Xerox Alto Computer

[MrC0MPUT3R]

Then Steve Jobs stole the design

[invisibletenants]

Don't forget that the GUI and Lightpen also were around in the 60's :P what happened? Did we all hibernate in the 80's and 90's? Check out Engelbart's demo form 1968 - Video LAN, Virtual Computing, GUIs in the 60's - we should have PCs implanted in our heads by now lol

[sonichedgie]

Shit , Negrosoft stole Xerox .

[yamazakiT01]

I am Japanese. "Xerox Alto Computer" has translated the video. (Google translation)

[Music4PeaceToday]

If only there was an English translation...

[ZuLuuuuuu]

Is there an English subtitled version?

[GuyWithGuitars1]

Actually, Jobs admitted to copying this design. It's common knowledge. It took Jobs' brilliance to recognize it and bring it to a mass market. After all, Apple was looking for a new idea and they are a computer company. Xerox got a shitload of Apple stock for Apple borrowing the idea. Xerox had no interest or capacity to bring a personal computer to the consumer. That's why Xerox invited Steve Jobs to PARC and check out the Alto.

[cameraman4brainiac]

i worked at apple when the macintosh was invented, and yes we copied the alto in almost all dimensions... it wasnt my idea

[tremain1066]

I worked at PARK

I purchased an Alto which my wife used for wordprocessing, and taught my children

At PARK, my children played vidio games over the LAN

Xerox management made one of the biggest mystakes evey!!

Very well paid

Failed the company

Bob Tremain

[Uncompetative]

blah

[shaq147]

Xerox made the first computer with a graphical user interface. Then they invited apple to take a look at it and they used Xerox's idea and developed the Mac! Poor Xerox =(

[HTPtheFirst]

I really wish I could buy one of these.

[zakawer]

Lol shitty Japanese review"!!!3yuure9drgjug8itujgt­oipujf9gvhjg8hburbvurgvurgbhij­acking pcpcpcpcpcpcpcpsospamspas,aps,

[lactomangulators]

is there anyone here who remembers using a computer like this in the early 1970s?

I read that a number of Xerox Altos were given to the computer science department at Stanford and the machines as well as the Ethernet network were used by staff in the White House during the Carter administration (1976-1980).

[sereda008]

In one of these videos about this computer I nearly laughed myself to death. "...which is called a mouse...". God, I wonder what would have happened if you would try to run crysis on one of these tin cans. This thing does not even seem to support any other colour other than black and white.

[DREWizC00L]

@sereda008

It plays Crysis at 100 fps. O.o

[sereda008]

@DREWizC00L Yeah, the word itself if overclocked by 200%.

[VRock121]

this is not from 1974 lol...

[computerfis]

this IS from the 1974 yes!

[wowlvl2noob]

it does even say so on the screen..

[ChoclateSailor]

0:37 first meme :')

[6364gg2]

HOLY SHIT!!! If the alto was just a few mhz faster it woud be the best computer ever!!!

[kinmanyuen]

haha i have nothing to complain in 1974?

awesome!

[Elevationary]

And lets have a look at the man who soposedly invented the light Bulb,i heard he commited alot of fraud with Patents,and the real man who actually invented the light bulb was actually a man called Tesla,Tesla was an Employee of Thomas Edison,thats why i dont trust American Patent Law!

[4130films]

Dude I know!! Thomas Edison was an asshole!! Tesla was freaking awesome, though!

[bobbystar101]

@Elevationary No thats wrong, testa didnt invent it. Tesla wasn't even born (neither were Edison or Swan) when it was first invented...

[technofreak23]

@Elevationary (Firstly, I apologize for a late reply) Tesla?

Don't know about Telsla but Thomas Edison wasn't the first. Far from it. However, his design was the best compared to the processors.

[technofreak23]

@technofreak23

Mathew Evans is one of two Canadians who developed and patented an incandescent light bulb, on July 24, 1874, five years before Thomas Alva Edison's U.S. patent on the device.

Evans, from Toronto, Ontario, and his friend Henry Woodward, made the light bulb by sending electricity through a filament made of carbon.

The two men had patented it but did not have enough money to develop their invention, so they sold their US patent 181,613 to Thomas Edison for.

[technofreak23]

@technofreak23 US$5,000 ($US 100,000 in 2006 dollars). They also granted Edison an exclusive licence to their equivalent Canadian patent.

Source: Wikipedia.

[Elevationary]

Can any one please tell me why have i heard the comment "apple invented the mouse" when in fact it was xerox?,i remember professors telling me that Apple invented the mouse???????,was the Xerox computer where it really all started??,and what kind of operating system did it have in 1973?

[MirekMateju]

Wikipedia is your friend!

[Elevationary]

No actually,i remember at college and university, all the college professors said it.......,and they all had apple 1s,2s,and Gs's,and macintosh 2s,and they all said it,i dont trust Wikipedia....i really dont,there are alot of inaccuracies in Wikipedia that are brought on by propaganda/competiveness in politcs,Corporations,one of the other reasons why i dont trust it, is becasue it manipulates and steals credibility from the people who acually invented the mouse.......

[MirekMateju]

OK, it's your opinion. However, I would ask: Aren't the Mac-using professors sponsored by Apple to say it? Are they really a more relevant source than Wikipedia, where you can see, among others, who and when patented the predecessors of computer mice?

[Elevationary]

I would love to know if xerox patented the mouse before Apple,becasue they did invent a basic desktop with a mouse and keyboard in 1976.and it was big and heavy,it looked like a big imagewriter inkjet,thats how heavy they were.but they never got any credibility for it,did they loose the patent,and thus apple swooped in and took advantage of it,becasue it was not marketed publicly,and the xerox company did turn it down,im trying to find out if patent law made it look like apple invented it first?

[MrColuber]

I think Stanford whatnot invented the mouse in the sixties.

[superspit]

@Elevationary

Hi, the mouse, chorded key set, track-ball (and other devices, systems we take for granted today) were created by a lovely man called Douglas Englebart.

He never patented the devices (he was never interested in making money primarily), but his wonderful inventions were bought by Xerox(?) for around 10,000 dollars....the man is still alive today,..hasn't got a lot of money, but is sooo coool!

[spintriae]

@superspit Douglas Engelbart did patent the mouse in 1970.

[superviewer]

@Elevationary Xerox did not invent the computer mouse either - look into the history of the pointing device. The first commercial mouse was bundled with the Xerox Star in 1981 but the mouse (like the GUI) was not excepted on a mainstream level until the Mac in 1984.

[SeltsamerAttraktor]

@Elevationary Douglas Engelbert invented the computer mouse in the 60s. Have a look here /watch?v=JfIgzSoTMOs

[houou100]

@Elevationary Apple did invent shitty mice, though.

[sereda008]

@Elevationary, Douglas Engelbart invented the mouse in 1963

[bobbystar101]

@Elevationary Neither of them did it was a man named englebart. Google him, he invented a lot of things we take for advantage now and even some we still consider fairly new like video conferencing.

[Elevationary]

@bobbystar101 Thanks,i believe you,i think the Corporations are trying to steal all the Credits,through the patents and the copyrights.......

[atrn]

@Elevationary Your "professors" are simply ignorant. And BTW, Xerox didn't invent the mouse either. Look up Doug Engelbart.

[Elevationary]

@atrn Thanks but it still contradicts xerox and apple for stealing all the credit.....i never hear of Doug Engelbart..

[terrorzilla]

@Elevationary You have your facts wrong. Doug Engelbart invented the mouse in the 1960s. Apple popularized it by including it with their Lisa in '83 and the Mac a year later. It didn't "all" start with the Alto.

[technofreak23]

@terrorzilla

- The trackball was invented by Tom Cranston, Fred Longstaff and Kenyon Taylor working on the Royal Canadian Navy's DATAR project in 1952

-Independently, Douglas Engelbart at the Stanford Research Institute invented the first mouse prototype in 1963, with the assistance of his colleague Bill English - They christened the device the mouse as early models had a cord attached to the rear part of the device looking like a tail and generally resembling the common mouse

[technofreak23]

@technofreak23

- Just a few weeks before Engelbart released his demo in 1968, a mouse has already been developed and published by the German company Telefunken. Unlike Engelbart's mouse, the Telefunken model had a ball, as it can be seen in most later models until today

-The second marketed integrated mouse shipped as a part of a computer and intended for personal computer navigation came with the Xerox 8010 Star Information System in 1981. However, the mouse remained relatively

[technofreak23]

@technofreak23 obscure until the appearance of the Apple Macintosh, which included an updated version of the original Lisa Mouse

Gotto Love Wikipedia.

[PineHead666]

@Elevationary Well actually as i recall from a documentary and/or article i read, Apple bought the idea (or the rights) to use the Mouse and the GUI. A lot of people with Apple invented these things is because Xerox donated a lot of computers to stanford and MIT, but they had no success in commercializing the product (mainly because of its price $32,000) so they sold the idea to Apple.

______________

!!WARNING!!

some of the info may not be 100% fact,

this is just what i recall from an article.

[Malkmusianful]

@Elevationary The Xerox Alto tends to be ignored.

If anything, Apple popularized the modern two-button mouse.

[synthetase00]

@Elevationary Actually, it was Douglas Engelbart at the Augmentation Lab in Stanford who invented the mouse. And Apple did not invent the mouse, but the they implemented in and made it popular. Much of the GUI interface of the Lisa and Macintosh computers were inspired by what they saw at Xerox Parc.

[ZuLuuuuuu]

@Elevationary Well it wasn't Xerox either. It was a scientist called Douglas Engelbart who invented the mouse, though it remained experimental. Then Xerox researchers made a complete computer with mouse, but Xerox never saw the value in it. And then Steve Jobs saw the value in it, polished it for easier usage and made it available to humanity. I have respect for all three people/researchers for their effort and vision for the mouse.

[sfourne2]

is flipper was a game on alto ? or other computer? i can't believe this game was released on alto in 1974 ...it seem good like a game of the end of 80's !!!

[sfourne2]

games were very very modernous ,it's incredible !

[6364gg2]

Wow! So cool and advanced for thhe time! I bet it can do youtube!!!!

[SaturnEternity]

1973 wow thats 10 years before Apple bought the GUI patent from Xerox and used it in the Lisa!

[andrewschule]

thats so cool! Its a huge computer1

[rubber4532]

was that alan kay?

[DrxSlump]

Yes.

[31rS3RP3N7]

floppy disks back thenn....

[jojje302]

Who's that fucking chineese talking?! You can't hear what they're saying!

[Phunker1]

That´s Japanese you twat

[sfourne2]

this video prove that gates and job are derobed their innovations

[someman7]

Apple first, and I wouldn't call it teft anymore (I dislike Microsoft for other reasons ;-] ). Knowledge should be free.

[sfourne2]

it's incredible this computer was launched in 1976 et had ten years advance against others computers

[6364gg2]

1:28 ???

[EuroCarfan00]

the father of all Macs and Lisas!

[RyantheCanuckpirate]

Holy shit, an object oriented OS!

[someman7]

I still don't know what that means. If it means OOP of the OS - I still don't know how that helps.

[TokenLander]

The OS was written in Smalltalk which is a fully object oriented language. AFAIK there was only a few kilobytes of assembler for the VM. So basically the whole system run on what would these days be called a managed language.

[someman7]

Well C++ is an OO language, but if you don't use classes to convey data or program an OS' functions, then the OS is still unworthy of the name OOOS :-)

[TokenLander]

It seems that the actual Alto OS was written in BCPL and later in MESA, but it only offered the most basic routines, so it was more like an BIOS than an OS. Handling higher level tasks like multiprocessing and UI was left to the Smalltalk layer (or similar systems running on top of the Alto OS).

[funnytim08]

Wicked computer...lol