[comp.sys.xerox] Xerox Star

gupta@prlhp1.prl.philips.co.uk (gupta) (10/06/89)

I've just read a *great* paper - twice - and I want to
bring it to the attention of everyone alive today.  
This newsgroup will do for starters !

The paper is "The Xerox Star : A Retrospective" by
 Jeff Johnson, Teresa Roberts, William Verplank, David Smith,
 Charles Irby, Marian Beard and Kevin Mackey.  

It's in the September 1989 issue of IEEE Computer.

Read it - it's *sexy*    No, really, it is.   :-)

The authors detail the revolutionary software and hardware
and show great humility : they give due acknowledgement to other
developments (in & outside PARC) and point out the mistakes made.

Inevitably though, a paper like that also raises many questions.

Surely, one of the main reasons why the machine (or its PARC 
descendents) is not widespread is because of PARC policy
(or lack of it).  I'm referring to the 1186 - a great love of mine.
Is it not true, that management just did not back the machines as
aggresively as they could ?  Sure, they were interested in fundamental
research. And PARC has notable successes in laser printing, Ethernet etc...
But, did Xerox not throw away the great commercial success that could
have been possible - had the delivery system been marketed aggressively.
I wonder. 

I'd like to hear from people who were involved. What happened ?
What was the strategy that drove management ? What did the developers feel ?

Related to this, is the departure from Xerox of some brilliant 
thinkers, visionaries, designers and software engineers ...
OK, Xerox views the formation of spin-offs like ParcPlace Systems
and Envos favourably.  But, they aren't always wholly owned subsidiaries.
I believe copyright & patent laws in the USA differ widely from those 
here in the UK. Here ones intellectual labours (during office time)
are the property of ones employer. You, can't just quit and start up
on your own, in direct competition. So, how did people like Charles 
Simonyi leave Xerox PARC to work on Microsoft Word, or Tom Malloy to
work on LisaWrite, or the developers of Press and InterPress to develop
Postscript ? Was it under some licensing agreement or is it back to
the laws again ...?


Lastly, the authors refer to NLS, (called On-Line System and also 
abbreviated to FLS) that is marketed by McDonnell Douglas under 
the name Augment. It was the first to use a CRT, was interactive
and screen oriented and used a mouse.  They don't say when it was
introduced, though.  And they don't give references. Please mail
details if you have any.


Ashok "Ash" Gupta

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