Desktop Metaphor

[Rick Bensene]

Earlier, I wrote:
>> The whole desktop metaphor UI existed long before Windows 95 in non-Unix implementations by Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research >>Center) with the pioneering Xerox Alto, introduced in 1973,  which implemented  Alan Kay's concepts for the desktop metaphor that >>were postulated in 1970 using Smalltalk as the core operating system.

To which Liam P. responded:
>That, again, *was the point I was trying to make*.

>We used to have a ton of prior art and alternative designs, and today,
>they have all gone, with basically no impact.

I get the point, now.  

I was looking at it more from a historical standpoint than from the view of /today/.   I totally agree with Liam as far as every other desktop paradigm prior to Win95 is dead from a practical standpoint, except possibly the (and it can be debated) the Apple desktop environment. 

I believe that the history of the desktop metaphor prior to Win95 certainly had an impact on the development of the Win95 desktop environment, and those concepts carry through to today, but in terms of desktop UIs created after Win95, I can't argue that any aren't derivatives of the Win95 environment.

-Rick