Posted on 05/27/2008 10:31:41 PM PDT by HAL9000
For what’s still a basically new OS with mostly bad press having over 50% of sold hardware having it isn’t bad. And it’s not like the didn’t make money on the other 40 odd %, they had XP or 2003.
I disagree. The look-and-feel of Lisa was much more Mac-like than PARC-like because both Lisa and Mac shared Apple's QuickDraw technology, which was far more advanced that anything PARC had. Some other Lisa technologies were invented by ex-PARC employees who were hired away from Xerox by Apple.
Not to mention that PARC is where the whole idea of a mouse-driven interface originated.
The credit for the mouse is generally given to Douglas Englebart, not PARC.
I’ve got just one finger for Microsoft.
False. Apple added movable, renamable, drag-and-droppable icons, among other innovations. And it's worth mentioning that Apple toured PARC with Xerox's permission, and Apple didn't steal anything -- Xerox was compensated by being allowed to buy shares in Apple, which at the time was not publicly traded.
Not to mention that PARC is where the whole idea of a mouse-driven interface originated
False. Douglas Englebart patented the first mouse in 1967 and demonstrated it in 1968. He was at the Stanford Research Institute at the time. Several members of his SRI team later moved to PARC, where they continued to develop the idea. Several members of the Star/Alto team at PARC went on to join the Macintosh team at Apple.
I always like to hear folks talk about how innovative and fast Apple's early OS was.
For the time. System 1 was miles ahead of any version of Windows up to at least 3.1.
The software I run is a Point of Sale program that my company develops. I’m not exactly sure what it would take to make it run in Linux, but I’m going to find out.
Sort of. If you buy or download a distro like Red Hat or Ubuntu, you get a straightforward installer. Some linux distributors, notably Linspire (which was called Lindows until they got sued), package Linux with their own proprietary goodies as a turnkey OS. It's even bundled on PCs sold by Sears, K-Mart, Wal-Mart, Amazon and Fry's online. It was on the $199 OS Walmart sold in its brick-and-mortar stores for a while. You can download Linspire for 50 bucks.
It depends on what you define as "best features." Linux gets a lot of features before any commercial OS, but they tend to be the kind of things the geek-boys like to code for themselves. Popular features introduced by Mac or Windows -- especially support for new hardware -- are where Linux is necessarily playing catch-up.
Like what?
I take it that in this case you mean the codebase as UNIX. And it's MUCH more complex than you portray it. Also don't forget that the current SCO was formerly named Caldera, which was working with IBM, HP, SGI and others on the successful Project Trillian to get Linux running on the IA-64 platform. Going from your point of view. I'd say SCO was trying to destroy UNIX too, along with another company you think was ruined by Linux, SGI.
Apple saw the threat to their business (of cheap Linux on Intel clones with similar GUI's) and quickly dropped IBM processors and switched to Intel to combat both
Apple dropped IBM and Motorola/Freescale because they couldn't keep the PowerPC processors competitive with the x86 world. Part of this was simple economy of scale: Apple didn't have enough demand to justify the R&D to keep a lead in desktop processor technology.
Apple is using BSD because Jobs created NeXT and that system used BSD, and he decided to base OS X on NeXT after he took over Apple.
Too bad for them, Long Live UNIX.
UNIX as trademark? Doesn't apply to OpenSolaris. UNIX as UNIX functionality? Linux is pretty much an equal. UNIX as codebase? Doesn't apply to most of them.
Which version of the Lisa interface are you referring?
The credit for the mouse is generally given to Douglas Englebart, not PARC.
I stand corrected.
The NeXT systems were by far the nicest workstation or desktop computers I had ever seen. They were better than Windows 95 systems about 5 years before Windows 95. The problem was distribution, the same problem Apple has today. There's just not enough good to go around in this world, sometimes, as a Linux box with an OSX skin is nowhere near the same O/S.
The original Lisa OS, which ran amazing applications like LisaProject. I still have the brochures for all of that stuff somewhere around here. Later, Apple distributed a Mac compatibility environment that allow Lisa to run Mac software.
Besides Xerox, another influence was the Corvus Concept computer. Also, Ted Nelson's book "Computer Lib/Dream Machines" was an important source of inspiration for the development of Lisa and Mac.
The Lisa had several design flaws. The worst one, in my opinion: Unlike the Mac, the Lisa's pixels were stretched horizontally, so the aspect ratio was messed up.
* According to US Courts, so far LOL.
Calvin, you’re obviously not aware of the following facts:
1: Jobs was invited to check out PARC’s projects.
2: When he liked what he saw, he PAID for a license to it.
Xerox was given Apple stock in exchange for engineer visits and an understanding that Apple would create a GUI product.
Microsoft? They paid PARC nothing and only stole.
I'm not so sure. Most people I know have the idea that if it acts like UNIX they can call it a UNIX. Your definition also makes OS X not UNIX, which I think we both agree is UNIX. I think who owns the rights makes the rules, so only four operating systems get to be called UNIX. The rest are "UNIX-like" or "POSIX-compliant."
Linux, like the Minix clone which also came from Europe, are completely separate families with different originators, and different derivatives.
At least now you appear to be disagreeing with the charlatans who say Linux has ripped-off AT&T UNIX code.
The NeXT systems were by far the nicest workstation or desktop computers I had ever seen.
I know some people in academia who still use them. Awesome machines, the WWW was invented on one because current proprietary text repository systems had onorous licensing.
Huh? You're the one confusing things.
From the first line on Wikipedia for "BSD":
Historically, BSD has been considered as a branch of UNIX — "BSD UNIX", because it shared the initial codebase and design with the original AT&T UNIX operating system.
Here are some screen shots of the Xerox Alto and the Lisa -
http://www.digibarn.com/collections/software/alto/index.html
http://www.digibarn.com/collections/software/lisa/index.html
I have not spent years.. but a little time.
I too learned in the dos days.. Heck.. I started off using Apple II+ and e’s in my school days.. spent hours on Commodore 64 and 128. Bought my first 486 in early 1993 etc etc...
I still enjoy learning how things work.. its not for everyone so I can understand your statement.
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