Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!ncar!oddjob!uwvax!rutgers!iuvax!pur-ee!uiucdcs!uiucdcsp!gillies
From: gillies@uiucdcsp.cs.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Origins of the Mac Environment
Message-ID: <76000195@uiucdcsp>
Date: 24 Apr 88 16:44:00 GMT
References: <2662@im4u.UUCP>
Lines: 33
Nf-ID: #R:im4u.UUCP:2662:uiucdcsp:76000195:000:1438
Nf-From: uiucdcsp.cs.uiuc.edu!gillies    Apr 24 11:44:00 1988


Many of the advanced PC products aren't just copies of Xerox products,
they're duplications of Xerox technology by former Xerox employees.
When I was at Xerox, I heard

(1) Some ex-Xerox employees helped in the design of the original
macintosh.  However, they made quite a few fundamental improvements
(resources) on the way Xerox does things

(2) Other ex-Xerox employees went to microsoft to write MS-Word.
MS-Word is (supposedly) a very close ripoff of the first WYSWYG
editor ever, called Bravo.  It's been improved many times, because
Bravo had bugs and actually had a *worse* user interface.  

(3) I have heard the same about MS-Windows.  The design and
implementation was supposedly aided by ex-Xerox employees.

(4) Of course, the entire company called Adobe was formed by
disgruntled Xerox employees when Xerox refused to release its printing
technology (Interpress) on the world.  Adobe invented Postscript 
for that purpose.


Xerox is famous for developing great things, and squandering them.
Their marketing, until recently, was completely inept.  Also, much of
the research they do is future-predicting.  They give their
researchers futuristic machines (for instance, personal DEC-10's 8
years ago, 25MIP multiprocessors today), and ask them to dream up new
things to do with all those extra processor cycles....

Don Gillies {ihnp4!uiucdcs!gillies} U of Illinois
            {gillies@p.cs.uiuc.edu}

[An ex-Xerox employee]