Xerox Star User Interface: An overview

[@iMajed]

13:26 The hamburger button is older than i thought.

[@PhotonCrasher]

Excellent find! Thank you!

[@SoundOfYourDestiny]

I wonder what it did in that context.

[@PhotonCrasher]

Wow, look how uncluttered that text editor is! How simple the user interface is! I now recognize this as a direct ancestor to modern day "Desktop Metaphor/ Windows" user-interface. How cool!

[@poudink5791]

You call it uncluttered, I call it insufficient. That's obviously to be expected from perhaps the first GUI word processor and what Xerox accomplished here is seriously impressive, but I won't try to spin a clear lack of essential features universal to newer word processors as a positive. Also, even then it only achieves the uncluttered look by shoving half the options in a hamburger button, which are perhaps the worst thing Xerox has ever invented.

[@DandyDon1]

@@poudink5791 No.... There were many dedicated function buttons to do what you needed it to do. Much of the screen coding, margins, tabs, carrier returns etc. could be turned on or off depending on the view you wanted.

[@MichaelSengers]

I used to work for Xerox and was using this product. Mainly with the Xerox 6085. Nice to see this video

[@steveavecillas1114]

Do you communicate with other employees by network email at work ..

[@MichaelSengers]

@@steveavecillas1114 in those days I did. Also to email accounts outside the company. That was before emails were used globally

[@steveavecillas1114]

Imagine if xerox sold there star operation system to every pc companies. In the 80s .. .. ... .. .. So were there internet provides in the 1980s to access the internet 🤔

[@MichaelSengers]

@@steveavecillas1114 indeed. Xerox would have been a major player. They didn't believe in it and focused on copiers and printers

[@MrDuncl]

@@steveavecillas1114 The only other companies capable of making the required hardware back then were big rivals IBM and DEC. Xerox did get some shares from some small home computer company called Apple in exchange for letting them see what they were up to. I wonder whatever happened to them 🙂

[@chauncygardiner9572]

I used to be a Xeroid. Was involved in the launch of the 8010 Star in 1981. In some ways, with the exception of advancements in speed, memory & storage, It still beats anything out there today. The largest storage configuration was 3-100mb disc packs (yes, that's right - MEGABYTES). The software had to be hand-loaded from a giant stack of 8" floppys. Apple & Microsoft stole everything, just making minor tweaks (to avoid lawsuits) like using just documents & folders instead of doc's, folders & file cabinets. Also, moving, copying & replacing has never been improved upon. There's an excellent book out there called "How Xerox Fumbled The Future", that tells the whole story.

[@doctorpanigrahi9975]

You should sue Apple and Microsoft

[@chauncygardiner9572]

No computers were necessary to run it. It could be stand -alone or networked. After they stole the technology, Apple and Microsoft products became obsolete every 6 months. That's how fast things were evolving back then. Not just bad timing.@@csuporj

[@MrDuncl]

Fascinating to see the Father of Windows and MacOS. Back in the mid 1980s I was using Racal Redac CAD systems. Because they used a large graphics tablet where everything was fixed they took a different approach for custom commands. A piece of paper slid under the tablets transparent surface had an area printed with all the commonly used commands which you could select with the tablet pen. On our systems the two zoom (which was about fifteen years ahead of any other system I used) areas got very worn from constant use. A problem with going from that system to a mouse was remembering that you couldn't pick the mouse up if for example going from one corner of the screen to another.

[@wraynephew6838]

Not only the Father Windows and MAC OS the father of Linux and GUI on a whole

[@sherbournesubwaymess]

Douglas Engelbart is the father of modern computing: Windows/Mac and even stuff we use today.

[@sharefail]

It feels like the 80s progressed backwards. Even the chair is nicer than the ones they sell on Amazon these days.

[@MaxSDVXXXL]

И это было ещё до создания Windows, Биллом Гейтсом. безумие!

[@apl175]

and that's how it all started.....

[@johnhanselman6371]

Anything that uses no paper must be the enemy according to Xerox of Rochester NY.

[@sashakoshka]

i'm trying get a raspberry pi to look and behave exactly like this (although without the special command keys, cause modern keyboard don't have those)

[@mirrorcatz]

Steve Jobs : Bill, You're stealing from us! Bill Gates : Get real, would ya? You and I are both like guys who had this rich neighbor - Xerox - who left the door open all the time. And you go sneakin' in to steal a TV set. Only when you get there, you realize that I got there first. I got the loot, Steve! And you're yellin'? "That's not fair. I wanted to try to steal it first." You're too late. Steve Jobs : We're better than you are! We have better stuff. Bill Gates : You don't get it, Steve. That doesn't matter! 😂

[@SoundOfYourDestiny]

You have the order reversed there.

[@MildMisanthropeMaybeMassive]

@@SoundOfYourDestiny This is a scene from _Pirates of Silicon Valley._

[@M1cler]

Oj tam Oj tam :> chyba mi wybaczysz co :)?

[@DEXXXO]

Xerox are the wherry STAR on UI PC indurstrie , icredible at this time such an Genius invent. They are the real Gurus not Apple or else has only copied this Idea

[@Beanmaster73]

Apple stole this idea

[@niveditasrinivasan7070]

Pretty much.

[@jeffreycarldean]

Purchased. Or, more precisely, made a stock deal with Xerox for access to the Parc lab technology.

[@jordanzish]

Xerox management was uninterested and gave it away.

[@lynskyrd]

ah no- get your facts straight. XEROX literally GAVE Steve Jobs their 'gold mine'- even when Steve Jobs himself said to them- 'Do you realize what you have here? You're sitting on a gold mine!" - the XEROX Execs didn't see it and didn't want to invest anymore R&D money to bring the thing to market full scale. So no- Apple did NOT steal from XEROX.

[@phoenix0282]

Its not a steal if you give it away