Re: GUIs and Graphics in the Way-Back Machine

["william strutts" <wrstrutts1@nospam.home.com>]

"The Lord of the Flies" <python@ux1.cyberenet.NOSPAM.net> wrote in message
3b90ead3_1@news.eticomm.net">news:3b90ead3_1@news.eticomm.net...
> --(Quoted material at foot.)--
>
> Now that is interesting!  I thought that the '70s at Palo Alto was a long
> time ago for a GUI to exist!  But the '60s!?  Wow!  Computers are *KOOL!*
>
> I wonder if any of this--or even such like--can be traced back even
> farther.  Anybody know anything?  Discuss, if so.
>
> It seems like in one of my old mags (from the piles and piles of them)
> that it had the story of the very first instance of computer graphics
> ever.  I don't remember when this happened, or any other part of the story
> for that matter, except that some guy "locked himself away" in his
> basement for days, in the manner of a scientist in lab not even worrying
> about stuff like eating and wife and stuff, and at the end came out
> triumphantly yelling, jumping, etc. because he created--out of nothing--a
> "simple" straight, horizontal line across his screen.  Thus was the very
> first graphic ever in the history of 'puters.  Hmmm.  Oughta try to look
> that up.  I think that it's maybe in one of my issues of *Compute!*
>
There is a HUGE difference between graphics and GUI. A GUI
is a graphics based user interface. Graphics existed as far back
as the 40's with osciloscopes which were used in radar systems.
Primitive bleeps on the screen. Computer graphics were started
by pioneering companies like Tektronix which developed CRT
based graphics terminals for mainframes.  The first generation
used what was known as vector graphics on osciloscope based
terminals. They could draw vector based lines which didn't need
to be refreshed but the disadvantage was that you had to clear
the whole screen to change the graphics.  Then along comes
CRT's that could do graphics. I don't know the exact dates
of these since I didn't start using graphics until the early 80's.
However, you recall that video games were invented mid-70's
and Computer Aided Design systems go back into the 60's.
The vector graphics terminal that I used was around 10-15 years
old when I used it in 1983. It was purchased used by the
college I attended and looked old.

Xerox was one of the pioneers in developing a graphics based
user interface but I read somewhere that the idea went back
further than Xerox. The Apple was one of the first PC's to
have color graphics back in 1977. Most of the other micro's
of the day, used teletype machines to interact with the machine.
--
--
William R. Strutts - wrstrutts1@nospam.home.com - Whatever!

C'est moi!  http://www.facelink.com/wrstrutts

Just hacking away...

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