From the Xerox PARC came a multitude of inventions that changed computing. And yes, one of them was the Xerox Star. That was precisely the idea when Xerox Corporation founded the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center in 1970, a laboratory ideas from which future commercial products should come. In its facilities, technologies such as the Ethernet standard to create networks, the graphical user interface, the laser printer, the mouse as a peripheral to point on the screen, object-oriented programming and a long etcetera were born.
But if this innovation center is known, for better or for worse, in the history of technology, it is by two of its most illustrious visitors. Both Bill Gates and Steve Jobs visited the Xerox PARC . Both were inspired by their inventions and prototypes to make Microsoft and Apple the tech giants they are today. What's more, they even hired several of their employees. That fine line between copying and inspiration gave rise to Windows , the operating system that popularized windows and graphic icons on computer screens, and also made possible the Apple Lisa , the second commercial computer to introduce a mouse and graphical interface. Both inventions changed personal computing but would have been impossible without the Xerox Star .
Until the arrival of the Xerox Star , with the permission of its predecessor, Xerox Alto , computing had been characterized by monochrome screens in which you entered commands using a keyboard. Something difficult to imagine from our current perspective. Today we are surrounded by electronic devices that for the most part have graphical interfaces, better or worse designed. Icons, virtual buttons and other graphic elements that imitate reality so that we can interact with them as if they were real from touch screens.
Source : Living Computer Museum
Background, the Xerox Alto
Before talking about the Xerox Star , the first commercial computer with a graphical interface and other novelties that we continue to use forty years later, we must mention its predecessor, the Xerox Alto from 1972. One of the first computers for personal use and the first to introduce the graphical interface instead of being limited to the terminal or command line of the time.
Those responsible were Butler Lampson and Chuck Thacker . Using a Texas Instruments chip-based processor, they built a computer with ROM memory, removable hard drive, black-and-white CRT monitor, Ethernet connection, special-function keyboard, and three-button mouse. In its exterior design, it was surprising to see the screen or monitor in a vertical position, instead of the usual horizontal one.
This innovative desktop computer was never sold to the general public , although some 1,500 units were manufactured. Its high cost would have made it unsaleable. Instead of reaching stores and shopping centers, Xerox chose to deliver 500 units of Xerox Alto directly to universities, as a gift or donation. A way to introduce your technology and to popularize it. The other 1,000 were used in Xerox's own facilities.
Xerox Star, innovating in every way
Although in this article we highlight the Xerox Star as the first commercial computer to introduce several new features such as the graphical interface or the mouse, it is actually an improvement of the Xerox Alto in order to be able to sell all that innovation to the general public. Improvements and corrections, such as using a square screen CRT monitor instead of the vertical proposal of the model High and reduce costs. In other words, the Star model was the commercial version of the Alto. And the project began to take shape in 1977 with an ambitious motto: create “the office of the future”.
Thus, the Xerox Star or Xerox 8010 Information System went on sale in 1981 after several years of development. And although it was not conceived in the facilities of Xerox PARC , it is undeniable all that it owes to Xerox Alto , which was born in that innovation center . Instead, the Star model was developed in the Xerox's Systems Development Department under the direction of Don Massaro and with some employees of the Xerox PARC , as the head of development, David Liddle .
They took care of the hardware first, the computer itself. And then they developed the specific software for this machine. The former featured a programmable microprocessor based on the AMD 2900. Like the Xerox Alto , it employed microcode for input and output operations rather than hardware. Each task controlled different parameters such as image, memory, disk, network, etc. Its ROM memory was 384 KB expandable to 1.5 MB, compared to 128 KB expandable to 512 KB of the Xerox Alto . And your hard drive could be 10, 29, or 40 MB. In addition, it had an 8-inch floppy drive. The CRT monitor was 17 inches, monochrome and with a resolution of 1024×808. It included two-button mouse, Ethernet connection.
As for the software, on the one hand there was the operating system, baptized as Pilot or Pilot OS . It was created expressly for this computer, of course. Being the first of its kind, the only previous software was that of the Xerox Alto , used during the manufacturing process. And the desktop software was named after Star , which in turn was used to name the computer as a whole.
The price of the Xerox Star was 16,000 US dollars. Expensive for a personal computer. But the idea was to create a desktop computer with server and / or workstation capabilities and functions. Hence the inclusion of Ethernet and other networking features such as file server and print server support. Precisely, an installation with multiple units, file server and print server could reach 100,000 US dollars. Because of its price or because it did not know how to reach the right audience, the Xerox Star sold 25,000 units. Hence, it stopped being sold in 1985, four years after its release on the market.
The novelties introduced by the Xerox Star
We have already made a list of everything new that the Xerox Star brought with it, but now it's time to give it context to understand its importance . Graphical interface and mouse are possibly the two most striking elements. The first one brought computing closer to many, thanks to the fact that it made the handling of a machine that until then was controlled by magic words or commands that you had to learn previously, more digestible. And the mouse served to handle with ease those windows and icons that appeared on the screen, something complicated to do with a keyboard.
In Xerox PARC laid the foundations of the GUI, Graphic User Interface, graphical user interface. The biggest revolution in the way we had interact with computers since we changed punch cards for electronic commands. The concepts of file and folder were now visible on screen. They were represented by an icon, different depending on the type of document. And if you opened them, they were displayed in the form of a document delimited by a window. Window that represented both the open document and the program necessary to open it.
The great change that Xerox introduces, and that Apple and Microsoft later copied in their respective creations, has to do with the concept WYSIWYG , an acronym for what you see is what you get and that translated comes to say what you see is what you get. That is, the changes you make to a document are seen on the screen in real time. The background of the document is equivalent to the paper, the same with the written text. Reality and virtual object closer than ever in a time when you work with black screens with white or green letters and in which many times you did not see exactly what would later be printed on paper.
Another concept that is part of the Xerox graphical interface is that of object . Everything is an object that you can interact with. From a folder to a document, going through a program. And within the document, any editable element is an object that you can select, delete, edit or touch up. Without this, the current operating systems would be very different from how we understand them today. All are inspired by these bases, as well as by the bitmaps , which represented the objects by means of pixels.
Then we can go into interesting or anecdotal details such as that the desktop of the Xerox Star allowed to see an open document and the desktop itself with documents and folders at the same time. You could also see several open documents at the same time spread out on the screen without overlapping or overlapping them, one on top of the other, optionally. Or that the function menus would be shown on top of the document as if it were floating or there were three dimensions instead of the two we were used to until then.
The second great element, the mouse. Today we have touch screens, trackpads and other pointing peripherals integrated to interact. But the mouse was the first serious alternative to the keyboard of all life. Although it was ahead of the trackball, the mouse looked more accurate and was installed as a standard peripheral in most computers that came from 1980 onwards. In addition, combined very well with the new graphical interface , since it allowed interacting with icons, selecting text, opening option menus and other tasks more quickly than with the keyboard. At least in principle.
Third great innovation of the Xerox Star , and that we already saw in the previous model Alto : the standard Ethernet . Thanks to this connection standard, it is possible to connect computers to each other and create local networks. Precisely, the idea of Xerox was that the offices of the future would connect the terminals or computers to each other by Ethernet and these to other peripherals such as printers or file servers. Something that, as we have seen over the years, has come true.
The practical vs. the ambitious, the cheap vs the expensive
At this point. If the Xerox Star had everything to succeed, and was the first of its kind, why didn't it have the public's favor? The answer is easy: its high cost. In terms of performance, this computer was very efficient compared to other workstation-type machines of the time. However, the Star computer was released in 1981. And that year was the year of IBM and its personal computer. The IBM PC 5150 changed the industry in its own way.
Comparing its hardware, the Xerox Star outperformed the IBM PC , but for better or for worse, it offered the public what they needed. To all the public, both the professional and the one who just wanted a computer at home to work or study. Its price was about 1,565 US dollars in its basic version. The most expensive was $ 3,000. It didn't have an Ethernet connection, it didn't have a mouse, it used DOS as its operating system, but by the standards of the time, it was very good in value for money .
The IBM PC was intended to be in all homes and in all offices at the same time. And he did it thanks to its adjusted price for what it offered. Xerox Star had achieved something great, but unfortunately it offered too much for an audience that did not need all those features. However, it is undeniable that this computer laid the foundations for the rest of the industry to switch to graphical interfaces, hand in hand with Apple and Microsoft and the mouse will become popular as the default peripheral of any personal computer. It also laid the foundations and introduced technologies such as Ethernet connections or email, something that we could not live without today.
