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From: johnson@uiucdcsp.CS.UIUC.EDU
Newsgroups: net.micro.mac
Subject: Re: DRI lawsuit
Message-ID: <24000003@uiucdcsp>
Date: Thu, 17-Oct-85 10:03:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: uiucdcsp.24000003
Posted: Thu Oct 17 10:03:00 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 22-Oct-85 05:35:19 EDT
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Nf-From: uiucdcsp.CS.UIUC.EDU!johnson    Oct 17 09:03:00 1985


Actually, the Xerox Star does support dragging icons.  For example, a
document is printed by COPYing its icon to the printer icon.  This admitedly
requires an extra button push, but it is essentially the same as dragging an
icon.

After awhile, I decided that using lots of function keys instead of menus
was not such a bad idea.  Every program uses the functions, so it didn't
take long before I was able to predict how to make a program do what I wanted
it to do.  I never saw a Star manual, but I wrote a number of documents on
Stars.  The laser printer made great overhead slides.

Window management on the Star is pretty awkward.  Even worse is its over-all
slowness and lack of concurrency.  Worst of all is its method of font
selection.

The XDE (Xerox Development Environment) interface is much more like that of
the Mac, as is that of Smalltalk.  All have movable windows, popup menus,
and an overall similar feel.  The Suntools interface also predated the Mac,
though not (I think) the Lisa.  One major difference between these systems
and the Mac is that they all use two or three button mice and popup (rather
than pull-down) menus.  I much prefer multibutton mice.

Ralph Johnson