> Classic mac OS was partially based on things coming out of
> xerox. I believe Jobs hired on one or several? of the guys
> who worked for xerox to work on the lisa OS. Someone here
> might know that history better.
Not really. The Mac team did interact with the Xerox team as they were
nearby and working on similar ideas. They did demo things to each other.
One of the best stories was about Atkinson seeing a mockup of a graphics
application at XeroxPARC. He thought it was a demo. He then went back to
Apple and programmed a similar application. Later the Xerox folks were
amazed, they had been stumped by the problem.
The Apple team was extremely talented.
I think Steve Jobs spent less than a week at Xerox in Palo Alto. Might
have been just a tour. That's a great way to observe and get ideas, but
he didn't steal code. He built on an idea. Woz was more familiar with
the Xerox technology.
Xerox wasn't the first to use a mouse. They weren't the first to have
GUI. Before Jobs visited Xerox I was already experimenting with a GE
Genigraphics computer for drawing. It used something like a joystick.
The Mac is a huge improvement, but GE had one of the better setups in
the mid-70s to mid-80s.
*************************************************************************
** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy **
** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ **
*************************************************************************
