Gatsby
Joined: 09 Feb 2007
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 Posted: Thu Dec 22, 2011 2:42 am Post subject: The guy who invented the mouse died |
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The guy whose outfit invented much of the basic technology you are using right now, including the mouse, has died. And his name is not Steve Jobs.
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Jacob Goldman, Founder of Xerox Lab, Dies at 90
By JOHN MARKOFF
Published: December 21, 2011
Jacob E. Goldman, a physicist who as Xerox�s chief scientist founded the company�s vaunted Palo Alto Research Center, which invented the modern personal computer, died on Tuesday in Westport, Conn. He was 90 ....
Established in 1970 in an industrial park next to Stanford, PARC researchers designed a remarkable array of computer technologies, including the Alto personal computer, the Ethernet office network, laser printing and the graphical user interface.
The technologies would later be commercialized by both Apple Computer and Microsoft, among others, and Xerox would be criticized for not capitalizing enough on the technologies it had pioneered � for �fumbling the future.�
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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/22/business/jacob-e-goldman-founder-of-xerox-lab-dies-at-90.html?_r=1
The Alto computer, released in 1973, used a graphical user interface, in other words, icons and pull down menus, controlled by a three button mouse.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox_Alto
Sound like a Mac? Guess where Steve Jobs got his "inspiration"? Jobs never invented anything, never wrote a line of computer code. But he does deserve credit for Apple's cute fonts.
Now, Goldman didn't exactly invent the mouse himself, either. And the modern mouse has many fathers, including Douglas Engelbart and Bill English, but Goldman deserves a lot more credit for integrating it into a personal computer than Jobs does.
From Wikipedia:
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Xerox PARC has been the inventor and incubator of many elements of modern computing in the contemporary office work place:
Laser printers,
Computer-generated bitmap graphics
The Graphical user interface, featuring windows and icons, operated with a mouse
The WYSIWYG text editor
InterPress, a resolution-independent graphical page-description language and the precursor to PostScript
Ethernet as a local-area computer network
Fully formed object-oriented programming in the Smalltalk programming language and integrated development environment. |
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox_PARC
Xerox also invented bubble jet printers, and PARC scientists pioneered development of LCDs and optical disks.
Goldman didn't stand up in press conferences with massive video displays behind him to announce his latest inventions. And Xerox did a pretty dismal job of capitalizing on his work. But he does deserve recognition for helping to shape the world of modern computing you are using right now. |
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