Originally posted by MRRiley When Steve Jobs found out that Bill Gates was preparing to develop a graphical user interface he called Bill Gates down from Seattle...
Why? Because both had seen Xerox's ALTO... arguably the first "personal" computer with a WYSIWYG interface. Xerox never really did anything with it while Apple and then Microsoft filled the market void and Xerox eventually abandoned late efforts to recover their early lead.
Mike
The difference is Apple paid Xerox to see the Alto, Micro$oft simply stole it. It's also wrong to say Xerox never did anything with it. They released the Star workstation (Xerox 8010 Information System) in 1981.
Xerox Star - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The problem was that it cost $75,000, it was also released the same year as the IBM PC.
Part of the problem Xerox had (other than management not getting it) was that Steve Jobs hired all the best people away from them.
And Steve wasn't copying any more than Xerox was.
NLS (computer system) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Quote: Frustrated by the direction of Engelbart's "bootstrapping" crusade, many top SRI researchers left, with many ending up at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, taking the mouse idea with them.
Last edited by boriscleto; 10-24-2011 at 10:41 AM.