i read that windows 3.1 was the first os with a gui. now i thougt that windows was so called as it used windows as a visual representation of the folder structure used. was the earlier windows like dos prompt? why call it windows?
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i read that windows 3.1 was the first os with a gui. now i thougt that windows was so called as it used windows as a visual representation of the folder structure used. was the earlier windows like dos prompt? why call it windows?
Versions lower than that used graphics characters to 'build' windows:
http://www.infosatellite.com/news/20...reenshots.html
Wow! What a trip! -- as in "trip down memory lane." Thanks.
Jerry
Here's my understanding.
Windows 3.1 was not the first version of Windows to use a GUI.
Microsoft versions of Windows 1,2 and 3 also used a GUI.
The MAC was the first to use a GUI.
A GUI means that the operating system recognizes each pixel on the screen as an individually addressed unit and implies the use of a mouse.
Older systems were character based meaning they worked with, for example, a 9X15 pixel character space on the screen.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox_Altohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox_PARCQuote:
The Xerox Alto, developed at Xerox PARC in 1973, was the first personal computer and the first computer to use the desktop metaphor and graphical user interface (GUI).
Image: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...Altosystem.jpg
The Alto was first conceptualized in 1972 in an all points memo written by Butler Lampson, and designed primarily by Chuck Thacker. It had 128 (expandable to 512) Kbytes of main memory and a hard disk with a removable 2.5 Mbyte cartridge, all housed in a cabinet about as big as a small refrigerator. ...
Apart from an Ethernet connection, the Alto's only common output device was a bi-level (black and white) CRT display, mounted in a vertical, "portrait" orientation. Its input devices were a custom keyboard, a three-button mouse, and an optional 5-key chord keyset. The last two items were borrowed from SRI's On-Line System; while the mouse was an instant success among Alto users, the chord keyset never became popular.
All Alto mice had three buttons. The earliest were mechanical and used two wheels perpendicular to each other. These were soon replaced with ball-type mice, which were invented by Bill English. Later, optical mice were introduced, first using white light and then using IR. ...
A number of other I/O devices were available for the Alto, including a TV camera, the Hy-Type daisywheel printer and a parallel port, although these were quite rare. The Alto could also control external disk drives to act as a file server.
The Alto helped popularize the use of raster graphics model for all output, including text and graphics. It also introduced the concept of the bit block transfer operation, or BitBLT, as the fundamental programming interface to the display. In spite of its small memory size, quite a number of innovative programs were written for the Alto, including the first WYSIWYG document preparation systems Bravo and Gypsy, editors for graphical data (bitmaps, printed circuit boards, integrated circuits, etc.), the first versions of the Smalltalk environment, and one of the first network-based multi-person computer games.
Technically, the Alto was a small minicomputer, but it was a personal computer in the sense of being a single user computer sitting at your desk as compared to the mainframes and minicomputers of the era. It was never a commercial product, although several thousand were built. Universities, including MIT, Stanford, CMU, and the University of Rochester received donations of Altos including IFS file servers and Dover laser printers. These machines were the inspiration for the ETH Zürich Lilith and Three Rivers Company PERQ workstations, and Stanford University Network (SUN) workstation, which was eventually marketed by a spinoff company, Sun Microsystems. The Apollo/Domain workstation, and Apple Lisa also were heavily influenced by the Alto. ...
Xerox created a product division (SDD) to comercialize the work of PARC, initially attempting to use the Dolphin as the basis for a workstation product. The Dandelion design became the Xerox 8010, which ran the Xerox Star workstation software. The Star inspired Apple's Lisa and Macintosh personal computers, and helped popularize the graphical user interface on later PCs and workstations.
These Xerox machines, and especially the Alto, are now very rare and highly valuable collector items. ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History...user_interfaceQuote:
Xerox PARC was the incubator of many elements of modern computing. Most were included in the first personal computer, the Alto, which included many aspects of now-standard personal computer usage model: the mouse1, computer generated color graphics, the WYSIWYG text editor, Interpress (a resolution-independent graphical page description language and the precursor to PostScript), Ethernet, and fully formed object-oriented programming in the Smalltalk programming language and integrated development environment. The laser printer was developed at the same time, as an integral part of the overall environment. ...
Xerox has been heavily criticized (particularly by business historians) for failing to properly commercialize and profitably exploit PARC's innovations. A favorite example is the GUI, initially developed at PARC for the Alto and then commercialized as the Xerox Star by the Xerox Systems Development Department. Although very significant in terms of its influence on future system design, it is deemed a failure because it only sold approximately 25,000 units.
The first successful commercial GUI product was the Apple Macintosh; developed, according to a famous incorrect legend, after a visit by Steve Jobs to PARC. (The more prosaic truth is that work on a GUI was already underway at Apple, and Job's two visits merely showed him what it would look like when it was working.)
There is no denying the long-term impact of PARC's systems. It has taken two decades for much of their technology to be surpassed. The interfaces and technology that PARC pioneered became standards for much of the computing industry, once their merits were widely known.
It is legend that Xerox management consistently failed to see the potential of many of the PARC inventions. While there is some truth to this, it is also an over-simplification. They certainly understood the value of laser printing, and of advances coming from the non-computer-focused part of PARC. Most critics don't realize that computing research was a relatively small part of PARC; there were many researchers working in areas such as materials science at PARC, including pioneers in LCD and optical disc technologies.
The work at PARC in the years since the early 1980s is often overlooked, but major work since then includes Ubiquitous computing aka Pervasive Computing, Aspect-oriented programming, and IPv6 to name but a few. ...
Quote:
The graphical user interface, or "GUI", is a computer interface that uses graphic icons and controls in addition to text. The user of the computer utilizes a pointing device, like a mouse, to manipulate these icons and controls. This is considerably different from the command line interface in which the user types a series of text commands to the computer. ...
The first concept of a windowing system begins with the first real-time graphic display systems for computers, namely the SAGE Project and Ivan Sutherland's Sketchpad. ...
On-Line System (1968) --- Doug Engelbart's Augmentation of Human Intellect project at SRI in the 1960s developed the On-Line System (NLS), which incorporated a mouse-driven cursor and multiple windows. Engelbart had been inspired, in part, by the memex desk based information machine suggested by Vannevar Bush in 1945. Much of the early research was based on how young humans learn.
Xerox PARC -- Engelbart's work directly led to the advances at Xerox PARC. Several people went from SRI to Xerox PARC in the early 1970's. The Xerox PARC team with Merzouga Wilberts, codified the WIMP (windows, icons, menus and pointers) paradigm, first pioneered on the Xerox Alto experimental computer, but which eventually appeared commercially in the Xerox 8010 ('Star') system in 1981.
Macintosh Desktop (1984) -- Beginning in 1979, led by Jef Raskin, the Lisa and Macintosh teams at Apple Computer (which included former members of the Xerox PARC group) continued to develop such ideas. The Macintosh, released in 1984, was the first commercially successful product to use a GUI. A desktop metaphor was used, in which files looked like pieces of paper; directories looked like file folders; there were a set of desk accessories like a calculator, notepad, and alarm clock that the user could place around the screen as desired; and the user could delete files and folders by dragging them to a trash can on the screen. Drop down menus were also introduced.
There is still some controversy over the amount of influence that Xerox's PARC work, as opposed to previous academic research, had on the GUIs of Apple's Lisa and Macintosh, but it is clear that the influence was extensive, because first versions of Lisa GUIs even lacked icons. These prototype GUIs are at least mouse driven, but ignored completely WIMP concept. Rare screenshots of first GUIs of Apple Lisa prototypes are shown here. Note also that Apple was invited by PARC to view their research, and a number of PARC employees subsequently moved to Apple to work on the Lisa and Macintosh GUI. However, the Apple work extended PARC's considerably, adding windows that can be overlapped, manipulable icons and a fixed menu bar and direct manipulation of objects in the file system (see Macintosh Finder) for example. The modern GUI as we know it owes as much or more to Apple as it does to PARC - it is incorrect to claim that Apple "copied" or "stole" PARC's work. A good article pointing out many of the significant improvements that Apple brought to the GUI over PARC's implementation can be read here (folklore.org)
The Macintosh's GUI has been frequently revised with time since 1984, with major updates including System 7, and underwent its largest revision with the introduction of the "Aqua" interface in 2001's Mac OS X.
I read that not that it was the first but first widely used with GUI. Of course the very same article in the paragraph above said the same thing about Windows 3.0.
I started out with 3.11 so I don't know that much about the other old timey systems.
Windows 3.X info source here
Note: encludes the easter egg info. ;)
Fascinating stuff, indeed!
To go even further back along memory lane, take a look at this:
http://www.bellsystemmemorial.com/te...turephone.html
and the link: http://www.bellsystemmemorial.com/pdf/picturephone2.pdf
Now imagine some executive back then sitting at his desk talking to his accounting manager and wondering, logically..."Hmmm...what if we could use this phone to look at inventory lists and also to send invoices to our customers, and even put our catalog onscreen for them to make purchases! What if...".
Surprising it took over 30 years to get where we are now, although the fear in those days that "picturephones" could be used to invade people's privacy has certainly developed into reality with the webcam and cellphone-incorporated camera!
Human nature never changes!