Re: Pirates of Silicon Valley

["Greg J. Buchner" <buchner@tcfreenet.org>]

On Sun, 27 Jun 1999, Dennis Doms wrote:

> In article
> <Pine.SGI.3.91r.990626200216.2577229A-100000@tcfreenet.org>, "Greg J.
> Buchner" <buchner@tcfreenet.org> wrote:
> 
> >What it gets down to is: Apple didn't steal the GUI from PARC...they
> >were already working on it when the Macintosh team dragged Jobs to
> >PARC to show him the GUI.  Jef Raskin also did hit graduate paper
> >on a GUI referred to Quickdraw in 1969.  So, how can you steal
> >something that one of your employees conceived in 1969...although
> >I don't know if he was the first.
> 
> The conclusion that Apple had any type of workable GUI before Xerox
> seems to conflict with historical context, too. Whether or not the
> physical visit to PARC occurred before the Mac project originated,
> rumors of the interface could have preceded it (else why would Apple
> have *visited* PARC?). And the above paragraph totally blows by the
> fact that Raskin *worked* at PARC before he got to Apple. Obviously
> PARC had something tangible before Apple did. The burden then becomes
> proving Apple didn't base their designs on Xerox's concepts, and I
> think that would be difficult.

I don't think that Apple did have a fully workable GUI when they went
to PARC...it was a work in progress and they wanted to show Jobs the
potential to get him involved in the Macintosh.

I had heard something about Raskin working at PARC before Apple, but
never heard any confirmation on it.  And yes, Apple did base their
designs for the Mac interface on Xerox's concepts but they also pushed
well past what PARC was working on at the time.  There is also the
fact that Apple gave Xerox $1 million dollars of stock to be able to
do that visit which Xerox later sold (I believe) for $17+ million.
Apple paid to look around PARC with the implication that they could
use what they found at PARC.

Greg B.

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