Xerox Alto
More info
- Creator
- Xerox PARC
- Released
- 1973
- Type
- Research personal computer
- Units built
- about 2,000
The computer that had windows, a mouse, Ethernet and word processing in 1973 — and that Xerox never sold to anyone.
The Alto was built at Xerox's research centre PARC and was the first machine designed around a graphical interface. The display was bitmapped and stood upright like a sheet of paper, the mouse had three buttons, the machines were linked by Ethernet invented for the purpose, and the software included the Bravo word processor and the Smalltalk language.
Around two thousand were built for internal use and for universities, but Xerox saw itself as a copier company and never turned it into a product. When Steve Jobs and Apple's engineers were given a demonstration in 1979 they took the ideas away to the Lisa and the Macintosh — the most famous technology transfer in the industry's history.