Computer

Ron Hunter wrote:
J. Clarke wrote:
Ron Hunter wrote:
Stefan Patric wrote:
On Sat, 17 Mar 2007 20:03:48 -0400, ASAAR wrote:

On Sat, 17 Mar 2007 23:52:00 GMT, Stefan Patric wrote:

When Apple came out with it's first machine, it came with a
graphic OS, designed from the ground up, based on research
done by the Xerox Corporation. (Actually Jobs and his cohorts
stole the concept.)
If you're referring to the Macintosh, that wasn't Apple's first
machine. There was the Lisa, the Apple II and even an Apple I
which I saw assembled in pieces mounted on what appeared to be a
piece of plywood. I don't think that those early Apples borrowed
anything from Xerox Parc.
Yes, I was thinking of the Mac, specifically, when I wrote the
above. Perhaps, I should have said, "...it's first machine, that
used a...." Anyways, the second part is true by Jobs own admission.

Xerox was doing research on how to make computers more accessible
and usable to the average office worker, and that research lead to
the graphic based user interface before anyone else thought of it.
Jobs said in the interview that he and his friends, who were
developing the Apple, spent lots of time talking with the Xerox
programmers, and they (Jobs, et al) knew of the new interface
concept, and when they could, they shamelessly used that concept
in their computer. I don't know if Xerox ever got a patent on the
GUI.

Stef
NO. The system was developed for the US government, and was not
owned by Xerox. Neither Apple, nor MS got permission to use it,
not that it was legally required, but Atari did, just to defend
against a suit by Apple. Kinda funny the look on Atari's owner
when he talked about it.

I think you're confused here. The GUI after which the Mac was
patterned was developed by the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center using
Xerox funding, and was used in the experimental Alto workstation of
which Xerox gave away many and the commercial Star and its
descendants of which Xerox sold tens of thousands. At no time was
that GUI or any part of it owned by the government.

You are the only person I have ever seen suggest that Xerox did not
own the GUI that they developed at PARC.

They didn't, as it was for a project funded by the Navy. As far as I
know, the Navy never used the product, but Xerox did not have a
patent/copyright for it.

I see the source of your confusion now.

There were two organizations with similar names, ARC and PARC, engaged
in related but not identical research.

ARC (Augmentation Research Center) was part of the Stanford Research
Institute and was funded by ARPA, the government Advanced Research
Projects Agency, and was headed by a guy named Englebart, who spent many
years in the Navy while thinking about ways to control machinery of
various kinds while actually being paid to run radars--the Navy however
had no interest in his ideas and never funded his research, that funding
came from ARPA. ARC is no longer in existence as an organization.

ARC invented the mouse and possibly the notion of a windowed user
interface, using text, not graphics.

PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) is part of Xerox--its only relation to
ARC is that after ARC went under some of the employees (not including
Englebart) were hired by PARC. PARC is still very much in business. It
is not government funded to any significant extent.

PARC invented the GUI, borrowing ARCs mouse and the notion of a
windowing, and taking it far, far beyond anything that ARC had done,
using graphics rather than special characters to display the window and
its contents, adding icons for various elements, etc. The Xerox
interface allowed an accurate representation of a printed page with
variable sized fonts and illustrations to be displayed on the screen,
Englebarts did not.

Xerox never had a patent on the mouse and may or may not have had one on
various aspects of windowing, but they did hold a copyright on the GUI
used on the Alto/Star.

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--John
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(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)