Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!decwrl!ucbvax!galileo.berkeley.edu!jbuck
From: jbuck@galileo.berkeley.edu (Joe Buck)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Patents and Architecture
Message-ID: <37297@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 27 Jun 90 16:59:41 GMT
References: <62864@sgi.sgi.com> <=Y943A7@xds13.ferranti.com>
Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: jbuck@galileo.berkeley.edu (Joe Buck)
Lines: 34

In article <=Y943A7@xds13.ferranti.com>, peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter
da Silva) writes:
|> In article <62864@sgi.sgi.com> karsh@trifolium.sgi.com (Bruce Karsh) writes:
|> > Have people noticed that certain new window systems look almost exactly
|> > like the Macintosh?
|> 
|> Since the Macintosh looks almost exactly like the Xerox Star, a machine
|> that predates it by at least two years, what's your point?

To be more exact, two of the principal designers of the Apple Lisa were
interviewed by Byte magazine in 1983.  In the interview, they describe
their visit to Xerox PARC and how impressed they were by the user
interfaces they saw there (I don't remember if they saw a Star or one
of its predecessors).

They say they went back to Apple and changed the user interface
dramatically, adding icons, among other things.  They had no reluctance
to "admit" this because at the time, the notion that user interfaces
were protected intellectual property did not exist.  This perversion was
invented later, fortunately; otherwise, only one major automaker would
be allowed to use a foot pedal to control the amount of gasoline fed to
the car engine, and Bruce Karsh would defend this notion, asking why
auto manufacturers keep reinventing the same tired old design.

There is no question about it: the Mac interface comes from the Lisa;
the Lisa interface was inspired by the Xerox Star.  It's on the record,
from the designers' own mouths.

This conversation seems no longer appropriate for comp.arch; possibly
misc.legal or gnu.misc.discuss should be considered.

--
Joe Buck
jbuck@ohm.berkeley.edu	 {uunet,ucbvax}!ohm.berkeley.edu!jbuck