The Legend of the GUI
Part I - Genesis
A long long time ago, in a faraway land, there was a magical kingdom in the middle of the desert; it was called the Silicon Valley and all was good.
To get to the bottom of this story, we better delve into an ancient legend about the early history of Graphic User Interface (GUI). The yarn, first told to me by my legal instructor, Bruce, involves Xerox, Apple Computer and of course the inevitable Microsoft Corporation.
In the beginning, there was Xerox. Hardworking and brilliant folks of lore, forging a magic for the good of more.
In the early 1960s a bunch of brilliant and quirky computer geeks were working at Xerox, this team was Xerox PARC, still one of the leading teams of research and innovation today. They were a remarkable lot, because a number of them had been previously on the development team for “On Line Systems” at the Stanford Research Institute.
Xerox’s aim at the time was to develop an interface that would transcend language barriers and enable people from all around the world to use their photocopiers. The Xerox PARC team realized that the best way to do this was to create an interface that uses pictures rather than words of any language. Heretofore, computers were represented by predominantly text (mostly computer codes and commands) and were difficult to use by the common populace. Xerox PARC was able to codify the WIMP paradigm (windows, icons, menus, and pointers) on their custom built (that is, they built it themselves from scratch in the back of a garage) Xerox Alto experimental computer.
As the Xerox PARC team were well and truly computer geeks, that didn’t know anything about the law, they didn’t register themselves the patent for a GUI. And that is why there is a story to tell.
Along came the Apple Job, tempting those of the smithy to join another power, to rise up above all others, in a modern office tower!
One day in the early 1970s, Steve Jobs, one of the founders of Apple Computers Inc, and who, incidentally, used to work for Xerox, decided to go out for lunch with a couple of his old colleagues back at Xerox. Over lunch, the excited Xerox PARC members spilled the latest on their impressive development of a GUI. Steve was hooked. In true geek fashion, the Xerox PARC members invited Jobs to “come round, and have a look at our latest cool new thing”.
Steve, in true entrepreneur fashion, took up the invitation and sauntered around to Xerox for a snoop. Wow. This was a computer geek’s equivalent of a golden ticket to the Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory. Everything was familiar, but different. What happened there, a number of anecdotes can testify, but the long and the short of it is, the encounter led Apple to jump on the GUI boat.
On retrospect it seems predicable, but over the next few years more and more of the Xerox team were recruited to join Apple Macintosh. Eventually, in 1979, Macintosh was released. It was the first commercial computer that used a GUI interface.
Despite the move from Xerox to Apple, and Steve Jobs being an entrepreneur, they were still geeks on the inside, and the law seemed out of their universe and irrelevant. And that is why, a new age had began to dawn.
--- to be continued...
A long long time ago, in a faraway land, there was a magical kingdom in the middle of the desert; it was called the Silicon Valley and all was good.
To get to the bottom of this story, we better delve into an ancient legend about the early history of Graphic User Interface (GUI). The yarn, first told to me by my legal instructor, Bruce, involves Xerox, Apple Computer and of course the inevitable Microsoft Corporation.
In the beginning, there was Xerox. Hardworking and brilliant folks of lore, forging a magic for the good of more.
In the early 1960s a bunch of brilliant and quirky computer geeks were working at Xerox, this team was Xerox PARC, still one of the leading teams of research and innovation today. They were a remarkable lot, because a number of them had been previously on the development team for “On Line Systems” at the Stanford Research Institute.
Xerox’s aim at the time was to develop an interface that would transcend language barriers and enable people from all around the world to use their photocopiers. The Xerox PARC team realized that the best way to do this was to create an interface that uses pictures rather than words of any language. Heretofore, computers were represented by predominantly text (mostly computer codes and commands) and were difficult to use by the common populace. Xerox PARC was able to codify the WIMP paradigm (windows, icons, menus, and pointers) on their custom built (that is, they built it themselves from scratch in the back of a garage) Xerox Alto experimental computer.
As the Xerox PARC team were well and truly computer geeks, that didn’t know anything about the law, they didn’t register themselves the patent for a GUI. And that is why there is a story to tell.
Along came the Apple Job, tempting those of the smithy to join another power, to rise up above all others, in a modern office tower!
One day in the early 1970s, Steve Jobs, one of the founders of Apple Computers Inc, and who, incidentally, used to work for Xerox, decided to go out for lunch with a couple of his old colleagues back at Xerox. Over lunch, the excited Xerox PARC members spilled the latest on their impressive development of a GUI. Steve was hooked. In true geek fashion, the Xerox PARC members invited Jobs to “come round, and have a look at our latest cool new thing”.
Steve, in true entrepreneur fashion, took up the invitation and sauntered around to Xerox for a snoop. Wow. This was a computer geek’s equivalent of a golden ticket to the Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory. Everything was familiar, but different. What happened there, a number of anecdotes can testify, but the long and the short of it is, the encounter led Apple to jump on the GUI boat.
On retrospect it seems predicable, but over the next few years more and more of the Xerox team were recruited to join Apple Macintosh. Eventually, in 1979, Macintosh was released. It was the first commercial computer that used a GUI interface.
Despite the move from Xerox to Apple, and Steve Jobs being an entrepreneur, they were still geeks on the inside, and the law seemed out of their universe and irrelevant. And that is why, a new age had began to dawn.
--- to be continued...