Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!not-for-mail From: Neil Franklin Newsgroups: alt.ascii-art Subject: Windows prehistory (was Re: Jave - Yet another release) Date: 09 Apr 2001 22:59:19 +0200 Organization: My own Private Self Lines: 49 Message-ID: <6u1yr194d4.fsf_-_@chonsp.franklin.ch> References: <3ACE1564.6E43CC70@rz.uni-karlsruhe.de> <9alqq4$g43$1@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> <3ACEFB90.FF23EFB0@rz.uni-karlsruhe.de> <3ad02de0.1487039@news.ntlworld.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: chonsp.franklin.ch X-Trace: chonsp.franklin.ch 986849960 433 10.0.3.2 (9 Apr 2001 20:59:20 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@chonsp.franklin.ch NNTP-Posting-Date: 9 Apr 2001 20:59:20 GMT X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 20.4 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.ascii-art:18365 ppunk@damthatspam.chello.nl (Peter Punk) writes: > On Sun, 08 Apr 2001 09:24:31 GMT, stumo@bigfoot.com (Stuart Moore) provoked th e > following text: > > >> You want to lear how to put thousands of lines of code together to one > >> huge program with lots of bugs and bad code design? You must be kidding > >> ;-) > > > >Don't knock it, Bill Gates isn't doing too badly... > > You may know that Windows is modeled after the Mac Classic OS called "Lisa". That is a garbled version of the story. Lisa did not run on Macs. It ran on its own pre-Mac 5MHz 68000 based hardware (all in one, but with 2 5.25" floppies next to the screen). Later after launching the Mac, MacOS was ported to the Lisa hardware, which was renamed Mac XL. Short after Lisa was killed. Both Windows and Lisa were modeled after the Smalltalk software of the Xerox Alto. Lisa by an Apple employee called Jef Raskin after visiting an Xerox demo. Windows by an ex-Xerox MS employee Charles Simonji (he also did Word for DOS after the Xerox Bravo editor). Xerox was an famous "develop here, success elsewhere" firm: workstations, bitmap graphics, object oriented programming, GUI, Ethernet, Laser printer, PostScript were all Xerox developments. > But did you know that before releasing Windows 1.00 (1,5 years late, but that's > a different story) he made the developers take out a number of features they > have built in because Lisa didn't have those features either? Later Steve Jobs saw Lisa (which cost $10000) and demanded an smaller/simpler ($2500) version, which lead to the Mac. And Bill saw the Mac and that users liked it and demanded that Windows be reduced to slavishly follow it, even when inferior. Interestingly Lisa was also bloated relative to what Raskin wanted. He later realised his original intention as the Canon Cat (all in one, even keyboard built in, 1 3.5" floppy vertical against screen, 256k RAM copied entirely to floppy and re-read from it, only software in ROM, more like an keyboard-PDA, no mouse). -- Neil Franklin, neil@franklin.ch.remove http://neil.franklin.ch/ Hacker, Unix Guru, El Eng HTL/BSc, Sysadmin, Archer, Roleplayer ###### From: ppunk@damthatspam.chello.nl (Peter Punk) Newsgroups: alt.ascii-art Subject: Re: Windows prehistory (was Re: Jave - Yet another release) Organization: Total Disorganisation Message-ID: References: <3ACE1564.6E43CC70@rz.uni-karlsruhe.de> <9alqq4$g43$1@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> <3ACEFB90.FF23EFB0@rz.uni-karlsruhe.de> <3ad02de0.1487039@news.ntlworld.com> <6u1yr194d4.fsf_-_@chonsp.franklin.ch> X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.8/32.548 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 58 Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2001 22:02:03 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 213.93.74.225 X-Complaints-To: abuse@chello.nl X-Trace: Flipper 986940123 213.93.74.225 (Wed, 11 Apr 2001 00:02:03 MET DST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2001 00:02:03 MET DST Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news.stealth.net!newsfeed.wirehub.nl!cyclone-sjo1.usenetserver.com!news-out-sjo.usenetserver.com!amsnews01.chello.com!Flipper.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.ascii-art:18397 On 09 Apr 2001 22:59:19 +0200, Neil Franklin provoked the following text: >> >> You want to lear how to put thousands of lines of code together to one >> >> huge program with lots of bugs and bad code design? You must be kidding >> >> ;-) >> >Don't knock it, Bill Gates isn't doing too badly... >> You may know that Windows is modeled after the Mac Classic OS called "Lisa". >That is a garbled version of the story. No, it was an extremely abbreviated version of Lisa's history. >Lisa did not run on Macs. It ran on its own pre-Mac 5MHz 68000 >based hardware (all in one, but with 2 5.25" floppies next to the >screen). Later after launching the Mac, MacOS was ported to the Lisa >hardware, which was renamed Mac XL. Short after Lisa was killed. > >Both Windows and Lisa were modeled after the Smalltalk software of >the Xerox Alto. Lisa by an Apple employee called Jef Raskin after >visiting an Xerox demo. Windows by an ex-Xerox MS employee Charles >Simonji (he also did Word for DOS after the Xerox Bravo editor). > >Xerox was an famous "develop here, success elsewhere" firm: >workstations, bitmap graphics, object oriented programming, GUI, >Ethernet, Laser printer, PostScript were all Xerox developments. I know all that, but it just didn't seem relevant to the story i was trying to tell. >> But did you know that before releasing Windows 1.00 (1,5 years late, but that's >> a different story) he made the developers take out a number of features they >> have built in because Lisa didn't have those features either? > >Later Steve Jobs saw Lisa (which cost $10000) and demanded an >smaller/simpler ($2500) version, which lead to the Mac. And Bill saw >the Mac and that users liked it and demanded that Windows be reduced >to slavishly follow it, even when inferior. And God became grieved over it and decided to create Linus Torvalds. >Interestingly Lisa was also bloated relative to what Raskin wanted. He >later realised his original intention as the Canon Cat (all in one, >even keyboard built in, 1 3.5" floppy vertical against screen, 256k RAM >copied entirely to floppy and re-read from it, only software in ROM, >more like an keyboard-PDA, no mouse). And that's something i _didn't_ know. Thanks for sharing. -- Peter Punk \ / ---\\\\--- / \ Op zoek gaan naar buitenaards leven? Kijk op http://home.hetnet.nl/~setiathomegroep/index.html voor tips, antwoorden, discussies. links, downloads en meer. "Life is like a bowl of soup with hairs floating on it. You have to eat it nevertheless." -- Flaubert