Re: Think Different. (Re: Is it NT or VMS)

[Jromeh@xxxxxxx]

>>>Did they invent the Window interface or was it an Apple in someone >elses 
eye?

>>Think Different, indeed! Apple will survive, continue doing R&D for M$ to 
>>copy poorly, though the "winners' history" now says they were overwhelmed 
>>by WIMP at PARC, just like Steve.
             ^^^^
>Actually, Xerox invented the windows interface (and the mouse) at their
>Palo Alto Research Center in the '70's.  They just couldn't figure out
>what to do with it.

The mouse happened at PARC, but it was in the '60s. Guy named Douglas 
Englebart, program called Sketchpad, if memory serves. Later, the Xerox 
Star implemented overlapping windows.

Jobs realized what they had and built an elegant product. M$ stripped off 
the elegance and found a way to sell it to the herd.

Q: What _do_ you like about M$, Jerome? 
A: Their marketing. Amazing ability to sell inferior products 
successfully.

Check out Revenge of the Nerds, narrated by Cringely of InfoWorld, 
sometimes shown on PBS, it covers this stuff pretty thoroughly in an 
entertaining sort of way.

P.S. PARC is still doing cool future stuff. Have read articles about 
their experimental networks that follow you around. You wear a badge that 
identifies you, and any machine you sit down at is "your" machine, just 
as you left it. Fostering collaboration through environments.

Anyone else ever see their "Rooms" add-on for Win3? Let you create 
multiple Win desktops for different tasks with "door" icons to move 
between them. At the time, my work PC at the client was an OS/2 2.1 box, 
so never did more than demo it.

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