17 Nov
2016
17 Nov
'16
7:43 p.m.
On Nov 17, 2016, at 2:20 PM, Rich Alderson <RichA
at livingcomputers.org> wrote:
...
I think arguing "priority" is a pointless exercise. In the real world, the
mouse came to the fore with the Xerox Alto, where its use was inspired by
Engelbart, not Telefunken, and it spread to Lisp Machines, Lisa and Macintosh
computers, and beyond, from there.
That's a good point for history of inventions generally. Take printing; it was
arguably invented in China first, but independently in Germany later. The later one is
the one that took hold world-wide. For that matter, writing; invented independently in at
least three if not four places, but out of those only two produced offspring that spread
and flourished.
paul