4 ms·

Your suspicions are (almost entirely) unfounded, except for 10, which is XDE, as knucklehead says). The software was real and worked, for some value of "worked

Your suspicions are (almost entirely) unfounded, except for 10, which is XDE, as knucklehead says). The software was real and worked, for some value of "worked." It was very slow, though. Dave Smith, who demo'ed it at NCC, said he had to be careful to only do things that worked. As for 02 and 08: that is a real table, which I also used for Records Processing, and was extremely slow. I talk about that extensively in Inventing the Future. There are many academic papers published about the software, including the graphics.

knuckleheadsmif 4y ago
It was also not slower than the Lisa which came out later. I remember going to a Lisa demo at UCLA and it was super well scripted as someone would click on the screen while talking about something and the 20 seconds later start talking about what they clicked on so that the computer and the demoed were in sync. It was a master class in deception about speed.
simondotau 4y ago
You can't say... > Your suspicions are (almost entirely) unfounded ...and then say... > The software was real and worked, for some value of "worked." What does "worked" mean? The screenshots imply a LOT of functionality. Can it take a two-dimension table of data and generate a stacked bar chart? Can the word processor interleave and flow a varying number of columns of text correctly? Are there any useful tools for doing any of these things within a graphical interface? I'm not saying that basic tools don't exist, but I've not seen any screenshots showing typeface options, layout options, etc. I haven't seen anything that confirms that these documents could be made visually rather than using a markup syntax. If the Star really can do all these things, it's deserving of some serious exposure in the form of documentary film. These polaroids really aren't doing it justice. > except for 10 And 05?

knuckleheadsmif 4y ago

It was also not slower than the Lisa which came out later. I remember going to a Lisa demo at UCLA and it was super well scripted as someone would click on the screen while talking about something and the 20 seconds later start talking about what they clicked on so that the computer and the demoed were in sync. It was a master class in deception about speed.

simondotau 4y ago

You can't say... > Your suspicions are (almost entirely) unfounded ...and then say... > The software was real and worked, for some value of "worked." What does "worked" mean? The screenshots imply a LOT of functionality. Can it take a two-dimension table of data and generate a stacked bar chart? Can the word processor interleave and flow a varying number of columns of text correctly? Are there any useful tools for doing any of these things within a graphical interface? I'm not saying that basic tools don't exist, but I've not seen any screenshots showing typeface options, layout options, etc. I haven't seen anything that confirms that these documents could be made visually rather than using a markup syntax. If the Star really can do all these things, it's deserving of some serious exposure in the form of documentary film. These polaroids really aren't doing it justice. > except for 10 And 05?