3 ms·

> nobody did anything interesting commercially Except the Xerox Star, which was "interesting" enough to attract spillover crowds to the Xerox booth at the May

> nobody did anything interesting commercially Except the Xerox Star, which was "interesting" enough to attract spillover crowds to the Xerox booth at the May 1981 NCC. Including Jobs himself. If you mean "users didn't buy it" you're certainly correct. > He's referring to the GUI concepts as implemented in it (and exhibited in those programs), GUI concepts: if you mean mouse manipulation, you're right. However, the Lisa had a unified interface that enforced some choices, while the Alto let every developer make his or her own choices. Also, as far as I remember, dropdown menu bars across the top weren't prominent on the Alto.

coldtea 3y ago
>Except the Xerox Star, which was "interesting" enough to attract spillover crowds to the Xerox booth at the May 1981 NCC. Including Jobs himself. Yeah, I mean except Xerox. The context here is you saying that "Jobs came to PARC in December 1978. 4 years later was an eternity" and I take it you implied with this that Xerox didn't influence the Mac/Lisa. So, my point is that not a lot of developments happened between that and 1983 in the commercial space for it to actually be "like an eternity". Star did happen which is also Xerox, but the "let's copy this" spark was already lit in Jobs from 1978 (and Lisa itself started being designed after that time). >GUI concepts: if you mean mouse manipulation, you're right. However, the Lisa had a unified interface that enforced some choices, while the Alto let every developer make his or her own choices. Also, as far as I remember, dropdown menu bars across the top weren't prominent on the Alto. Mouse manipulation, but also a hodgepodge of GUI ideas from the programs he saw demoed (and later on Star). E.g. Alto had Bravo with WYSIWYG, scrollbars, etc. TFA was like: (a) People say Apple copied Xerox GUI ideas because Jobs saw Smalltalk-80 demo (b) But the Mac GUI is quite didfferent than Smalltalk-80, so this is wrong And basically I'm pointing out that people don't just say it based on Smalltalk-80, but also Alto stuff Jobs saw in that visit, and Star stuff which came out before the Mac. Love the Future book by the way!
- AlbertCory 3y ago
  I said 1978 but should have said 1979. Anyhow, using a mouse to manipulate objects on a bitmapped screen was the influence. There were many ways to do that. Not everyone in the computer industry bought into that. It seemed like a waste of the computer to them.

coldtea 3y ago

>Except the Xerox Star, which was "interesting" enough to attract spillover crowds to the Xerox booth at the May 1981 NCC. Including Jobs himself. Yeah, I mean except Xerox. The context here is you saying that "Jobs came to PARC in December 1978. 4 years later was an eternity" and I take it you implied with this that Xerox didn't influence the Mac/Lisa. So, my point is that not a lot of developments happened between that and 1983 in the commercial space for it to actually be "like an eternity". Star did happen which is also Xerox, but the "let's copy this" spark was already lit in Jobs from 1978 (and Lisa itself started being designed after that time). >GUI concepts: if you mean mouse manipulation, you're right. However, the Lisa had a unified interface that enforced some choices, while the Alto let every developer make his or her own choices. Also, as far as I remember, dropdown menu bars across the top weren't prominent on the Alto. Mouse manipulation, but also a hodgepodge of GUI ideas from the programs he saw demoed (and later on Star). E.g. Alto had Bravo with WYSIWYG, scrollbars, etc. TFA was like: (a) People say Apple copied Xerox GUI ideas because Jobs saw Smalltalk-80 demo (b) But the Mac GUI is quite didfferent than Smalltalk-80, so this is wrong And basically I'm pointing out that people don't just say it based on Smalltalk-80, but also Alto stuff Jobs saw in that visit, and Star stuff which came out before the Mac. Love the Future book by the way!

AlbertCory 3y ago
I said 1978 but should have said 1979. Anyhow, using a mouse to manipulate objects on a bitmapped screen was the influence. There were many ways to do that. Not everyone in the computer industry bought into that. It seemed like a waste of the computer to them.