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The Mac user interface was inspired by some concepts at Xerox PARC (and Stanford and other places), but the look-and-feel of the Mac GUI was substantially different from the Alto and Star, including a lot of Apple innovations like desk ornaments.

While the look and feel of the Mac interface is different from the PARC model, the Mac's predecessor's (Lisa) interface was not. Not to mention that PARC is where the whole idea of a mouse-driven interface originated.

I always like to hear folks talk about how innovative and fast Apple's early OS was.

What is never mentioned is that you had to have a lot of memory because Apple recommended that virtual memory be turned off to speed up the system. When virtual memory was turned on, the so-called speedy Mac suddenly slowed to a crawl.

Ever get an out of memory error on a Mac? Ever had to close an app to cure an out of memory condition? Since the Mac OS lacked memory protection, a memory error usually took down the entire system. It took Apple 13 years to fix this little 'feature'. (OS 7.6 --1997)

Of course, the Mac had it's own version of Microsoft's BSoD --the bomb icon.

And, we can't forget the force-quit, which usually meant the system locked up requiring a power-off, and disk check upon power-up.

Funny how the Apple devotees never mention these 'innovations'. Oh, sure these were fixed and later rendered moot by OSX, but they were there, nonetheless and they were there for a long, long time.

While the look and feel of the Mac interface is different from the PARC model, the Mac's predecessor's (Lisa) interface was not.

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.

While the look and feel of the Mac interface is different from the PARC model, the Mac's predecessor's (Lisa) interface was not.

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.

What made MacOS X so great is that operates on top of a true flat-memory mode UNIX kernel (the Mach kernel), which means strong memory stability to start with. It should be noted that recent problems with the iMac was caused by overheating hardware, not unstable software; they were fixed by updating MacOS code to reduce the stress on the hardware itself.