Dogfather
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join:2007-12-26
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1 edit | reply to wolfhouse
Re: Ha ha
It's no secret that Jobs got the GUI bug when we went to PARC to see their goodies.
And if you want to base innovation on how many copies of an OS gets sold then MS owns everyone.
Apple took the GUI and brought it to the desktop. Gates obviously saw the writing on the wall after seeing Apple's work and used what he saw to develop Windows.
True ground up innovation is very rare. Most consumer revolutions come from someone who was smart enough to take existing elements and combine them in a way that could be considered innovative.
Just like proportional typefaces. Microsoft was actually working on it a year before the Mac came out (and Xerox long before that) but the Mac combined proportional typefaces with their printer and the Macs bitmapped screen...an "innovation" in affordable personal desktop publishing. |
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elwoodblues
Elwood Blues
join:2006-08-30
Toronto, ON
|  What everyone is missing, is that Xerox threw everything away.
Ethernet, the GUI, the Laser printer, Object Oriented Programming, thats just to name a few.
Imagine what Xerox would be today if they hadn't just dismissed those technologies?
Don't blame Jobs or the WOZ for seeing an idea and running with it. |
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Dogfather
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| That's the thing. Even if they tried to do somethign with it...did they have the 'art' in them to actually apply these brilliant technologies into something consumer oriented?
We've seen through recent PC history (mid-70's on) great ideas that flopped because they were poorly applied. |
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en102
Canadian, eh?
join:2001-01-26
Valencia, CA | Right - anyone remeber the Commodore Amiga?
Basically cross between PC, Mac and Unix. Since it was never sold as a proper business machine, and more of a 'game' device, it flopped.
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Canada = Hollywood North |
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Dogfather
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join:2007-12-26
Laguna Hills, CA | On a more minor scale, OS-9 on the TRS-80 Color Computer was awesome, multi-user, multi-tasking, very powerful but on a weak selling computer in a saturated market...it didn't sell well. Much like the Newton, it was just way ahead of its time. |
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N3OGH
Bear patrol must be working like a charm
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Philly burbs
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| I love how the discussions of today's computer environment heads down the road of geekdom it does here at BBR.
All of you pretty much hit the nail on the head as far as the origins of modern computer interfaces goes.
It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside knowing I'm not the only geek in the world with this information tucked safely in the back of my brain.
I'm going to go boot my Apple II+ and run some BASIC programs, just for old time's sake 
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Petty people are disproportionably corrupted by petty power… |
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yabos
join:2003-02-16
Ingersoll, ON | reply to Dogfather
In case you didn't know, Apple licensed the concept from Xerox, whereas Microsoft did not and just up and copied it. Also, Xerox had absolutely no plans to use anything they were coming up with at the time. |
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Dogfather
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4 edits | said by yabos  :In case you didn't know, Apple licensed the concept from Xerox, whereas Microsoft did not and just up and copied it. Also, Xerox had absolutely no plans to use anything they were coming up with at the time. Huh? Xerox had Alto features in the Star 8010 (incl. full Alto GUI, lots of RAM, 40MB HDD, 2 button mousing, ethernet, email, etc) which came out in '81, long before the Mac and Win 1.0. But like Lisa, it was super expensive ($17K) and failed in the marketplace. Xerox absolutely tried to market their GUI born from the Alto. It was an amazing machine, but few could afford it. Even the Lisa wouldn't come out for another 2 years.
And from what I understand Microsoft had licensed elements of the 8010 from Xerox. MS also had licensing of Mac OS elements and Apple of future Windows elements, that from the Nov. 1985 agreement with Sculley.
Everyone copied, no one stole. |
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supergirl
join:2007-03-20
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| reply to N3OGH
said by N3OGH :I love how the discussions of today's computer environment heads down the road of geekdom it does here at BBR. You would think they have pron to download, huh?
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Saving the world keeps me busy. However, I find Earth very primitive from my home planet of Krypton.
-Supergirl |
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