How Steve Jobs got the ideas of GUI from XEROX
Ringo PebamCited 4× on HN, 2016-2025
272K views · 12 years ago · explainer · evergreen
A short video telling how Xerox PARC invented the graphical user interface and how Steve Jobs's 1979 visit influenced Apple's Lisa.
HN cites it as a reference in debates over how much Apple borrowed from Xerox and what Xerox management failed to see.
17:10Xerox Star User Interface: An overview
ACM SIGCHI
20K views • 5 years ago
0:57Steve Jobs talks about what he saw and he missed at Xerox PARC
Yoshiki Ohshima (大島芳樹)
21K views • 8 years ago
2:20:15The Final Demonstration of the Xerox 'Star' computer
Computer History Museum
22K views • 13 years ago
8:01Xerox Star User Interface (1982) 2 of 2
VintageCG
57K views • 17 years ago
8:42Xerox Star User Interface (1982) 1 of 2
VintageCG
337K views • 17 years ago
42:38VCF East: Xerox Star vs. Apple Lisa
Vintage Computer Federation
41K views • 5 years ago
24:30Bill Atkinson: Polaroids showing the Evolution of the Lisa GUI
Computer History Museum
13K views • 1 year ago
1:57:00Origins of the Apple Human Interface
Computer History Museum
13K views • 7 years ago
14:02Computers for Cynics 2 - It All Went Wrong at Xerox PARC
TheTedNelson
23K views • 14 years ago
1:20:30Steve Jobs Introduces the Macintosh
Computer History Museum
1.6M views • 10 years ago
25:48Ted Nelson struggles with uncomprehending radio interviewer, 1979
TheTedNelson
19K views • 9 years ago
16:48Yesterday's Computer of Tomorrow: The Xerox Alto │Smalltalk-76 Demo
Computer History Museum
38K views • 8 years ago
7:26Ted Nelson's Eulogy for Douglas Engelbart
Computer History Museum
17K views • 12 years ago
1:56:07Eric Bier Demonstrates Cedar
Computer History Museum
8K views • 7 years ago
17:33Alan Kay's tribute to Ted Nelson at "Intertwingled" Festival
TheTedNelson
41K views • 12 years ago
26:52The Computer Chronicles - Hypercard (1987)
The Computer Chronicles
53K views • 13 years ago
35:07NeXTSTEP Release 3: A Demonstration with Steve Jobs
Joseph Spiros
184K views • 6 years ago
14:46Computers for Cynics 0 - The Myth of Technology
TheTedNelson
33K views • 14 years ago
49:39NeWS: A Networked and Extensible Window System, lecture by James Gosling
Computer History Museum
5K views • 10 years ago
5:46Apple Knowledge Navigator Video (1987)
Mac History
235K views • 14 years ago
4 comments from Hacker News
To be fair, Steve Jobs acknowledged this in a 1990s interview: "And they showed me, really, three things, but I was so blinded by the first one that I didn't even really see the other two. One of the things they showed me was object-oriented programming. They showed me that, but I didn't even see that. The other one they showed me was really a networked computer system. They had over 100 Alto computers all networked using email, etc., etc., but I didn't see that. I was so blinded by the first thing they showed me, which was the graphical user interface. I thought it was the best thing I've ever seen in my life." ▶ this video Jobs would revisit object-oriented programming and networked computing when he started NeXT in 1985. NeXT is closer to the Smalltalk environment than the original Macintosh was, with its support for networking thanks to its 4.2BSD underpinnings and with its object-oriented APIs and programming environment, coded in Objective-C, which is essentially the Smalltalk object model on top of C. There's another Xerox PARC-inspired technology that was a core part of the NeXT experience: Display PostScript, which was NeXTSTEP's foundation for rendering graphics. While PostScript is an Adobe product, Adobe was founded by the creators of Interpress, an earlier page description language that was a Xerox PARC project. Steve Jobs definitely knew a good thing when he saw it :)
They copied Xerox's Alto idea: ▶ this video I have a similar idea, link To build a FOSS Apple, one needs to build what Xerox did: A time machine. link link
Dealers in Lightning would seem to contradict Gladwell's account plus the first video with the others being background. link ▶ this video link
Here is the piece[1] where Adele Goldberg explains how she warned Xerox executives about not giving away the kitchen sink to Steve Jobs (taken from Robert Cringely's "Triumph of the Nerds" documentary) [1] ▶ this video