 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
"Of Mice and Men"
A Brief History of the Graphical User Interface and the Key Men Involved in its Evolution'Good Artists Borrow; Great Artists Steal!' Originally said by Pablo Picasso then later 'borrowed' by Steve Jobs, this quote certainly pertains to the history of the Graphical User Interface.
In 1945, US President Roosevelt's Science Advisor, Vannevar Bush, published an article entitled, "As We May Think." In the article he spoke about a machine he called a Memex. Bush believed that human memory worked on the basis of association and he envisioned a machine (the Memex) that would hold a vast amount of information; A machine that the user could interact with. This machine would create links between related images and documents that could be referred to at a later time. The user of the Memex would also be able to enter their own data and create their own links. Bush's Memex was simply a theory, a theory that is now believed to be the beginning of the GUI.
In 1963, Douglas C Engelbart, founder of the Augmentation Research Centre, took Bush's theory and began to develop the technology that he felt would be needed to augment the human intellect. Engelbart and his team of engineers went on to develop a number of user-friendly information access systems such as windows, shared-screen teleconferencing, hypermedia, groupware, and more. The most prominent of Engelbart's inventions would prove to be the "X-Y Position Indicator for a Display System." The position indicator was fitted with three small buttons at one end and a cable coming out of the other. Engelbart and his team felt that the buttons looked like little eyes and the cord, a tail. They decided to call it a Mouse. It was 1968 and Engelbart had already acquired a number of patents for his inventions, but unfortunately lost his funding and could not continue the project.
The Xerox Corporation established the Palo Alto Research Centre (PARC) in 1970. Many of Engelbart's engineers went to work for PARC after the loss of funding at the Augmentation Research Centre. The people at PARC used Engelbart's vision along with their own, and began work on a new project. This project would be a computer that would do away with the complexity of the command line interface by implementing a system that could be used as easily as the users desktop. In 1973, just 3 years after the project began; the Xerox Alto was born. The Alto was designed for use by a single person hence it was the world's first Personal Computer. PARC also introduced other world firsts in the Alto with the WYSIWYG editor, commercial mouse, GUI and bit-mapped display. Although the Alto was a ground breaking invention in many aspects, it carried a hefty $40, 000 price tag that the executives at Xerox felt was simply unmarketable.
Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple Computers was allowed to take a tour of PARC in 1979 to have a look at the Xerox Alto. Jobs and his associates immediately saw the potential of the Alto GUI and how it could change the future of personal computing. Apple had two projects in development at the time, the Apple Lisa and the Macintosh. Although the operating systems were primarily done by the time of Jobs' visit to PARC, he insisted that the PARC technology be implemented in the development of their operating systems. By this time, many of the engineers from PARC had left to join Apple hence the Alto influence was prominent. The Lisa team added features not available in the Alto GUI in the way of pull down menus, the menu bar, double clicking icons and the famous Trash Can. The Apple Lisa, like the Alto, carried a substantial $10, 000 price tag and it too failed to catch on.
In the early 1980's in Albuquerque New Mexico, a small company called Microsoft that consisted of two men, Bill Gates and Paul Allen, became interested in what was going on with Apple Computers. Eventually Microsoft joined forces with Apple to develop software for them. It did not take Gates long to also see the future in the GUI, and he began the development of his own operating system code named "Chicago". Gates was worried that Apple would sue him as his operating system closely resembled that of the Mac, and therefore did not release it immediately. On November 22, 1983, Gates and John Scully (Apple CEO) signed an agreement that allowed Microsoft to use the Mac OS in exchange for a commitment from Microsoft to continue developing software for the Mac. Four years later, Microsoft was ready to show "Chicago" to the world, and August 11, 1987, Windows 1.01 was unveiled.
In the 13 years that have passed since Microsoft introduced Windows, the GUI has advanced with leaps and bounds. Apple later attempted to sue Microsoft for 'stealing' their operating system but due to the fact that both the Mac OS and Windows were so closely identifiable to the Xerox Alto OS, Apple's claims were dismissed. Today we have the luxury of such products as Microsoft Windows 2000, the new Mac OS X, and the Open Sourced Linux operating system. I wonder if Vannevar Bush could have imagined the impact his idea to simplify life and learning would have on the human race?
Lawrence Carriere was born in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada in 1970. He spent most of his life in Edmonton and has been a computer enthusiast since his Dad bought the family a Radio Shack TSR 80 in 1981. Lawrence is currently studying Multimedia at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
Source listThe Bootstrap Institute
Apple.com
http://www.ruku.com
http://www.nostalgia.com
http://www.parc.xerox.com
http://hoshi.cic.sfu.ca/~guay/Paradigm/Bush.html
The TNT Original movie, "Pirates of Silicon Valley"
FACER
E-Zine V2#1
Foundations, Projections and Issues