Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!decwrl!labrea!rutgers!mailrus!ames!xanth!hoptoad!gnu
From: gnu@hoptoad.uucp (John Gilmore)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: NeXT Browser appears to use "Miller columns" from Xanadu
Message-ID: <6036@hoptoad.uucp>
Date: 10 Dec 88 04:23:08 GMT
Organization: Grasshopper Group in San Francisco
Lines: 26

There's some more on the Browser issue in the mid-December MicroTimes,
page 132.

I haven't seen anything but pictures of the NeXT browser, but it seems
to be a straightforward implementation of Mark Miller's column design,
which I think was done in about 1982 while he was at Xanadu.  They
tried to market it in a program called "dirvish" (directory visual
shell).  It ran on the naked Sun-1 screen in text mode (except for a
few vectors drawn with Tek 4014 graphics escapes -- there was no window
system for Suns yet), but visual shells reminded Unix users too much of
horrible straightjacket menu packages back then, and it never caught on.

At any rate, Steve Jobs certainly doesn't own the idea of three-column
displays that display three levels of directory hierarchy.  If Apple's
scummy fook'in-leel suit sets any precedents, he may be able to
copyright some of the bits around the edges of the columns, but the
main idea precedes NeXT by a long shot.

There's another good quote on that page, too:

  "There can be no doubt that just as HyperCard is for the Macintosh,
   Application Builder will be a great source of bad programs for the
   NeXT computer."    				-- David Morganstern
-- 
John Gilmore    {sun,pacbell,uunet,pyramid,amdahl}!hoptoad!gnu    gnu@toad.com
		"The network *is* the confuser."