4 ms·

There’s a story (Prometheus myth) that Steve Jobs and the Mac team copied the human graphical interface idea from Xerox. A fascinating read about it here: htt

There’s a story (Prometheus myth) that Steve Jobs and the Mac team copied the human graphical interface idea from Xerox. A fascinating read about it here: https://web.stanford.edu/dept/SUL/sites/mac/parc.html https://web.stanford.edu/dept/SUL/sites/mac/parc.html

taneq 7y ago
Well, there's always that quote from Bill Gates when Jobs accused MS of stealing Apple's GUI design: “Well, Steve [Jobs]… I think it’s more like we both had this rich neighbour named Xerox and I broke into his house to steal the TV set and found out that you had already stolen it.” - Bill Gates Source: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/824084-well-steve-jobs-i-think-it-s-more-like-we-both https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/824084-well-steve-jobs-i-th...
- kalleboo 7y ago
  I always found it weird that Gates characterized it as Apple "stealing" the TV set. Xerox gave the TV set away! They had made a pre-IPO investment in Apple and in exchange the executives were happy to show Apple what they were working on (to the dismay of the actual researchers)
jplayer01 7y ago
So the reality is that they copied it, it just didn't happen in some magical visit to wonderland.
nolok 7y ago
Not a story it's a fact of history. Xerox PARC is the lab where Xerox invented several parts of what defined computers up to today (the window oriented gui with mouse, the laser printer, ethernet,...They're even credited for invented the wysiwyg text editor, so basically Word), inventions that were then completely ignored by Xerox while the other companies around jumped on them. Bill Gates is much more open about how the Microsoft and Apple gui was copied / stolen from Xerox, but then again he and Microsoft never had the "we are the first / we invented it" thing that is so important to Apple mythos. Reading about Xerox parc is super weird though because it feels like the place was handled the way you expect a publicly funded place to be, being so open to share their finding with competitors and all. Truly a golden era, today those are much more closed, even places like MS Research.

taneq 7y ago

Well, there's always that quote from Bill Gates when Jobs accused MS of stealing Apple's GUI design: “Well, Steve [Jobs]… I think it’s more like we both had this rich neighbour named Xerox and I broke into his house to steal the TV set and found out that you had already stolen it.” - Bill Gates Source: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/824084-well-steve-jobs-i-think-it-s-more-like-we-both https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/824084-well-steve-jobs-i-th...

kalleboo 7y ago
I always found it weird that Gates characterized it as Apple "stealing" the TV set. Xerox gave the TV set away! They had made a pre-IPO investment in Apple and in exchange the executives were happy to show Apple what they were working on (to the dismay of the actual researchers)

jplayer01 7y ago

So the reality is that they copied it, it just didn't happen in some magical visit to wonderland.

nolok 7y ago

Not a story it's a fact of history. Xerox PARC is the lab where Xerox invented several parts of what defined computers up to today (the window oriented gui with mouse, the laser printer, ethernet,...They're even credited for invented the wysiwyg text editor, so basically Word), inventions that were then completely ignored by Xerox while the other companies around jumped on them. Bill Gates is much more open about how the Microsoft and Apple gui was copied / stolen from Xerox, but then again he and Microsoft never had the "we are the first / we invented it" thing that is so important to Apple mythos. Reading about Xerox parc is super weird though because it feels like the place was handled the way you expect a publicly funded place to be, being so open to share their finding with competitors and all. Truly a golden era, today those are much more closed, even places like MS Research.