Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

A Non-Dogmatic History of the GUI

Posted by timothy on from the catmatic-is-better-anyhow dept.

Zoxed writes "Jeremy Reimer provides an 8-page history of GUIs from the early 1930s to the present day. For example, from the conclusion: 'the truth of the story is that the GUI was developed by many different people over a long period of time. Saying that "Apple invented the GUI" or "Apple ripped off the idea from PARC" is overly simplistic, but saying that "Xerox invented the GUI" is equally so.'"

11 of 305 comments (clear)

  1. NEWS FLASH! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    News flash!

    Ars Technica has written yet another story about technology history.

    More on this shocking news as it develops.

  2. 30s gui? now i know what those win32*.* files are. by ultramarweeni · · Score: 4, Funny

    I'd want to see 'Windows 32' up and running. I have these win32* files on my computer, I'm pretty sure they are reminiscents of that ancient 30's GUI. But on what computer hardware would that have been running on?

  3. Jef Raskin by drivinghighway61 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Why, why, why, I invented Ars Technica!
    Jef Raskin

  4. A Slashdot History of The GUI by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...As taken place in IRC

    maoepdmz: apple invent gui, m$ stealz it
    CHRIS: FAG STFU... XEROX MADE FIRST gui
    maoepdmz: no
    jay: microsoft made the gui truly successful
    CHRIS: WTF
    maoepdmz: STFU JAY FAGG0t
    *** jay has been kicked (Suck Bill's cock)
    CHRIS: MY DAD WORKS FOR APPLE, HE WAS THERE WHEN THEY MADE THE GUI FOR LISA AND STEVE JOBS CREATED THE MOUSE
    maoepdmz: raelly?
    CHRIS: YEAH
    maoepdmz: so xerox are liars
    CHRIS: HELLS YEAH THEY TOTALLY RIPPED IT FROM APPLES
    maoepdmz: wow
    gorbulon_neo_matrix21: u all fags, linux had the first gui in 1983... its called x windows system, idiots
    CHRIS: NO, UNIX MADE THAT
    maoepdmz: chris do u have unix
    CHRIS: YES.. ITS L33t
    maoepdmz: can i see screenshot?
    CHRIS: NO

  5. Oh shit by boomgopher · · Score: 5, Funny

    Don't show the Gnome devs this:

    Alto File Manager

    it might end up being the next version of Nautilus...

    --
    Your hybrid is not saving the environment. Its purpose is to make you feel good about buying something.
  6. one word by bird603568 · · Score: 0, Funny

    Porn

  7. Re:Apple bought it from PARC by As+Seen+On+VT · · Score: 5, Funny
    Once we'd bought the GUI from PARC and started to develop it, loads of Xerox engineers started to jump ship and move to Apple - we were where the action was at. This was a hard time for most of us old timers, the PARC engineers were smelly, had facial hair and a tendency to work naked (a very confronting sight).

    Acceptance of the new engineers did slowly grow though. I remember the turning point was when in a weekly meeting where we showed off the latest advances in ASCII porn - a vital part of Apple's plan to get computers into every bedroom - the PARC guys demoed a system of multiple 'windows' containing 4-bit Grayscale photorealistic porn!

    It took a minute to get over the fact that they had used themselves as models, but Steve immediately saw the potential and that won us over they quickly.

  8. Re:GUI is over-rated by Rallion · · Score: 2, Funny

    With a text UI, the user will fly over to Google.

    No. They'd like to, but they won't be able to figure out how.

  9. Doom in CLI by Rallion · · Score: 3, Funny

    > Forward 4 meters
    > Turn left 7 degrees
    > Fire

    1. Re:Doom in CLI by NanoGator · · Score: 4, Funny

      "> Forward 4 meters
      > Turn left 7 degrees
      > Fire"

      Doom in Linux:

      > forward 4 meters
      > error
      > frwrd 4 mtrs
      > error
      > man doom
      > error
      > @#$#@$#@
      > error
      > man Doom ......

      --
      "Derp de derp."
  10. Re:GUI is over-rated by mabinogi · · Score: 2, Funny

    Nooooo, now we have Nazi Nazis!

    --
    Advanced users are users too!