21 Sep
2000
21 Sep
'00
9:05 a.m.
Hi folks,
Does anyone have an archive of Xerox Alto/Star software? I'm curious
about OS, applications, research work, whatever. I don't own an Alto,
but I'm concerned about losing the software anyway. I'd really love to
see a Xerox Alto emulator project started, and obviously some working
original software archives are kind of vital for that endeavor.
While we're at it, does anyone have system schematics or system
architecture documentation? Those seem somewhat relevant as well :)
-Seth
21 Sep
21 Sep
11:23 a.m.
On Thu, 21 Sep 2000, sjm wrote:
Hi folks,
Does anyone have an archive of Xerox Alto/Star software? I'm curious
about OS, applications, research work, whatever. I don't own an Alto,
but I'm concerned about losing the software anyway. I'd really love to
see a Xerox Alto emulator project started, and obviously some working
original software archives are kind of vital for that endeavor.
While we're at it, does anyone have system schematics or system
architecture documentation? Those seem somewhat relevant as well :)
Hey, Seth.
A local guy in the Bay Area is currently working on related matters. He's
writing a MESA emulator. He's borrowed a couple manuals from me.
I have applications for the 6085, and also some manuals for that machine
and the 8010. Of course, as always, it's buried somewhere, but I'm slowly
unearthing everything as I move it to the new location.
Anyway, if you ever want to come over and dig around for this sort of
stuff, you're welcome.
Sellam International Man of Intrigue and Danger
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Looking for a six in a pile of nines...
VCF 4.0 is September 30-October 1
San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, California
See http://www.vintage.org for details!
1:04 p.m.
On Thu, Sep 21, 2000 at 01:23:49PM -0700, Sellam Ismail wrote:
Hey, Seth.
A local guy in the Bay Area is currently working on related matters. He's
writing a MESA emulator. He's borrowed a couple manuals from me.
Is that Al Kossow?
I have applications for the 6085, and also some
manuals for that machine
and the 8010. Of course, as always, it's buried somewhere, but I'm slowly
unearthing everything as I move it to the new location.
Anyway, if you ever want to come over and dig around for this sort of
stuff, you're welcome.
Thanks, Sellam! I may take you up on the kind offer at some point.
I've never written anything as low-level as an emulator (I'm strictly
an applications guy), but this is the sort of thing I've become most
interested in recently. The Xerox stuff is enormously cool from a GUI
perspective, it makes me think I should at least do a Xerox Star GUI
theme for Gnome/GTK/Enlightenment as a start (I know, it's a different
machine, but I admire the look and feel).
-Seth
3:33 p.m.
On Thu, 21 Sep 2000, sjm wrote:
On Thu, Sep 21, 2000 at 01:23:49PM -0700, Sellam
Ismail wrote:
Nope. I forget his name but he used to work at Xerox. A younger guy (in
his 30s).
Hey, Seth.
A local guy in the Bay Area is currently working on related matters. He's
writing a MESA emulator. He's borrowed a couple manuals from me.
Is that Al Kossow? I've never written anything as low-level as an
emulator (I'm strictly
an applications guy), but this is the sort of thing I've become most
interested in recently. The Xerox stuff is enormously cool from a GUI
perspective, it makes me think I should at least do a Xerox Star GUI
theme for Gnome/GTK/Enlightenment as a start (I know, it's a different
machine, but I admire the look and feel).
I don't think any GUI today matches the functionality of the Star GUI.
Sellam International Man of Intrigue and Danger
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Looking for a six in a pile of nines...
VCF 4.0 is September 30-October 1
San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, California
See http://www.vintage.org for details!
22 Sep
22 Sep
6:29 a.m.
On Thu, 21 Sep 2000, Sellam Ismail wrote:
I don't think any GUI today matches the
functionality of the Star GUI.
I've always been interested in the early Xerox work as well.. what sort of
feeatures did they include that made it so cutting edge? (other than
being the first GUI, the first laser printer, the first ethernet, ....)
- Dan
Dan Linder / dlinder @ uiuc.edu
Graduate Student, College of Engineering, Dept. of Computer Science
- Dept. of Computer Science Teaching Assistant
- DoRES Computer Accessibility Researcher
- SCS Materials Chemistry Lab Systems Administrator
- General Chemistry Computer-Equipped Wet Labs Systems Administrator
6:20 a.m.
On Fri, 22 Sep 2000, Dan Linder wrote:
I've always been interested in the early Xerox
work as well.. what sort of
feeatures did they include that made it so cutting edge? (other than
being the first GUI, the first laser printer, the first ethernet, ....)
Xerox PARC did a very cool thing a couple years ago and held "The Last
Xerox Star Demo". About 600 people (mostly PARC employees but it also
generated a lot of outside interest) showed up.
It was about an hour and a half long, showing off the features and
functionality of the Star environment. I don't remember many specifics,
but one thing that did catch my attention was its ability to display
mathematical formulas in their more natural form, i.e. when a division
operation was typed in it would put the numerator on top and the divisor
on bottom with a horizontal line in between, and it did this
automatically. You could also dynamically re-map the keyboard to get
different symbol sets or even different language characters. It would
show the new keyboard layout on the display so you could use it for
reference.
The interface seemed more intuitive in some cases, very logically
organized overall. There was some rawness to it but overall it struck
me as being more advanced than what MS and Apple are offering even today.
There were some elements that were not as advanced, but there had been 15
years of development effort between the Star and Windows, and Windows
still lagged.
Sellam International Man of Intrigue and Danger
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Looking for a six in a pile of nines...
VCF 4.0 is September 30-October 1
San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, California
See http://www.vintage.org for details!
8:39 p.m.
Xerox PARC did a very cool thing a couple years ago
and held "The Last
Xerox Star Demo". About 600 people (mostly PARC employees but it also
generated a lot of outside interest) showed up.
It was about an hour and a half long, showing off the features and
functionality of the Star environment. I don't remember many
specifics, but one thing that did catch my attention was its ability
to display mathematical formulas in their more natural form, i.e. when
a division operation was typed in it would put the numerator on top
and the divisor on bottom with a horizontal line in between, and it
did this automatically. You could also dynamically re-map the
keyboard to get different symbol sets or even different language
characters. It would show the new keyboard layout on the display so
you could use it for reference.
The interface seemed more intuitive in some cases, very logically
organized overall. There was some rawness to it but overall it struck
me as being more advanced than what MS and Apple are offering even
today.
There were some elements that were not as advanced, but there had been
15 years of development effort between the Star and Windows, and
Windows still lagged.
Sellam International Man of Intrigue
and Danger
My Micom 2000 from 1977 also had a similiar ability. They called
it "subscript" and "superscript". It was superior in it's
abilities to
anything I've seen up to the mid-eighties. While it wouldn't draw
curves it's graphics abilities allowed connecting points
automatically. Using the subscript or superscript
commands you could do a proper fraction or power of # and also
footnote numbers in smaller script. I still can"t do that with this
Pegasus editor I'm using now. It used a very fast(for it's day)
Qume daisy-wheel printer.
This companies first production model shipped in July 1975 the
month that Gates and Allen inked the first agreement with MITS for
MS-Basic and Dick Hauser had only just opened the first computer
store. By the time Jobs and Woz had figured out the cicuitry for
their board in 76, Micom had shipped 180 units worth $2 million.
At it's height it had 1100 employees
The innovative owner-partner Stephen Dorsey had earlier formed
and then sold AES. Philips acquired a chunk of Micom in 78 and
then the rest in 83. Dorsey went on to found Voice and Data
Systems a leader in packet technology. His 2 previous start-ups
had annual sales of $200 million.
I also wonder whether he played might have played any role in
the Mitel start-up which was the basis for Cowpland's Corel since
he was such a biggy in Canadian electronics technology.
Apparently NASA among others had a bunch of them. There might
be a few still floating around in Florida.
ciao larry
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