RE: [OT] History of the mouse
Microsoft Windows was actually a bit of a workup of a different piece of software, with "look and feel" improvements mostly (hm I never thought about this in this context before, but it goes back to the old "Microsoft doesn't innovate, they assimilate" quotes...) and a few minor technical improvements thrown in. The original software was developed 1983ish and was called Deskview under one of it's incarnations. Deskview was licensed to a number of other companies for "tweaking" improvements, and resold... I used to own (still do, if I could find the disk) a copy of Deskview by Indian Head Software, but I'm pretty sure that was a tweaked version. I think Deskview was owned at one time by Symantec. Windows Version 1.0 was nearly identical in performance and abilities with Deskview ie., it was pretty primitive. It did allow for multitasking for the first time on an x86 architecture, though. Windows 2.0 was superior to Deskview so clearly that Deskview faded from the picture, and was all but gone by 1989. In return, of course, Windows 2.0 was supplanted in 1990 by Windows 3.0, a much more usable (no snickering) interface and system. The rest everyone knows, I'm sure. Bill Ward -Original Message- From: Alan Mead [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, December 22, 1999 2:26 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: recipient.list.not.shown; @nswcphdn.navy.mil Subject: [OT] History of the mouse Thanks for all the replies. My notes are at home, from memory here are the seemingly reliable bits: snip Somewhere in here Microsoft Windows was launched. The first couple versions were pretty primitive by today's standards but the 3.x line was commercial success with wide software vendor support. Details are unclear, but Windows seems to have copied a great deal from the Apple, at least in terms of "look and feel". There are references to legal friction and deals between Gates and Jobs. Somewhere in there (1985 by one account) X was created at MIT. I haven't found much info about the early motivations of X nor its intellectual relations with other GUIs. Apparently Sun had a GUI SunView before X existed. From the brief descriptions (e.g., discussions of 'window managers'), it sounds like X was like the GUIs developed at Xerox PARC. -Alan --- Alan D. Mead / Research Scientist / [EMAIL PROTECTED] Institute for Personality and Ability Testing 1801 Woodfield Dr / Savoy IL 61874 USA 217-352-4739 (v) / 217-352-9674 (f) -- To unsubscribe: mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe" as the Subject. -- To unsubscribe: mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe" as the Subject.
RE: [OT] History of the mouse
The original software was developed 1983ish and was called Deskview under one of it's incarnations. Deskview was licensed to a number of other companies for "tweaking" improvements, and resold... I used to own (still do, if I could find the disk) a copy of Deskview by Indian Head Software, but I'm pretty sure that was a tweaked version. I think Deskview was owned at one time by Symantec. Windows Version 1.0 was nearly identical in performance and abilities with Deskview ie., it was pretty primitive. It did allow for multitasking for the first time on an x86 architecture, though. Windows 2.0 was superior to Deskview so clearly that Deskview faded from the picture, and was all but gone by 1989. In return, of course, Windows 2.0 was supplanted in 1990 by Windows 3.0, a much more usable (no snickering) interface and system. The rest everyone knows, I'm sure. This isn't the same as QuarterDeck's DesqView, is it? I used it long before Windows 3.0 came out, multi-tasking DOS apps. Worked great on a 386-25. -- Juha -- To unsubscribe: mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe" as the Subject.
RE: [OT] History of the mouse
Quarterdeck was, if I recall correctly, another of the licensed versions. Or perhaps I misremember, and Quarterdeck was the original source (pretty sure it's the other way, though... I got it back on an old 8088/2 XT (8Mhz bugger). Bill Ward -Original Message- From: Juha Saarinen [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, December 23, 1999 2:57 PM To: Ward William E PHDN; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [OT] History of the mouse The original software was developed 1983ish and was called Deskview under one of it's incarnations. Deskview was licensed to a number of other companies for "tweaking" improvements, and resold... I used to own (still do, if I could find the disk) a copy of Deskview by Indian Head Software, but I'm pretty sure that was a tweaked version. I think Deskview was owned at one time by Symantec. Windows Version 1.0 was nearly identical in performance and abilities with Deskview ie., it was pretty primitive. It did allow for multitasking for the first time on an x86 architecture, though. Windows 2.0 was superior to Deskview so clearly that Deskview faded from the picture, and was all but gone by 1989. In return, of course, Windows 2.0 was supplanted in 1990 by Windows 3.0, a much more usable (no snickering) interface and system. The rest everyone knows, I'm sure. This isn't the same as QuarterDeck's DesqView, is it? I used it long before Windows 3.0 came out, multi-tasking DOS apps. Worked great on a 386-25. -- Juha -- To unsubscribe: mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe" as the Subject.
RE: [OT] History of the mouse
I don't know much about the early macs, but I do know that BASIC was part and parcel of the OS for several micros of that era - Commodore PET and 64, Apple and Apple II, maybe even the earliest IBM PC/XT machines. I On the original IBM PC/XT, if you did not insert a bootable floppy on startup, the box booted into BASIC mode, that was in a "BIOS like" chip in the motherboard. -Manuel. -- To unsubscribe: mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe" as the Subject.
Re: [OT] History of the mouse
Somewhere in here Microsoft Windows was launched. The first couple Yep. I remember that on my first MSWindows the mouse was mentioned as an "optional" item. BTW, I run the earliest Windows in an 8 MHz 8088, 640K of RAM and 20MB HDD. No mouse at all... Then I bought a Logitech Bus mouse for about $50 to work windows out. -Manuel. -- To unsubscribe: mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe" as the Subject.
Re: [OT] History of the mouse
On Thu, 23 Dec 1999, Manuel Camacho wrote: Somewhere in here Microsoft Windows was launched. The first couple Yep. I remember that on my first MSWindows the mouse was mentioned as an "optional" item. BTW, I run the earliest Windows in an 8 MHz 8088, 640K of RAM and 20MB HDD. No mouse at all... Then I bought a Logitech Bus mouse for about $50 to work windows out. Just think that now you can buy one for $5... ;-) Merry christmas for all :-) -- "And I'm happy, because you make me feel good, about me." - Melvin Udall - Martín Marqués email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Santa Fe - Argentinahttp://math.unl.edu.ar/~martin/ Administrador de sistemas en math.unl.edu.ar - -- To unsubscribe: mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe" as the Subject.
RE: [OT] History of the mouse
Now that you say so, I think DesqView was bought by Quarterdeck, but I'm not 100% sure. Don't think MS Windows was based on it though. -- Juha -Original Message- From: Ward William E PHDN [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, 24 December 1999 09:17 To: 'Juha Saarinen'; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [OT] History of the mouse Quarterdeck was, if I recall correctly, another of the licensed versions. Or perhaps I misremember, and Quarterdeck was the original source (pretty sure it's the other way, though... I got it back on an old 8088/2 XT (8Mhz bugger). Bill Ward -- To unsubscribe: mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe" as the Subject.
RE: [OT] History of the mouse
Thanks for all the replies. My notes are at home, from memory here are the seemingly reliable bits: The mouse was probably developed by Englebart at SRI in the mid 60's (1965?). Someone said it was a cheap replacement for the lightpen which had been in use for some time. By 1968 there were references to it elsewhere. snip Has it been mentioned that the original mouse was made out of wood? -- Juha -- To unsubscribe: mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe" as the Subject.
RE: [OT] History of the mouse
At 10:01 AM 12/23/99 +1300, Juha Saarinen wrote: Has it been mentioned that the original mouse was made out of wood? I've seen reference to copies being made of wood. I inferred that the original was plastic or metal. I guess plastic was a revolutionary material for computers since it's mentioned that the original Apple computers were plastic. As for SmallTalk being an OS, I dont know but IIRC BASIC was essentially the OS of the early Macs. -Alan --- Alan D. Mead / Research Scientist / [EMAIL PROTECTED] Institute for Personality and Ability Testing 1801 Woodfield Dr / Savoy IL 61874 USA 217-352-4739 (v) / 217-352-9674 (f) -- To unsubscribe: mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe" as the Subject.
RE: [OT] History of the mouse
On Wed, 22 Dec 1999, Alan Mead wrote: As for SmallTalk being an OS, I dont know but IIRC BASIC was essentially the OS of the early Macs. I don't know much about the early macs, but I do know that BASIC was part and parcel of the OS for several micros of that era - Commodore PET and 64, Apple and Apple II, maybe even the earliest IBM PC/XT machines. I would have guessed that the first Macs were Apple's first departure from BASIC-as-OS, but I've never been much interested in Macs so I don't really know. If memory serves, I saw reference to part of the system ROM for an old 386 being designated for BASIC (alongside the BIOS). It was of course used for other things (or nothing) by that time, but there were still traces of it in the documentation. This was backs when serial and parallel port pinouts and even timing diagrams were commonly included with the computers.. I had some exposure to Smalltalk in college, and wouldn't be at all surprised to see it used as an OS. Heck, if Java had an inherent development environment, the two would be interchangeable. :-) --- Assume just 4 million businesses on the Internet today... If 1% of them sent you one piece of junk email per year, you'd still have to wade through over 100 messages per day. -- To unsubscribe: mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe" as the Subject.
Re: [OT] History of the mouse
On 12/22/99, Alan Mead (as "[EMAIL PROTECTED]") wrote: Thanks for all the replies. My notes are at home, from memory here are the seemingly reliable bits: The STAR by the Xerox PARC folks was the first commercial system using the mouse and other UI innovations but it has an enormous cost ($16000 was quoted) and was never a hit. I believe they also created a computer called Alto. By all accounts Xerox was unable to understand this market and never made much money. I think they concluded that PARC was an experiment that had run it's course without much fruition; they turned their back on computers and closed PARC. Er, uh-um. Xerox's PARC (Palo Alto Reseach Center) is still open. A co-worker came from there and reports its as out-of-contral as ever. Though of course with no Alan Kay or Adele Foster, but their website touts the 1st blue laser for printing and research into process flow. One item not touted was the first mailing-list, John Brodie's "SF-LOVERS" in 1979 - a creation we listees are all thankful for ; And the ALTO, which later begat the commercial failure STAR, was the more interesting computing system. Of course lab systems usually are, just like it took APPLE years to unlobotomize the MAC to return to its LISA origins. Its interesting how the basic discoveries made at SRI by researchers like Englebart and others were exploited to create systems at PARC, though it took geek toy makers like APPLE to bring them to us. check out PARC: www.parc.xerox.com see a photo of the 1st mouse (w/ some additional history) at: www.csl.sri.com/history/augment.shtml - michael, san jose, ca -- To unsubscribe: mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe" as the Subject.
RE: [OT] History of the mouse
On Wed, 22 Dec 1999, Alan Mead wrote: At 10:01 AM 12/23/99 +1300, Juha Saarinen wrote: Has it been mentioned that the original mouse was made out of wood? I've seen reference to copies being made of wood. I inferred that the original was plastic or metal. I guess plastic was a revolutionary material for computers since it's mentioned that the original Apple computers were plastic. I remember watching a TV special about apple computing a while back that showed video of one of the founders (not sure which one, maybe Jobs) playing with his big (music-box-sized) mouse on the first apple, also made in part of wood. /me --- Mike Erickson [EMAIL PROTECTED]http://www.fix.net/~merickson/ "The world is my country and my religion is to do good." - Thomas Paine -- To unsubscribe: mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe" as the Subject.
