While we know better, I still find it amusing that people believe that jobs was “visiting” PARC, or given a “tour,” saw the Alto/Star/whatever machine running the GUI, ran back to Apple and “stole” Xerox’s ideas and created the Mac. I find it amusing because there is ample evidence to prove no such thing ever happened, in reality it was a business deal that in essence traded Apple stock for use of Xerox IP, but I guess the conspiracy sites are more fun to read. Tony Sent from my iPhone
On Aug 17, 2020, at 4:49 PM, Dean Notarnicola via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
Yes, exactly. They were focused on advanced document processing systems and couldn’t even hold onto that market, even with such advanced tech.
On Mon, Aug 17, 2020 at 4:46 PM Adam Michlin <amichlin@swerlin.com> wrote:
My father, who was working at Exxon at the time, got special permission
through his boss to visit PARC some time, he thinks, between 78-82...
not entirely sure. He is pretty certain it was before Jobs visited, but
he can't be sure. Apparently he had to all but sign his first born away
(*phew*) that he wouldn't leak any secrets.
What he is crystal clear on is that he was shown the Alto and the Dorado
and not the Star and that Xerox had no commericial products of the GUI
computer ilk. He would later purchase a Star as part of responsibilities
at Exxon, probably around 1983.
As to how Xerox could have dropped the ball.. it is more like how could
they not have dropped the ball. They were a *copier* company and they
were making money hand over fist selling copiers. This new fangled
computer business? Meh. They also lost out on the personal laser printer
and Ethernet (double doh!).
On 8/17/2020 3:07 PM, Dean Notarnicola via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
Turns out it was Altos. The Star was the commercialized successor to the
Alto.
On Mon, Aug 17, 2020 at 2:59 PM Jeffrey Brace via vcf-midatlantic <
vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
On Mon, Aug 17, 2020 at 10:08 AM Andrew Diller <dillera@gmail.com> wrote:
I know DavidG has done some amazing work (along with other members) on
VCF's 8010 (*Dandelion)*... And strangely enough the same day (yesterday)
someone on the SGI Discord I frequent posted this amazing video, which I
thought I'd share to interested people here:
Of a Daybreak (*Xerox 6085)* booting up into ViewPoint 2.0 and using the
apps. VCF also has a Daybreak which would be great to get fully
functional
again as well.
I'm not sure of the dates, but do people know if the Xerox Star would
have
been the system that Jobs and the Apple team viewed at Xerox back when
they
had their infamous visits? Or were those Altos?
I wonder if the book "Dealers of Lightning" has any details about this.
-andy
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Jeff Brace
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Vintage Computer Festival East Show-runner
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