[Leica] Another from the Museum: the Xerox Alto Computer

[philippe.amard at sfr.fr (philippe.amard)]

I understand that the signs says "no touch screen" , am I mistaken?

Amiti?s
Ph


Le 3 f?vr. 13 ? 23:52, Herbert Kanner a ?crit :

> This bit of computer history is so rich that, even with many details  
> glossed over, it may be too long for some readers.
>
> The story begins with the Xerox Corporation. The company was started  
> in 1909 with the name The Haloid Photographic Co. They made  
> photographic paper. The name in time got shortened to Haloid Xerox.  
> Eventually, they developed commercially what they renamed  
> xerography, became a successful copier company, dropped their  
> photographic endeavors and the name "Haloid".
>
> Their research laboratory was in New York State. Copiers were their  
> total stock in trade, but as computers became more prevalent, they  
> had a vague idea, without explicit plans, that they should pay some  
> attention to computers. They bought a computer company, Scientific  
> Data Systems (SDS) pf Santa Monica, CA, changed its name to Xerox  
> Data Systems (XDS) and proceeded to run it into the ground.
>
> Around 1970, again with the vague idea that they should investigate  
> various technical and scientific fields including computer science,  
> they found the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). The Palo Alto  
> location, I was told in an early attempt at a job interview, was  
> chosen to be as far as possible from corporate headquarters and far  
> from XDS. The proximity of Stanford University was also a serious  
> factor.
>
> The Alto was an attempt to prototype a computer for business use.  
> While prohibitively expensive, the idea was that costs were dropping  
> rapidly, and that in five to ten years, it was predicted, such a  
> computer would be affordable to business. About two thousand of them  
> were built, scattered around PARC and networked by ethernet cable.  
> Ethernet was invented at PARC; so was the laser printer. Did Xerox  
> make a fortune out of any of this? One commentator coined the  
> sentence: "Xerox had the ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of  
> victory!"
>
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/herbk1/L1002809.jpg.html
>
> What you are seeing is not the computer itself. The computer is a  
> large box under the table, in a position where it could not possibly  
> be shot. You will immediately notice the unusual shape of the  
> screen.  So what do you do in business? You shuffle sheets of paper.  
> What is the shape of a sheet of paper? Nuff said. At the upper left  
> of the picture, you will see an early ethernet cable. On the right  
> is a mouse. This the first public appearance of one since it was  
> invented by Doug Engelbart in 1963 and publicly demonstrated in 1969.
>
> On the left is a second invention of Doug's: a five key keyboard on  
> which one can play chords. The idea was that with the left hand on  
> it and the right hand on the mouse, you can do many operations  
> without having to let go of the mouse until you are seriously  
> entering text. I have fun when giving tours at the Computer History  
> Museum by asking any geeks on the tour how many different chords can  
> be played with five fingers. I usually draw a blank. Some how the  
> concept of chords is a mental block. If I had asked them: "What is  
> the largest number you can write with five binary digits," I'm sure  
> they would have snapped out: 31.
>
> In 1979, related to the fact that Xerox had invented serious money  
> in Apple, Steve Jobs got to see a demonstration of the Alto. The  
> people at PARC did not want to show him what they considered to be  
> the crown jewels, and on that day he didn't see anything he had not  
> seen before. He was pissed off, made it known to Xerox headquarters,  
> and a second visit was arranged at which the lab people were ordered  
> to show him everything.
>
> At this point, we get into the realm of legend. There are two  
> versions: the first, supported by some knowledgeable computer  
> experts, is that Apple had been working for some time on the sort of  
> graphical user interface that we know today on Windows and  
> Macintosh, had encountered serious problems, and seeing that the  
> problems had been solved at Xerox, proceeded to work harder and do  
> the same at Apple. The second was that seeing this interface  
> demonstrated at Xerox, Steve Jobs was stunned, and on returning to  
> Apple caused the group working on the Lisa computer to go back to  
> square one and redo hardware and software to provide that kind of  
> interface. The Lisa, an unsuccessful product because of high price  
> and poor performance, was followed in two years by the Macintosh.
>
> Having read the Steve Jobs biography, I'm inclined to go with the  
> second version, the one in the biography. In the first place, the  
> biographer seems to have been very meticulous and talked to a great  
> many people. In the second place, it makes Steve Jobs seems a bit  
> less brilliant.
>
>
> Herbert Kanner
> kanner at acm.org
> 650-326-8204
>
> Question authority and the authorities will question you.
>
>
>
>
>
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