Xref: utzoo comp.sys.mac:13712 comp.windows.misc:227
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!gatech!mcnc!thorin!unc!steele
From: steele@unc.cs.unc.edu (Oliver Steele)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac,comp.windows.misc
Subject: Credit where credit is due (was AUX Interface, etc.)
Message-ID: <1624@thorin.cs.unc.edu>
Date: 9 Mar 88 16:08:27 GMT
Sender: news@thorin.cs.unc.edu
Reply-To: steele@unc.UUCP (Oliver Steele)
Organization: University Of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Lines: 59
Keywords: window human computer interface
References:


As long as we're on the subject of who \({Xerox,Apple,Sun,...}\) stole
what {Menus,windows,mice,popup menus} from whom (\1), I'd like to know
whether the event record queue was original to Apple.  Letting
applications poll a queue of events {mouse-up, mouse-down, key-down,
update window} that are time-stamped, modifier-key-stamped, and
mouse-location-stamped makes slow computers seem a lot more responsive and
easier to use, since they don't pop a menu up in the wrong place due to
response lag time, among other unforgivables.  (By slow computers I mean
anything up to a Sun-3 running X, Suntools, Smalltalk, or NeWS (our 4s
don't have consoles, and we don't have Sunview); nothing in that range
matches the responsiveness of the original Mac.)

Here's a list of what I consider the major user-interface advances, in no
particular order, and who@where made them.  Please fill them in and add to
them, by posting or email, and I'll repost when complete if desired.  [I'm
embarrassed that I don't know these.  Maybe Bloom is right re: techies
too.]

Probably quite a few of these are {Alan Kay,Larry Tessler}@{Xerox,Apple},
but I don't know which ones.  Some of these are probably hard to attribute
to a company since the inventors left Xerox for Apple, took their
creations with them, and finished developing them.


Bitmapped display as
    main display device	:
Pointing device mapped
    to screen pointer	:
Mouse			:	Doug Englebart@?
Menus			:
Pulldown menus		:	?@Apple
Menu bar		:	?@Apple
Hierarchical menus	:	?@Sun (?) (if you don't count Apple's Menu
				    bar as the first menu in a 2-deep hier.)
Disabling of menu items
    to show invalidity	:	?@Apple
Key equivalents for
    menu items		:	?@Apple
Check marks on m. i.	:	?@Apple
Windows (tiled first?)	:	?@Xerox			(?)
Overlapped windows	:	Diane Merry@?Xerox
Event Queue		:	?@Apple			(?)
Icons			:
Scroll bars		:	?@Xerox			(?)
Push Buttons		:	?@Xerox			(?)
Radio Buttons		:	?@Apple
Check Boxes		:	?@Apple
Dialog boxes		:	?@Xerox			(?)
Multifont/style text records :	?@Xerox
Cut/Copy/Paste w/ mouse	:	?@Xerox
Text selection point is
    _between_ characters :	?@Xerox


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oliver Steele					   ...!uunet!mcnc!unc!steele
							   steele@cs.unc.edu
"A sea urchin is the best way to comb the inside
of a hairy tube."		-- Peter Wolfenden