zonker writes:
In 1970, the Xerox Corporation established the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) with the goal to develop an "architecture of information" and lay the groundwork for future electronic office products. The pioneering Alto project that began in 1972 invented or refined many of the fundamental hardware and software ideas upon which our modern devices are based, including raster displays, mouse pointing devices, direct-manipulation user interfaces, windows and menus, the first WYSIWYG word processor, and Ethernet.
The first Altos were built as research prototypes. By the fall of 1976 PARC's research was far enough along that a Xerox product group started to design products based on their prototypes. Ultimately, ~1,500 were built and deployed throughout the Xerox Corporation, as well as at universities and other sites. The Alto was never sold as a product but its legacy served as inspiration for the future.
With the permission of the Palo Alto Research Center, the Computer History Museum is pleased to make available, for non-commercial use only, snapshots of Alto source code, executables, documentation, font files, and other files from 1975 to 1987. The files are organized by the original server on which they resided at PARC that correspond to files that were restored from archive tapes. An interesting look at retro-future.
Re:Huh, what?
By rioki
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2014-Oct-22 09:39
• Score: 4, Informative
• Thread
You are well aware that IBM was a merger from the three companies Tabulating Machine Company, International Time Recording Company and Computing Scale Company to form the Computing Tabulating Recording Company in the year 1880. They then renamed the company to International Business Machines in 1924. Their core business was building tabulators, time clocks and other specialized machines.
The general purpose computer was not necessarily the most useful tool for business. In the aforementioned 60s and 70s some large companies used them for accounting purposes, but even there their use was limited. For universities and research labs general purpose computers was more useful and here you found them there.
That does not mean that IBM did not have their hands in other specialized applications. You could probably equip you entire company with only IBM products. Only until the late 70s and 80s did the IBM general purpose computers find their way into mainstream business applications.
"mouse pointing devices"?
By wonkey_monkey
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2014-Oct-22 09:52
• Score: 3
• Thread
mouse pointing devices
You went with that because you didn't know whether to put mouses or mice, right?
It is, of course, mieces.
My favorite Alto application: Mazewar
By OmniGeek
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2014-Oct-22 10:00
• Score: 4, Interesting
• Thread
In 1977 or thereabouts, I was a co-op student at Xerox' Webster, NY Research Center. At lunchtime, I had access to an Alto, and spent far too much time playing MazeWar, a networked multi-player real-time 3D-perspective game wherein the players navigated a maze (displayed as wireframe 3D with an overhead map at the side), finding other players (who appeared as giant floating eyeballs) and zapping them. Once zapped, you respawned elsewhere in the maze and attempted to sneak up on your opponent and return the favor.
The graphics were extremely simple; there was no detail in the walls, just lines showing the edges, and player positions were limited to the center of each grid square; player movement was in discrete jumps. All of this was done to reduce the computational load for the graphics, of course. As a result, the system was very responsive, and the experience was quite immersive.
Re:It would be interesting
By frank_adrian314159
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2014-Oct-22 10:13
• Score: 4, Informative
• Thread
It was a 16-bit architecture. Use the Wiki:
Alto was a microcoded design but, unlike many computers, the microcode engine was not hidden from the programmer in a layered design. Applications such as Pinball took advantage of this to accelerate performance. The Alto had a bit-slice arithmetic logic unit (ALU) based on the Texas Instruments' 74181 chip, a ROM control store with a writable control store extension and had 128 (expandable to 512) kB of main memory organized in 16-bit words. Mass storage was provided by a hard disk drive that used a removable 2.5 MB single-platter cartridge (Diablo Systems, a company Xerox later bought) similar to those used by the IBM 2310. The base machine and one disk were housed in a cabinet about the size of a small refrigerator; one additional disk could be added in daisy-chain fashion.
It would be relatively simple to come up with an emulator that could run well. Although I'd rather see a Dandelion clone, anyway - I knew all about the AMD 2900 series, back in the day.
PARC monument
By ThatsNotPudding
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2014-Oct-22 10:40
• Score: 3
• Thread
There really should be an august monument to noble accomplishments Xerox achieved.
Stylish, classic, with a simple inscription:
"On this spot, Steve Jobs stole all his good ideas."