[Am-info] Re: MS Depositions

[Mitch Stone]

--- From a message sent by Geoffrey on 2/1/02 4:55 AM ---

>I've not verified the accuracy of the following, but I find it 
>interesting that it appears that, as usual, Microsoft was the last to 
>come to this picture.  As usual, taking everyone else's good ideas and 
>claiming them for their own.  It appears that Xerox had a 'gui' based 
>workstation as early as 1981.  Jobs had Lisa out in 1983.

Should we not include the Alto? Created in 1973. Not a commercial 
product, but the first real proof of the concept.

>From:
>
>http://www.cc.gatech.edu/classes/cs6751_97_winter/Topics/dialog-wimp/
>
>"The development of WIMP interfaces continued at Xerox PARC. The PARC
>
>research team, which included notables such as Alan Kay and Adele 
>Goldberg, designed most of the elements that we associate with WIMP 
>interfaces: a bit-mapped display with movable/resizable windows, buttons 
>and pop-up menus, the desktop metaphor, and an object-oriented software 
>architecture and development library. The Smalltalk language/development 
>environment (1970-) was the research testbed for OOP and WIMP 
>interfaces. The Xerox Star workstation (1981) was the first production 
>computer to use the desktop metaphor, productivity applications and a 
>three-button mouse.
>
>Steve Jobs and a team from Apple paid an infamous visit to Xerox PARC. 
>The result was the Lisa (1983) computer and the Macintosh (1984), the 
>first mass-produced WIMP-based machines. A small company, Microsoft, got 
>the contract to develop the first suite of productivity applications to 
>be bundled with the Macintosh. By 1985, Microsoft proposed Windows, 
>which they intended to run on a wide variety of platforms. The reader 
>can fill in the blanks. With the rapid rise of Microsoft Windows, WIMP 
>interfaces have become the dominant interface paradigm."

Why, I wonder, is Steve Jobs' visit to PARC characterized as "infamous?" 
Jef Raskin, a former PARCie and engineer on the Mac development team 
arranged this visit in 1979 in order to persuade Jobs that the GUI was 
the future. Jobs got it, and the direction of the Lisa and then the Mac 
were changed. Xerox also received an equity share in Apple as a result.

I also don't think Microsoft got any "contract" from Apple to develop the 
first "productivity suite" for the Mac. The first product Microsoft 
created for the Mac was Multiplan, in 1985, IRRC. MacWrite and MacPaint 
were bundled with the Mac from the very start.

 Mitch Stone  
 mitch@accidentalexpert.com