“It’s a poorly kept secret, but we’re all using Macintosh computers right now. Most of them, of course, use microprocessors made by Intel rather than Apple, and run Microsoft’s Windows, not Apple’s OS 9 or OS X, but they’re all direct descendants of the original graphic user interface and operating system created by an amazing group of computer artists in the early 1980s,” Richard Pachter writes for The Miami Herald. “The popularity of the nascent Apple II microcomputer began the personal computer revolution, but that was just the beginning for the upstart company in Cupertino, California.”
Pachter writes, “Author Andy Hertzfeld joined Apple as a young developer and eventually became a part of the team that was assembled to create the Macintosh, a revolutionary computer that didn’t require arcane keyboard combinations or other specialized knowledge. Its point and click commands, using a metaphoric, icon-driven method of running software applications and creating documents — derived in part from the work of Xerox’s seminal interface experiments — is now the industry standard.”
Pachter writes, “The story of the creation of the Mac is an exciting tale of creativity, innovation, ego and revolution. It’s far more dramatic than one would expect, and certainly more than just a routine product development story, as evidenced in Hertzfeld’s new book, ‘Revolution in the Valley.'”
Pachter writes, There are ample business insights amid the memories. For example, the tough negotiating of Bill Gates resulted in Microsoft’s perpetual license for the Mac interface, hence Windows’ ‘resemblance’ to the Macintosh operating system… Whether you’re a Mac person or a Windows user, this classic tale of American innovation is entertaining and insightful.”
Full article here.
thanks Xerox!
—the tough negotiating of Bill Gates resulted in Microsoft’s perpetual license for the Mac interface, hence Windows’ ‘resemblance’ to the Macintosh operating system
Well, Gates certainly sold vapor to IBM.
“the tough negotiating of Bill Gates”
Read: the usual bullying and threatening tactics. Scully caved, I doubt Jobs would have; he certainly didn’t when Billy goat tried the same tactics to keep Apple’s Quicktime out of the media player market.
So we’re all using Macs? Well, if Windows is a secondhand version, perhaps people ought to think about using the real deal instead. It’s a lot more affordable proposition now that the Mac mini is here.
There are several audio interviews with Hertzfeld out that are very good…entertaining guy and worth the listen. Try… ITconversations.com
People who say that Apple copied the GUI from Xerox PARC are like people who maintain that Al Gore claimed to have invented the internet – IOW, distortions and exaggerations consist of 98% FUD over some 2% of truth.
Apple extended the GUI with much R&D and useability for practical application by millions while the PARC prototypes pioneered the concept as pure research.
Ummm, since when did Apple start making microprocessors?
Just to set the record straight – it wasn’t Scully who caved, it was Jean-Louis Gasseé who wrote the agreements that Gates’s pet judge later found to incorporate that “perpetual license” to everything Macintosh.
I’m NOT prejudiced against the French. I simply look at all the evidence, and THEN decide not to trust them.
Obviously Apple was tricked and outwitted. Their lawyers should have picked up that future versions of Windows could rip off the Macintosh, but evidently didn’t. If either of Scully or Gassee was directly and solely involved, I’d be very surprised. Not to mention annoyed that they weren’t sacked by the board immediately, with no golden parachute, for allowing such a huge mistake to be made. I think Apple’s lawyers are the one’s who should be blamed. It’s certainly not the French who cannot be trusted.
Tilted Sideways
You too are still perpetuating the rumors with your comment. In an interview that Jobs gave in 1984 shortly after the launch of the Mac, he said that no one in his team had seen anything so revolutionary, that when Hertzfeld and others so the GUI/mouse working together at PARC that they were determined to incorporate it into a new product; hence the Mac – it should be Ok to give credit where credit is due without feeling disloyal to Apple
Apple stole from Xerox, period. So, all you Mac iDiots should stop being so hypocritical just because Gates borrowed a few ideas from Apple.
PCs rule:
How did you manage to post here with all your porn pop-ups and viruses?
Yeah, PCs sure do rule – cheap, ugly, crap hardware/software, and every tart in the world can goto swap meets to get upgrades for your crap.
Get over it – when you get a real job, you’ll be able to afford a real computer – oh wait, even YOU can get a Mac now, but you won’t ’cause you’re too ignorant and used to spending 60% of your software budget on utilities and spyware removal tools.
ROFLMAO!
SB
To PC’s Byte…I mean Rule,
Apple BOUGHT the rights to use the technologies at Xerox PARC, which is why Xerox recieved $10 million worth of Apple (about a 5% stake). M$’s lawyers were simply better than Apple’s and they managed to screw them over with fine print. While I don’t hold MS’s lawyers at fault for that, its still doesn’t negate that M$ swindled Apple while Xerox knew what it was selling. The magic word is “often”, as in, “I too often have to deal with moron’s that don’t know their history, especially in the computer world.”
Didn’t I read here, just the other day, that Steve Balmer said MS was first with everything! Clearly this article must be wrong!
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I’m using a Mac right now!
Interesting take. I may try it next time I catch crap for being on a Mac. “Well, actually, you do realize that you are on a Mac too.” hehehe
The only company that came close to successfully threatening Apple is Microsoft. In 1986 Bill Gates told Apple that he would consider stopping Macintosh development if Apple pursued a copyright infringement suit against Microsoft. Temporarily, anyway. There is no doubt Bill Gates can produce testosterone, and that’s another reason that Microsoft is such a great company.
Microsoft is a glaring and unique exception to MS-DOS bozosity in the Macintosh market. Microsoft is an awesome company, and we can all learn from it. Here’s why Microsoft is so great:
1. Bill Gates is a tweak. He has the best understanding of technology of any software company president ; the proof is that he jumped on Macintosh development in 1982.
2. Bill Gates considers everyone to be the enemy. He will kill anyone who gets in his way–not only big companies like Ashton-Tate but small companies like T/Maker. To ruin the market for T/Maker’s word processor, Microsoft sold inexpensive upgrades to an upcoming version of Word when T/Maker was about to ship their product.
3. Bill Gates has incredible chuzpah. He tells Apple how high to jump. I know, I’ve seen him in action. He must have taken steroids. Somehow they affected his personality but not his physique. He’s still afraid of BMUG, though.
Microsoft deserves its success. It jumped on Macintosh development early, it’s a tough competitor, and it has great products. Still, I’d love to see someone knock it off the pedestal.
(The Macintosh Way, 1990)
thanks Apple!
Fixed!
If Xerox had more than a basic GUI–instead had the entire wigit–why the hell didn’t they market it themselves? Why? Because they were a bunch of computer code crunching mindless monkeys and could never have invisioned the UI like Apple did. Xerox never did a damn thing with it…not a singal f**ing thing! Watch your mouth you little pisser and show some respect!
No drop down menus, no trash, folders and a ton of other things.
SB, those are mostly misconceptions that spyware plagues tonnes of windows computers. In fact, with more people using firefox, spyware is becoming less and less of a problem.
There are many reasons for switching to Mac, let’s not exaggerate and therefore alienate PC users.
Apple’s implementation of the GUI is related to Xerox the same way the Wright Brothers are related to Leonardo da Vinci. Having a good idea is only part of the story, being able to make it work is everything.
Xerox also invented ethernet
and they still make the best photocopiers!
No-one asks why xerox’s don’t have a 2 button mouse. Why?
– cause there is no mouse. You think about that, and get back to me.
Yeah, you think about that…
For the record Xerox did market products using their GUI. The company I worked for in the late 70’s had a “Xerox Star” system which used a mouse and had a b/w display with folder, application, and trash icons. The system used ‘dumb’ terminals connected to a central processing unit about the size of a 3′ rack on wheels.
Interesting comments made by the one calling himself Guy Kawasaki.
“1. Bill Gates is a tweak. He has the best understanding of technology of any software company president…”. I guess that’s why he proclaimed that 640KB of RAM is all that a computer would ever need. When he was given his first glimpse of the iPod, he commented, “Why didn’t they make it for Windows?”. Well, Bill got his wish and the “technical tycoon” is still scrambling to catch up. Even his own employees (80% of those who download music) prefer to use iPod. Bill Gates also declared the floppy disk dead…How many years after Apple did???
“2. Bill Gates considers everyone to be the enemy. He will kill anyone who gets in his way…”. Thinking sarcastically for a moment, I wonder if that includes his wife? More seriously though, he has yet to “kill” Wal-Mart when they decided to sell Windows-free computers. Compared to the economic size of Wal-Mart, Microsoft is like “Billy’s Pop Stand”. Yeah, Billy certainly tries to kill any company that even remotely threatens his monopoly using every crooked tactic he can conjure up. Word Perfect comes to mind. He instructed his developers to install hooks into Windows 95 that would sabotage the operation of Word Perfect (only one of many examples).
“3. Bill Gates has incredible chuzpah. He tells Apple how high to jump…” . Apple sure jumped all right – Jaguar, Panther, and soon Tiger. Meanwhile Microsoft’s programmers are still trying to gut Longhorn in order to release some freeze-dried excuse of an operating system by [sometime in] 2006. He sure showed his programmers how to release a service pack with Windows XP. That piece of spaghetti code was cracked within a few hours of its triumphant(?) release.
“Microsoft deserves its success. It jumped on Macintosh development early…”. Microsoft deserves its success in the same way that any garbage-variety criminal does after committing his/her crimes. It jumped on Macintosh development ONLY after Apple made the GUI a marketing success. Microsoft didn’t have the guts nor foresight to develop it until then.
The magic word is “figure” as in, “Go Figure”!
For once, I wish MDNers – regardless of platform – would discuss something meaningful and not introduce side issues or outright lies.
Xerox researches and develops the GUI.
Apple sees this and copies the idea (but since Apple is a god to some, they forget Xerox and spread the Gospel of Apple Invents Everything)
MS/IBM see what Xerox did, what Apple did, and succumb to the pressures/evolutionary forces in the computing market by joining in.
Decades later, Apple “invented” it all.
—
I like what “doobie” wrote:
>In an interview that Jobs gave in 1984 shortly after the launch of the Mac, he said that no one in his team had seen anything so revolutionary, that when Hertzfeld and others so the GUI/mouse working together at PARC that they were determined to incorporate it into a new product; hence the Mac – it should be Ok to give credit where credit is due without feeling disloyal to Apple
—
>Mac Daddy wrote: Microsoft deserves its success in the same way that any garbage-variety criminal does after committing his/her crimes. It jumped on Macintosh development ONLY after Apple made the GUI a marketing success.
That is an extremely naive perspective. Do you think MS is alone in operating in that way? EVERY company does it, inlcuding your beloved Apple.
The iPod is a glaring example.
Was Apple first in the digital music hardware business?
Did it bring the first player to market?
Apple saw someone else’s idea and copied it, added some Apple to it, and the rest is ongoing history.
But then again, decaded from now some ignorant soul will say something naive like “remember when Apple invented portable music”.
For once, I wish MDNers – regardless of platform – would discuss something meaningful and not introduce side issues or outright lies.
Xerox researches and develops the GUI.
Apple sees this and copies the idea (but since Apple is a god to some, they forget Xerox and spread the Gospel of Apple Invents Everything)
MS/IBM see what Xerox did, what Apple did, and succumb to the pressures/evolutionary forces in the computing market by joining in.
Decades later, Apple “invented” it all.
—
I like what “doobie” wrote:
>In an interview that Jobs gave in 1984 shortly after the launch of the Mac, he said that no one in his team had seen anything so revolutionary, that when Hertzfeld and others so the GUI/mouse working together at PARC that they were determined to incorporate it into a new product; hence the Mac – it should be Ok to give credit where credit is due without feeling disloyal to Apple
—
>Mac Daddy wrote: Microsoft deserves its success in the same way that any garbage-variety criminal does after committing his/her crimes. It jumped on Macintosh development ONLY after Apple made the GUI a marketing success.
That is an extremely naive perspective. Do you think MS is alone in operating in that way? EVERY company does it, inlcuding your beloved Apple.
The iPod is a glaring example.
Was Apple first in the digital music hardware business?
Did it bring the first player to market?
Apple saw someone else’s idea and copied it, added some Apple to it, and the rest is ongoing history.
But then again, decaded from now some ignorant soul will say something naive like “remember when Apple invented portable music”.