Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!ucsd!ucbvax!MBUNIX.MITRE.ORG!munck
From: munck@MBUNIX.MITRE.ORG (Bob Munck)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.misc
Subject: Re: INFO-MICRO Digest V89 #132 - The "Macintoy" chant
Message-ID: <27987.615051406@mbunix>
Date: 28 Jun 89 15:36:46 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: munck@mitre.org
Organization: The Internet
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In V89 #132, arc!steve@apple.com (Steve Savitzky) writes:
> ... 1971 or thereabouts was the *Interim* Dynabook: the Alto.  It was
> probably the first workstation.  Its programming language was
> Smalltalk (in an early incarnation).  It *did* have a mouse,
> overlapping windows, scrollbars, popup menus, and icons (used in
> menus).  The screen was 640x800, portrait mode. ... The Dynabook was
> to be a flat laptop with a touch-sensitive screen, equipped with
> cellular radio networking ... The mouse (with three buttons) was
> invented by Doug Engelbart ...

Mostly a good history lesson, but I have a few quibbles:  my impression
was that the Alto's chief language was Mesa (essentially what Ada would
have been if it had been designed by a committee of operating system hackers
instead of a committee of language hackers); the Alto screen was
606x808; I don't remember "cellular radio" being mentioned in the
original Dynabook descriptions.

I'd certainly agree that the Alto was the first (mass-produced)
workstation.  Note that Englebart's 3-button mouse was meant to work
with a 5-key chord keyboard under the opposite hand.  I wish there were
a PC version of it available (or of the larger chord keyboard designed
by J. W. Backus at IBM Cambridge).
                                       -- Bob Munck