Re: Computing Editorial (please read)

[Michael Joosten <joost@c-lab.de>]

Marc Walters wrote:
> 
> Ruud Dingemans <rtech@home.nl> wrote in message news:<b0jrbo$oag$1@news2.tilbu1.nb.home.nl>...
> [snip]
> > Take a wild guess: Windows 1.0 came out more than a year *after* Lisa
> > hit the market (1985). It also imitated several design ideas that only
> > the Lisa had, like pull down menus and a menu bar - and it even had a
> > "file/view/special" menu implementation, just like the Mac (from 1984).
> 
> Don't forget the other half-dozen PC GUI systems competing with the
> late-entry MS Windows 1.0 in the mid 1980's, some of which were
> technically and graphically superior. And also had such a menuing
> system - although one of the main competitors had bottom-border menus
> that expanded upwards!

The original ideas and Bill Gates' insistence to mimick the Apple/Mac
GUI as far as possible in Windows plus the fight with the then-dangerous
competitors (not only the GUI, even the OS itself was besieged!) and the
unspoken basis that MSDOS was the cash cow on which to fund Windows, is
nicely explained in the book 'Barbarians Led By Bill Gates', from an
MS-Exxy (Marlin Eller?) who co-designed the Windows API and was involved
in the fights against the competitors (Visi-On, Go!, etc). Very nice
reading!

-- 
Michael Joosten, SBS C-LAB, joost@c-lab.de
Fuerstenallee 11, 33094 Paderborn, Germany
Phone: +49 5251 606127, Fax: +49 5251 606065
C-LAB is a cooperation of University Paderborn & SIEMENS