woodside@ttidca.TTI.COM (George Woodside) (07/05/89)
In article <8907030235.AA29001@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> chuck@UMBC1.UMBC.EDU ("Chuck Rickard; ", PC) writes: ...[edited]... >... Much to my >surprise when I started GEM, I had to ugly looking windows and a wimpy menu >bar to look at. These windows couldn't even be sized! From what I remember, >Xerox was sued by Apple (during the sueing days...) for infringing on the >"look and feel" of the Macintosh Desktop. Was this drastic change to GEM a >part of that legal action, or was it voluntary? (The former seems more likely >than the latter...) If the suit did make them change, why didn't Atari have >to change their GEM, considering it was identical to the original IBM GEM? >Allan, would like to explain this one for me? :-) I'm not Allan, but... It was DRI (Digital Research Incorporated) who wrote GEM, not Xerox. Yes, this crippled GEM on the PC is the result of the Apple lawsuit. I attended a GEM developer's seminar hosted by DRI a couple years ago when this mutant was displayed. The DRI staff hosting the seminar were trying to hype it as the "improved, new look" of GEM, but no one there was buying it. There were always exactly two windows on the desktop, they couldn't be resized, or moved. The "Desk" menu item had been moved to the extreme right of the menu bar, while all other titles started from the left. There were other "de-provements" as well, but I don't recall any more. Atari did not change the ST GEM, since they had already purchased the rights to the version they implemented. For Apple to force DRI to force Atari to change the implemented GEM in the ST would have put thousands more lawyers to work for several more eons. This is one time when the older version of a piece of software is vastly superior to the current version. Bugs and all. -- *George R. Woodside - Citicorp/TTI - Santa Monica, CA *Path: ..!{philabs|csun|psivax}!ttidca!woodside
chuck@UMBC1.UMBC.EDU ("Chuck Rickard; ", PC) (08/08/89)
While installing Xerox Ventura Publisher 2.0 on a friends 286 machine, I had
to go through the process of installing GEM on his hard drive. It was kind of
weird having to load GEM from disk, but I had to do it anyway... Much to my
surprise when I started GEM, I had to ugly looking windows and a wimpy menu
bar to look at. These windows couldn't even be sized! From what I remember,
Xerox was sued by Apple (during the sueing days...) for infringing on the
"look and feel" of the Macintosh Desktop. Was this drastic change to GEM a
part of that legal action, or was it voluntary? (The former seems more likely
than the latter...) If the suit did make them change, why didn't Atari have
to change their GEM, considering it was identical to the original IBM GEM?
Allan, would like to explain this one for me? :-)
Chuck Rickard
UMBC Academic Computing
CHUCK@UMBCantony@lbl-csam.arpa (Antony A. Courtney) (08/14/89)
In article <8907030235.AA29001@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> chuck@UMBC1.UMBC.EDU ("Chuck Rickard; ", PC) writes: > From what I remember, >Xerox was sued by Apple (during the sueing days...) for infringing on the >"look and feel" of the Macintosh Desktop. Was this drastic change to GEM a >part of that legal action, or was it voluntary? (The former seems more likely >than the latter...) If the suit did make them change, why didn't Atari have >to change their GEM, considering it was identical to the original IBM GEM? >Allan, would like to explain this one for me? :-) > Well, insofar as I know GEM was(is?) a product of Digital Research Corporation. And yes, I believe Apple did sue them, and they(DR) backed down. I don't know exactly why Atari's GEM didn't change, suffice it to say that Atari has never been one for avoiding lawsuits. :) I find your article rather ironic in that Xerox are the folks who really developed the mouse and windows interface with their Tajo and STAR products. In my opinion Apple really doesn't have any right to be suing ANYONE, given that they really copied the idea from Xerox. And most people agree that Apple is really just whining and trying to make life difficult for other companies. Fortunately Sun has Xerox on their side with their OpenLook product, so Apple won't dare try and sue them. And an extremely high percentage of companies have pledged support for AT&T's System V release 4 of UNIX, which will incorporate the OpenLook Graphical User Interface. ******************************************************************************* Antony A. Courtney antony@lbl.gov Advanced Development Group ucbvax!lbl-csam.arpa!antony Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory AACourtney@lbl.gov