On 6 Nov 2002, at 0:06, Eric Smith wrote: Also, IIRC, the Mac team was working with only a visual knowledge of the Alto's GUI.... Jef Raskin (I think) developed ways to render the hidden parts of windows that even blew away the PARC people, since they'd been trying to figure it out for years. Raskin simply didn't know that it couldn't be done, so he just did it. And yes, in exchange for Apple's deal with Xerox, Apple was allowed to tour PARC, at which point the lightbulb came on over Jobs' head and he realized that this was the future of personal computing. PARC was really the birthplace of most of what we take for granted in personal computing today. There was a lot of early theories and experimentation, but the Alto system really made it all come together. Bob Metcalfe's team invented ethernet, and left to form 3com. John Warnock's and Chuck Geschke's team developed Postscript, and they left to form Adobe. The mouse was actually invented by Doug Englebart years earlier at SRI, but adopted and developed further by PARC. WYSIWYG word processing was developed there as well, and the developer was hired away by Microsoft to develop Word (oddly enough, he had to dumb it down to work on the command-line-only MS-DOS....) PARC also developed such things as object-oriented programming, browseable and resizeable windows, and the laser printer, which was really the only thing they profited from out of all those inventions. Xerox was basically a company run by copier guys, and while they started PARC and told the members to invent really cool stuff, they didn't have a clue what to do with it when it was done. So, the guys who invented it got frustrated and left to form their own companies. The Alto II, the commercial version of the in-house Alto network, was way too expensive to be commercially viable. The first computer "worm" was also invented at PARC, simply as an experiment by two of PARC's scientists to see what it could do, whether that's a good thing or not. Also keep in mind that the majority of the Alto/Star system was developed by the end of 1973.....and also, they had developed a color laser copier during that time as well. When I was in high school, a older guy in my town found out that I was into electronics and computers, so he invited me over to give me a bunch of books and parts that he no longer needed. He also told me that his son worked for Xerox, and pulled out an envelope containing several color copies to show me what he'd been working on. At the time I thought it was cool, but it wasn't until recently that I realized just how amazing that actually was.... and that was back in 1977 or so. All in all, PARC is a classic example of what happens when a group of brilliant scientists has to answer to a larger group of suits and bean counters. Paul Braun Cygnus Productions nerdware(a)laidbak.com

FYI the modern term I've heard for this one is "Numbers Nazi's" John A.

It was thus said that the Great nerdware(a)ctgonline.org once stated: It wasn't Raskin but another engineer (Atkinson perhaps?) Raskin had formed the initial Macintosh team and was (if I recall correctly) designing a text based computer around the 6809 (or perhaps a graphical one but I know for a fact he didn't care for mice at all and prefered all operations be done via keyboard). The Apple board at the time were tired of Steve Jobs poking his nose into the business so they "gave" Jobs the Macintosh project where he proceeded to make changes to Raskin's design. Raskin soon left afterwards. The engineer in question had been on the tour of Xerox PARC and had thought that the engineers there (at PARC) *had* overlapping windows and proceeded to reverse engineer their design. It was only *after* the Apple engineer had it working did he find out that PARC engineers never implemented overlapping windows (and I think they were still trying to figure out how to do that). -spc (At least, that's how I heard it)

nerdware(a)ctgonline.org wrote: No, the *minority* of the Alto system was developed by then. The Alto hardware was not operational until March 1973. The early Alto software was not very advanced, and did NOT have overlapping windows and other such fancy GUI stuff. The software that everyone thinks of in connection with the Alto was developed between 1973 and 1980 or so, it didn't suddenly spring into existence in 1973. IIRC, development on the Star didn't start until 1979 or so. I'm not sure when color laser copiers appeared, but I'm skeptical about it being in the early 1970s. The first laser printer prototype (SLOT) was built in 1973, but it was NOT color. The first "production" laser printer, Dover, didn't apear until 1976, and the first commercially available laser printer was introduced in 1977. Color laser printers didn't appear for quite some time.

As far as I know, Xerox did a lot of the PARC development on DARPA grants, not totally unlike TMI's work on developing the CM-1 supercomputer. Some grants have stipulations that can restrict patentability, just as most employers restrict an engineer from 'owning' a patent for work done on the job (the company 'owns' any such patent). These arangements can complicate the ownership of any intellectual property that is developed. To file a patent there are some clear limitations on the ownerhip and origination of the subject of the patent. The best example that comes to mind are the many complications when a patent application has a co-inventor. Its much more complex than when the application is the work of a single individual, due to the 'proof of origination' documentation. Lastly, in business its not generall a good idea to patent something new, unless your about to commercialize it at the same time. A years-old, but otherwise valid patent is very hard to defend if you have not exercised your I.P. rights. It can in effect become an abandon property. Someone later comes along and makes commercial use of it, and they gain a lot of legal advantage should you choose to enforce your disused patent long after the fact. You cannot 'lay in wait' for a patent voilator to become succesful, and then try to grab the gold. So in many ways, a patent is only useful in a limited number of situations. PARC was not in one of those situations, and even if they had a crystal ball and accurately saw the future, getting a patent at the time of invention would have done them little good at all. Lastly, PARC 'disclosed' their work. I've heard that PARC eagerly demonstrated what they were doing to many people (not like was shown in the TV program). This makes sense if the work was grant-based. This 'disclosure' alone would prohibit a patent application. Hans B Pufal wrote:

On Wed, 6 Nov 2002, Bob Shannon wrote: Well... perhaps "in theory" but that doesn't seem to be the case in practice. At least it isn't wrt the farcical U.S. IP laws and patent process. http://www.youmaybenext.com/ -> If you own or operate an e-commerce web site then you are us. And -> you need to know that a company in San Diego, Pangea Intellectual -> Properties (PanIP LLC) is suing companies all across the country. -> They claim that if you use graphical and textural information on a -> video screen for purposes of making a sale, then you are infringing -> on their patent. US Patent No 5,576,951. -> -> And if you accept information to conduct automatic financial -> transactions via a telephone line & video screen, you're infringing -> on their patent. US Patent No. 6,289,319 -brian.