When Rush brought Microsoft into it and gave Steve Jobs all the credit, well, not one bit of it that I heard was true.
Rush claimed MS-DOS was in 1979 when it was first released August 1981.
Rush claimed Steve Jobs produced the first mouse. Well, Apple released IT’S first mouse in 1984...Microsoft released theirs in 1983. The mouse was invented prior to 1952 and several inventors as early as 1972 had improved on it. Steve Jobs wasn’t even born when the mouse was invented.
Rush claimed Steve Jobs invented the windowing environments and Microsoft stole it from Apple. Truth is, others invented windowing environments, but Microsoft had officially started their windowing environment in 1981, long before Apple released theirs in 1984. Apple’s GUI had extremely limited capabilities and was borrowing heavily from Xerox. So, who invented the GUI? Xerox made the first workable version, but many others had envisioned the idea decades before. The entire industry has contributed to the idea as we have it today.
One great thing about the computer revolution: Everyone had a hand in it. It is amazing that no person can claim an entire idea but built upon the ideas of others, making great improvements and contributing to the idea. Many made millions of dollars and good for them. The industry was truly a free market at work, but to claim any particular person, Steve Jobs or Bill Gates, drove an idea personally, not hardly. They each contributed, but none made the entire idea themselves. We all heard, read, and saw the ideas of others and made improvements and that’s how computers revolutionized our lives, one great idea upon another.
Rush credited Xerox today with the WYSIWYG interface and referred to Jobs tour of Xerox Parc.
I remember a PBS series on the history of computing. They showed a clip of some guy demonstrating a mouse and icon driven interface. I think it was circa mid 60s.
Thanks so much. I certainly asked the right person.
Don’t forget ROLM who was building hardened computers for the military in the 70’s and went on to build one of the best PBX’s ever, with many still in use today even at a Seagate.
In fact, they were the 1st PBX manufacturer who successfully integrated Voice Mail with the PBX seamlessly.
Good summation in #187
In 1952, a computer that could balance a spread sheet needed 1000 square feet of floor space, and ran with vacuum tubes that produced enough heat to warm a small sky scraper.