Can you give a pointer to the "principles"? Sounds like something I could use.

David



At 01:05 PM 11/1/2001 -0800, you wrote:
>Actually, the first Xerox GUIs were developed on the Alto starting with 
>prototypes in '72, and directly on the Alto when it started working in 
>April '73. The Star was many years in the future at that point. The actual 
>Star prototype GUI was called SmallStar and was done by David Canfield 
>Smith (one of our three Dave Smiths) in Smalltalk. Politics prevented the 
>Star from actually being programmed in Smalltalk (and the path they 
>actually took was a long and dark one). Cf my previous comments about the 
>AMIGA. Perhaps the best thing about the Star was one of the first and best 
>attempts to create a "principled interface design". Various smart folks 
>participated in this, including William Newman and Larry Tesler. I wasn't 
>crazy about some of the design choices, but their "principles" gave rise 
>to better than average discussions and arguments about UI.
>
>Cheers,
>
>Alan
>
>------
>
>At 8:52 AM -0800 11/1/01, Ned Konz wrote:
>>On Thursday 01 November 2001 08:29 am, Stephen Pair wrote:
>>>  Thanks for the pointer!  Now I'm curious how deep the connections (if
>>>  any) between DRI, GEM, Atari, and PARC may have been...
>>
>>Apparently very deep. From http://xeroxstar.tripod.com/ :
>>
>>When Xerox PARC was developing the first GUI, as seen on the 8010, Lee Jay
>>Lorenzen was a key member of the team. He was later hired by Digital Research
>>Inc., where he worked on a GUI he wanted to call Crystal (after an IBM
>>project at the time, called Glass). Since Crystal was already trademarked,
>>the project was renamed Gem. The acronym GEM (Graphical Environment Manager)
>>came later. Lee wrote the vast majority of GEM/1 following his designs from
>>the Xerox closely. In fact, his expertise writing first the Xerox system and
>>later GEM allowed him to walk away from DRI and create a smaller cut-down
>>version for his company, Ventura. An exchange happened between DRI and Gary
>>Kildall at the Atari Grass Valley research center. Gary was given a VAX
>>11/750 in exchange for the development of CP/M 68K and GEM, which became TOS
>>for the Atari ST line. GEM was also developed for early DOS computers. In
>>fact, Elixir Desktop was built on top of the final version of GEM, version 3.
>>
>>--
>>Ned Konz
>>currently: Stanwood, WA
>>email:     ned at bike-nomad.com
>>homepage:  http://bike-nomad.com
>
>
>--
>
>