 8y ago
They went after HP, as well; at stake was whether anyone else in the world would be allowed to make a windowing GUI. I find it fascinating that so much of the nerd world can never let go of hating Microsoft, but Apple, who have a far worse track record, get a free pass.
- digi_owl 8y ago
  The "nerd world" of today is nothing like what it was. Much of the "nerds" used to identify as geeks, to separate themselves from what is these days labeled as "neckbeards". the influx of media/design people via web dev, and them bringing with them their Apple "religion", has altered the landscape. Back when i first go interested in computers, never mind first got online, just about the only people owning a Mac were people deeply involved either with print media or music. The twofold change was that web design/development branched off from print media, and OSX bringing an off the shelf unix.

doppp 8y ago

Duplicate: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17680958 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17680958

zhte415 8y ago
That submission has no comments and less votes than this one. Reasonable dupe.

digi_owl 8y ago

The dawn of the wintel, perhaps?