Busy Being Born (2004)

Re:Busy Being Born (2004) by reaperducer on Sunday May 16, 2021 @09:32PM (#27179154)

I've been through much of folklore.org in the past, but I missed this part the other times:

"...into a mouse/windows based user interface. This is obviously the biggest single jump in the entire set of photographs, and the place where I most wish that Bill had dated them. It's tempting to say that the change was caused by the famous Xerox PARC visit, which took place in mid-December 1979, but Bill thinks that the windows predated that, although he can't say for sure."

Considering the amount of work it would take for a single person building a text-based computer prototype to switch to a WIMP-based computer prototype in the late 1970's, I think that Bill is being modest. People used to be that way.

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Re:Busy Being Born (2004) by cmrdporcupine on Sunday May 16, 2021 @11:19PM (#27179769)

The thing is that that first windowed interface has such striking resemblance stylistically to the Smalltalk interface (see Smalltalk 76, black titlebars, minimalistic windows, etc) I'd have a hard time believing it wasn't influenced by the visit.

Even more so, look at this Smalltalk 74 interface here: https://computerhistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Small...

I'm still not clear on what the Apple team saw at PARC that day, but it seems like it made a huge impression at least to start.

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