4 ms·
> in particular being able to drag overlapping windows on top of each other That's not true. The Xerox Alto had overlapping windows, and it was released in 197
by nessus42 14y ago
> in particular being able to drag overlapping windows on top of each other
That's not true. The Xerox Alto had overlapping windows, and it was released in 1973!
http://www.digibarn.com/collections/software/alto/index.html http://www.digibarn.com/collections/software/alto/index.html
Also, MIT Lisp Machines had overlapping windows by the late '70s, and MIT had borrowed this idea from the Alto.
- icebraining 14y agoIt's not overlapping windows, but a similar concept. From folklore.org (awesome site, by the way; it made me a fan of that Apple): Smalltalk didn't even have self-repairing windows - you had to click in them to get them to repaint, and programs couldn't draw into partially obscured windows. Bill Atkinson did not know this, so he invented regions as the basis of QuickDraw and the Window Manager so that he could quickly draw in covered windows and repaint portions of windows brought to the front. On Xerox, Apple and Progress: http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=On_Xerox,_Apple_and_Progress.txt http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=On_Xerox,_Apple_and_P...
- nemo1618 14y agoAh, I love folklore.org. I devoured every article on the site in about a week. Really makes you wonder what Apple would be like today if Burrell and Andy had had more power to override Jobs (see the "Diagnostic Port" story).
- scarmig 14y agoThanks for sharing that website... it's a pity that it's only Apple, but that itself is pretty awesome!
- nostrademons 14y agoThere were details here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2998463 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2998463 It wasn't overlapping windows, it was the ability to repaint a partially-obscured window without user interaction, plus some confusion because the Xerox Star did not have overlapping windows.