User Interface of Xerox Star
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- DeIntegro
This might be better than what we use today and it's from 1982!
- DeIntegro0
This is Human Computer Interaction at it's best...pioneer of WIMP (windows, icons, mouse, pointers).
- doesnotexist0
those xerox/canon industrial printer interfaces are always awesome
- DeIntegro0
yeah...but it's weird how apple basically commercialized the research efforts of Xerox PARC...Xerox could have been the apple of today.
- doesnotexist0
even the newer ones are nice
- Invalid0
this guy talks likt mitch hedberg
- comicsans0
Back in the day we had Xerox Stars as personal workstations, at retail a network of 5 machines cost 3.5 times as much as my first house. The Interlisp environment was the best programming environment ever devised.
Interesting historical factoids, the GUI interface we all accept today was a side effect of a research project looking at how to make increasingly more complex photocopiers easier to use (although the Alto and Star workstations were the first visible 'product'). Ethernet was devised as an means of sharing and connecting photocopiers and printers to workstations. Xerox PARC was at one time the home of the gods, heroes led by mules.
- stewdio0
@ETM, not true. While Apple does stand on the shoulders of giants (just like everyone else) they do also put a good deal of effort into refinement and exploration. There are some great books on the development of the Macintosh. Lots of intense UI design experimentation, research, field testing, car accidents, etc.
@DeIntegro. Totally. Both Xerox and HP lost big in the personal computer revolution. First, Steve Woz was working for HP and was required to show them the Apple 1 (and have them reject it) before he could sell it on his own. HP thought it was crap. (Oops!) Then Xerox PARC couldn't convince headquarters they had a revolutionary paradigm in their labs. HQ thought they were raking in the only financial returns possible when they got some cash and Apple stock in exchange for handing over PARC's GUI. That's perhaps stupider than IBM signing a non-exclusive license for DOS, though because Microsoft's numbers are bigger that fact is easily swept under the rug.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
Prior to Xerox PARC you had SRI / ARC. And, of course, Douglas Engelbart—the guy who invented the mouse. He and his team gave the most amazing demonstration (often called the "Mother of all Demos" back in 1968. They presented for the first time anywhere a mouse, video conferencing, email, hypertext, etc. A year before the moon landing and all the seeds for today's computer interaction were already planted. Unfortunately the chordal keyboard never took off. That would have been AMAZING!
The whole 1968 demo was recorded and you can watch it on Google Video here:
http://video.google.com/videopla…Also, my buddy Jürg is a big fan of the Xerox Star. You can see the influence on his website:
http://scratchdisk.com
- rson0
Love this stuff.
- kult0
