GOOEY

Last week the tech community lost a major figure, renowned computer academic and accomplished musician, Jeff Raskin. This unfortunate event was a sort of bizarre coincidence for myself because only a few days earlier I had listened to Andy Hertzfeld (system programmer for the first Mac), on IT Conversations, talk about Jeff’s involvement in the creation of the Mac. In promoting his new book: “Revolution in the Valley: The Making of the Mac” (I’ve order a copy from Amazon), Andy reminisced about the good old days at Apple, and some of the adventures he got up to as part of the pioneering Mac team.

A kind of Blog turned book, Revolution is suppose to be a collection anecdotes written by Andy and a few other Apple colleagues, as featured on www.folklore.org. Jeff is a prominent character in these stories and is attributed with instigating the Macintosh project. Although Jeff planted the seed, there is much conjecture over who fathered the Macintosh. Jeff may be credited for having started the project but the Mac we know of today (arguably the archetype of all desktop computers) differed significantly from his original vision. For example, Jeff eschewed the mouse in favor of the keyboard as the sole UI input device.

Sadly Jeff was ousted by Steve Jobs (who eventually took control of the project) due to conflicting interests. Jeff’s most lasting contribution to the project was probably the choice of name, after his favorite variety of eating apple. He would’ve been pleased though, at the fact that the Mac went on to fulfill the core values he had intended for the product: an easy to use, low cost computer for the masses.

The Mac was a new take on computers, and brought about the Graphical User Interface revolution. Jeff’s passing compelled me to take a voyage through the mists of time to research the events which led to this seismic shift in computing.

Computer interfaces throughout the ages

Antiquity

Fossilised remains of punch cards and tape looms have been found in recent times alongside contraptions consisting of gears, cogs, leavers and pulleys. Historians theorise that these maybe remnants of early computational devices which helped early civilizations do long division and calculate the times tables.
Upper layers of excavation reveal more advanced samples consisting of LEDs, vacuum tubes, dials and switches - all of which are known to have been used as props in bad sci-fi movies.

Medieval/Dark ages

No, I’m not referring to an age were a large portion of computing was wiped out by a virus epidemic, or a time when religious, ethnic or economic oppression halted computer development. I’m referring to a time when command line interfaces ruled. Characterised by monochrome screens (green on black most commonly), text/command driven input was the main way of navigating computer applications. What would’ve been intimidating for a beginner or novice, with just a blinking cursor staring them in the face, was a boon for a seasoned expert who knew all the commands to concisely hack their way through a system.

Renaissance

From the darkness emerged the light. In 1973, a small twinkling beacon from the labs of the Xerox Palo alto research center appeared in the form of the Alto computer. Housed in a case the size of a bar fridge, it was small in comparison to the common mainframe at the time. But one of the most remarkable things about this machine was the wacky little device attached to it. Called a mouse, it had 3 buttons on top and roller wheels on the underside. Fitting comfortable in your hand you could glide it across the desk to–shock–move a cursor on the screen. And the screen was home to the Graphical User Interface, the knock out punch of this killer combo.

Yep, the Alto was responsible for popularising concepts such as point and click, drag and drop and WYSIWYG - all of which neatly describe the actions associated with metaphorical windows, icons and desktops. But the Alto was to remain an experimental model, tucked away deep in the catacombs of Xerox PARC, hidden from the rest of the world.

It took another company called Apple to bring GUI computing to the mainstream. Apple borrowed concepts from the Alto and put their own twist on things to come up with the LISA in 1983. This first attempt at introducing the world to a GUI computer was a dismal failure for Apple due to the exorbitant cost of the machine and it’s relatively slow performance. It never became as popular as its renaissance counter-part, the Mona Lisa (sorry, I couldn’t resist with that one.)

Second time was the charm for Apple. A year later, with much fan fare, it came out with another GUI machine called the Macintosh. This time they scaled back the hardware and tweaked the software to hit the sweet spot on price and features. The first Mac has been one of Apple’s greatest hits, it was the Elvis Presley of GUI’s and it brought about a true computing revolution.