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| The Lilith: a graphical, mouse-driven workstation from 1980 |
| By Thom Holwerda on 2012-08-30 09:16:34 |
| Just driving yesterday's point home some more: "The Lilith was one of the first computer workstations worldwide with a high-resolution graphical display and a mouse. The first prototype was developed by Niklaus Wirth and his group between 1978 and 1980 with Richard Ohran as the hardware specialist. [...] The whole system software of the Lilith was written in Modula-2, a structured programming language which Wirth has developed at the same time. The programs were compiled into low-level M-Code instructions which could be executed by the hardware. The user interface was designed with windows, icons and pop-up menus. Compared with the character based systems available at that time, these were revolutionary metaphors in the interaction with a computer." Jos Dreesen, owner of one of the few remaining working Liliths, wrote a Lilith emulator for Linux. |
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| RE: What this reminds me of |
| By ferrels on 2012-08-30 18:28:35 |
| The only dent around here is the one in your head. Some of us were actually around when all this ground breaking GUI development was occurring and history was being made (yeah, I'm old). These projects went on to influence a number of operating systems out there including the Amiga, Mac and Windows. Steve Jobs and Apple stole every good idea they ever had. They were just very clever at marketing. Sounds like you're just another Steve Jobs fan-boy who has drank too much of his own Kool-Aid. I bet you also believe that Al Gore invented the internet! |
 - Score: 7 |
| RE: What this reminds me of |
| By flypig on 2012-08-30 18:29:09 |
|
It's possible I'm misinterpreting your post, but it seems sad to me that the vast contribution that so many people have made to the sum of human knowledge can be brushed aside so casually. Development comes from many places, and it's not just the success stories that shape the future (even if they're more likely to shape the history books). There are lots of different types of dents that can be made. Your analogy with birds relies on the asumption there was no interbreeding. Can you be sure that there was no shared knowledge that seeped between all of these systems? Apologies if I have misunderstood your point. |
| - Score: 4 |
| RE: What this reminds me of |
| By Megol on 2012-08-30 18:35:51 |
|
Apple wasn't the only company being inspired by earlier GUI projects. The time was right as memory costs sunk to a level making bitmap graphics possible and processor power increased enough to make redraws reasonably fast. The basic idea for the GUI existed in the 50ies. Implying that Apple did something technically unique is just plain ignorance. If Apple didn't do a home computer GUI then one of the other companies developing GUIs in parallel with Apple would be known as "the first". |
| - Score: 4 |
| RE[2]: What this reminds me of |
| By Tony Swash on 2012-08-30 19:12:31 |
|
> It's possible I'm misinterpreting your post, but it seems sad to me that the vast contribution that so many people have made to the sum of human knowledge can be brushed aside so casually. I think you may be responding to a point I was not making. I was critiquing the Apple haters and iPhobes. There seems to be a desperate obsession by many commentators here, often including Thom I have to say, who to try to pretend that Apple's contribution to the development of the development of the PC, the smart phone, the tablet computer are all relatively insignificant. A constantly repeated attempts to argue that the Mac OS, the iPhone and the iPad were not inflection points. Some go as far as to argue that Apple's contribution to the development of PCs, phones and tablets (as well as music players, online software and digital content distribution systems) are at best copies and at worst just copies wrapped in good marketing and a zombie like cultish group of deranged followers. To those who are propose such silly absurdities I say shame on you. Not just for arguing the patently absurd, not just for trying to distort the history of technology but also for parading in public such a weird obsessive need to belittle one of the worlds great technology companies. What is wrong with you people? You claim to like technology but you hate one of the giants of technology. And for why? because they didn't die, they didn't fade away, instead they came back, and by being boldly innovative, in a matter of a few years boldly entered and utterly disrupted three entirely new markets and in the process gutted the old Microsoft hegemony and became the world's largest technology company. And that sticks in a lot of people's throats, that pisses off some people because it's not how the script was supposed to play out. So we get this endless, tedious, juvenile, degrading parade of delusions whose sole purpose is to cut Apple down to size. It's not that Apple has grown too large. It's you who insist on being so small. |
| - Score: -1 |
| RE: What this reminds me of |
| By Alfman on 2012-08-30 19:15:58 |
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Tony Swash, "It's time to let go. Nobody copied the Blit and the Lilith because they were obscure and unsuccessful back room experiments." How would you know? Are you suggesting that Jobs & co were clueless about their competition? Not only do I think that most likely he did have a clue, but Jobs even admitted to copying others. If Apple's current lawyers were working for Blit or Lilith back then, then Apple would have been sued for violation of basic GUI concepts. Apple would have had to pay competitors for copying ideas. That's if the inventors want to license them at all, but they could have blocked apple's products all together from the market. There is no exception in patent law for co-development or inadvertent infringement, therefore the guts of your post are invalid in the eyes of the law. If you believe that apple SHOULD be allowed to compete without regards to what was done before them, well I can agree. However don't be a hypocrite and defend their actions today now that their corporate fortunes have changed. Had apple's behaviour today been practiced in the past, apple would have never been viable in the first place. Is that something you can stand behind? They are just a company Tony, they have faults like everyone else, it's really time to let go of this innocence nonsense. |
| - Score: 5 |
| RE[3]: What this reminds me of |
| By Thom_Holwerda on 2012-08-30 19:27:06 |
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> There seems to be a desperate obsession by many commentators here, often including Thom I have to say, who to try to pretend that Apple's contribution to the development of the development of the PC, the smart phone, the tablet computer are all relatively insignificant The crux of why your posts are often downright absurd: I never claimed anything like this ever. This is a huge strawman, and everything else you write hinges around this false assumption. Here's the introduction to my article on the iPhone turning five: > Exactly five years ago today, Apple officially released its entry into the mobile phone market, the iPhone. Immediately loved by customers the world over, ridiculed by the competition, and, in my book, not particularly innovative feature-wise, it changed the mobile phone industry virtually overnight. Love the iPhone or hate the iPhone, its industry-changing impact is evident. See how that doesn't jive AT ALL with the imagery you conjure up inside your head? I've told you this before, but you are clearly suffering from a MASSIVE case of cognitive dissonance. You have this image of me and several other commenters in your head of being anti-Apple, and this image is so strong and important to you that any evidence to the contrary causes massive cognitive dissonance in your mind. As such, your brain needs to deal with this - and instead of opting to adjust your world view (the hardest and most physically and emotionally intensive solution) you simply ignore the new evidence. This is all very classic and basic psychology. Fascinating, but a bit disturbing, to boot. Edited 2012-08-30 19:30 UTC |
| - Score: 5 |
| Comment by Zaitch |
| By Zaitch on 2012-08-30 19:38:48 |
| Just wanted to say, I really enjoyed this link - thanks for posting it - and it is illustrative of why I come to osnews.com almost daily. I remember learning to program in Modula-2 (JPI TopSpeed Modula 2, on 2 x 5.25" disks anyone?) but had no idea to this day Wirth et al did hardware - admittedly I was barely into my teens at the time! |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE: What this reminds me of |
| By M.Onty on 2012-08-30 19:55:45 |
|
Perhaps its because he uses emotive language rather than strictly journalistic language, but you miss Thom's point again and again. He's saying this (correct me if I'm wrong Thom); Apple produce industry changing products. This he approves of. Then they adopt aggressive litigation strategies to protect their early advantage. This he disapproves of. These recent articles showing alternative GUIs are his way of illustrating that, although Apple tend to get in there early, their innovations are things that would have and have occurred to others independently. Therefore it is not proper for Apple to be granted monopolies on these innovations by the courts. If you detach yourself from the tone of the articles and accept that Thom holds certain views about the IP system in general (which we do not all agree with) then it is quite clear that he has specific grievences against Apple which does not include regarding them as unimportant. TL;DR: Apples bird flew first; doesn't mean other birds weren't about to take off themselves. |
| - Score: 4 |
| RE[3]: What this reminds me of |
| By flypig on 2012-08-30 19:58:07 |
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> > It's possible I'm misinterpreting your post, but it seems sad to me that the vast contribution that so many people have made to the sum of human knowledge can be brushed aside so casually. I think you may be responding to a point I was not making. I was critiquing the Apple haters and iPhobes. Fair enough; I certainly don't want to misrepresent what you were saying. However, in attacking the "Apple haters and iPhobes" I think it's really important not to belittle the contribution that others have played in the development of technology. This stands on its own, but additional to this is that ignoring others unnecessarily fuels the argument against. Apple have made genuine and important contributions, so there should be no need for the similarly valid contributions of others to be underplayed in order for Apple's importance to be made clear. I'm sorry if this wasn't what you intended, and for misreading your post. Separate to this is the fact that the article about the Lilith and earlier article on multi-touch were absolutely fascinating in my view, so I'm glad they were posted. |
| - Score: 3 |
| RE: Comment by Zaitch |
| By vaette on 2012-08-30 20:38:35 |
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Yes, I agree, this is good deep-diving into the history of computing that I think is a perfect fit for OSnews. I suspect that Thom is attempting to make some point about innovation in the present day that I don't much care to discuss, but that doesn't change that I didn't know about either Blit or the Lilith, so it is a very educating look at the early days of the GUI. Now we need a new deep article about NeWS, my favorite GUI system of all time :) |
| - Score: 2 |
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