The Final Demonstration of the Xerox 'Star' computer

[@disruptive_innovator]

I have often heard about Star's influence on modern GUI design but it was hard for me to find examples of it in operation. Thank you!

[@drjzzz]

Thank you for increasing the sound volume from the previous posting. This was great work and it is a pleasure to learn the history.

[@genius1a]

This example shows, how a mediocre recording quality still provides way more interesting information than a newly recorded demo by somebody else, using the latest and greatest. You can see how the actual designers intended it to use and what their attidtude was in designing it. I have seen other demos, but this was by far the most impressive and informative one. I'm shocked how good it was back then! On the other hand - I grew up exactly at the time, and it was clear, that my father's engineering company had to use affordable tech while stepping up with the technology. He had to start with an already outdated Alphatronic in 1980 for database centered calculations and printing , and went up to the best available Inkjet plotters - because that made the money come in. Word processing had to be done on underwhelming outdated machines, because they were good enough to do the job. Up to 1989 my mother did all word processing on monochrome character displays. Windows 2000 changed that, because it was affordable enough and would run on any clone hardware. On the way we saw many competitors struggling under the weight of too early and too costly adaption of new tech. On the other hand, I have to applaud to the extremely task oriented thinking and the - up to our time and age - resonating developments they made along this groundbreaking route. Excellent and heartwarming people !

[@Emophiliac2]

It was handy living in the Bay area back in the late 90s. Yup, I was in the audience for this presentation. I had seen Lisa back in the 80s, so it was interesting to see the system that lead up to that.

[@Ichinin]

54:28 - Start of demo

[@ifanbland]

I actually worked at Xerox where these computers was being used by the staff. Mainly for communications between employees. This would was around the late 90s.

[@chandrab]

I'd love to see an emulator of the Xerox Star available for us to experience this...it's such an incredible system. I'm aware of SALTO, but not sure it's workling yet.

[@DandyDon1]

Star for the PC was introduced many years ago, first to run on X386, known as GVWIN v1.0

[@mspeter97]

@@DandyDon1 There's the darkstar emulator now too

[@conoba]

An amazing system. I think it downfall was it was too "closed". No hardware expansion bus and every aspect of the OS was designed to be the perfect office environment but nothing more. Other machines and OS of the time were not designed as well but they allowed for more than the manufacturer intended or thought of.

[@marcfield1234]

And to think this was just handed over to Steve Jobs because they couldn't see the value in it. Xerox could have owned the entire computer industry.

[@UnicyclDev]

Don’t believe this myopic narrative perpetrated by the media. It makes for a more compelling story but fails to understand just how many competing companies where utilizing new hardware to improve user interface.

[@DandyDon1]

Today in 2019 software still ISN'T 1000 times better :)

[@DandyDon1]

Unfortunately from an information search Dr. Mark Weiser is no longer with us. He passed away on April 27, 1999. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Weiser

[@michaelgreenberg6344]

It's so sad that now they talk about Sun Microsystems in talks on computer history

[@ABitOfTheUniverse]

Looking forward to your work with Jóhann Jóhannsson. I know computers are bigger than some musician. Maybe when the machines look back at how we cared for their creation they will be merciful to some of us. Maybe they won't kill the descendants of their ancestors caretakers. Or, maybe we should destroy them all and revert back to life before technology. We could fight lions with our bare hands and evolve claws and teeth and be like raptors. I don't wanna be a raptor though. I wanna be a wizard.

[@MirekFe]

I'm glad that the machines will spare me. Lol. I've always taken care of my tech. Constantly baby them to this day.

[@wutzerface77]

3 MEGAbit ethernet!!?? IN THE 70s?!!!?!?!?

[@superviewer]

Now if someone could just create a screen record app for the Salto :)

[@Jebbidan]

That would be an impossible thing to do because the machine itself wasn't powerful enough to record its own screen. But it is still possible with the help of an extension

[@Drewitall54]

You could probably use a capture card

[@genius1a]

I think nowadays you could as well digitize a high resolution camera recording down to each Pixel. With less effort than to do it in the system or inside an emulator.

[@psycho0815]

Textverarbeitung....

[@coinbiker5548]

I can here all the computer fans. lol.

[@compu85]

Each 8010 has several large, 110v fans in the bottom!