[R-390] Re: Hammarlund in the Subject

[blw]

> That's right XEROX came up with the GUI and all that stuff in their
> reserach center that was in Palo Alto, CA.
> They gave it to the industry for anyone to use..................
> RICH  @B> }


Yes, that is how it happened. There was a lawsuit a few years ago but Xerox
never put a claim on their GUI. An Apple team had visited Xerox labs before
the first Macintosh was released with the GUI and mouse. Thus, there is a
strong link between the visit and the first Macintosh OS.

There were other semi-GUI operating systems. I think Commodore was the first
computer system with a commercial interface and I forget the name now. You
could use the joystick to point and click, but no mouse. This was around
1983 or so.

The Atari GEM interface for the 16 bit ST computer was developed right after
the release of the first Macintosh. Atari sent a team of programmers to IBM,
who had a team writing the OS...before Microsoft and Windows. Atari adopted
this and cowrote it with that team. I think that company subcontracted out
by IBM was DEC but I could be wrong.


Barry