Jim Gambony wrote:
>Hmmm, I thought the original gui was from a Sun workstation, or somesuch.
>
>
>
http://www.parc.xerox.com/about/history/default.html
This is an example of a company what developed many great things, but
lacked the management and marketing insight to see the value. The
history of Xerox PARC is very interesting.
Check out the ethernet, GUI and mouse cira 1973
*1973*
*Ground breaking for PARC's current site* at 3333 Coyote Hill Road in
Palo Alto, California *begins* in August.
The *Superpaint frame buffer records and stores its first video image*:
its inventor holding a sign that reads "It works, sort of." The frame
buffer enables faster processing of memory intensive animation and
graphics for the anticipated advanced graphical user interface of the
Alto. A decade later, Xerox and its inventor will win an Emmy award for
the technology.
*The first laser printer, called EARS* (for Ethernet-Alto research
character generator scanning laser output terminal) *is in service,
printing documents at 1 page/second at 384 spots per inch (spi)*. It
will be the foundation for the Xerox 9700 Electronic Printing System and
Xerox's printing business.
*A patent memo describing a new networking system uses the term
"Ethernet" for the first time*. A few months later, an entry about
Ethernet in a researcher's lab notebook reads: "It works!" This new
protocol for multiple computers communicating over a single cable will
spawn a series of sophisticated networking protocols enabling
distributed computing and re-architecting of the internal
computer-to-computer communication within Xerox copiers and duplicators.
Ethernet will become a global standard for interconnecting computers on
local-area networks.
The *Alto personal computer becomes operational*. As it evolves, the
Alto will feature the world's first What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get
(WYSIWYG) editor, a commercial mouse for input, a graphical user
interface (GUI), and bit-mapped display, and will offer menus and icons,
link to a local area network and store files simultaneously. The Alto
will provide the foundation for Xerox's STAR 8010 Information System.
*Client/server architecture is invente*d. This development makes the
paradigm shift of moving the computer industry away from the
hierarchical world of centralized mainframes - that download to dumb
terminals - towards more distributed access to information resources.
*Personal distributed computing is invented*. PARC's vision of computers
as tools that could help people work together will change the course of
the computer industry and lead to new ways of organizing interactions to
support both individual and collaborative work.
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