Someday, all computers will work like this

© Mark Ollig

In 1972, Xerox Corporation was known for its copier machines.

Unbeknown to the general public, during this time, Xerox researchers and engineers were busy designing a unique computer system.

Xerox deemed future technology favored digital over analog, so they began developing the technology and software required to allow their copier machines to communicate with digital computing systems.

April 27, 1973, Xerox Corporation’s California Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) division completed work on a new digital computing system and began using it within their organization.

Xerox engineered their digital computer with a graphical interface and a newly-devised point-and-click three-button mouse, significantly reducing users’ need to type text commands through a keyboard.

Using the mouse, Xerox employees navigated the graphical user interface on the newly-named Xerox Alto digital computing system.

The computer name “Alto” was chosen because it was developed at Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center.

The Alto was designed to be used with the Xerox laser printer (Xerox invented the laser printer in 1969) and their copying machines.

Xerox employees using the Alto computer experienced a dramatic visual difference when manipulating the display screen’s graphical images, scrollbars, icons, windows, and file names by clicking the three-button mouse.

Xerox incorporated a portrait-presentation, 875-line, raster-scanned, bitmap display screen with the Alto computer. A bitmap display was essential in using a graphical user interface.

The Alto computer’s processor was based on Texas Instrument’s ALU (Arithmetic and Logic Unit) 7481 chip.

Single-platter 2.5MB removable disk cartridges stored the Alto computer’s software programs.

The computer’s processing components, disk storage units, and related systems were encased inside a small cabinet the size of a compact college dorm refrigerator.

Alto computers were connected to Xerox’s LAN (Local Area Network) using Ethernet — which, coincidentally, Xerox developed at PARC.

The LAN shared computer program files, documents, printers, office email, and other information with the connected Xerox employee computers.

Another method for entering commands used a five-finger “chord keyset” device; however, this never became popular with Alto users who preferred using the three-button mouse.

Software used with the Alto included word processors named Bravo and Gypsy.

Alto’s email software was called Laurel, and yes, someone with a sense of nostalgic humor named the next software version Hardy.

I can only imagine the comedic methods Laurel and Hardy would have come up with for selling computer email software.

Other software used with the Alto computer included a file transfer program, text-chat utility, computer games, and painting and graphics programs.

Although Xerox provided some Alto computers to university and government institutions, they were primarily used within their corporate business offices and not sold to the public.

In 1978, Xerox Alto computers were operational in four testing sites, including one in the White House.

By 1979, an estimated 1,000 Alto computers were being used by Xerox office personnel, engineers, and researchers.

In December 1979, Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple Computer, visited Xerox’s PARC division.

A Xerox representative gave Jobs a demonstration of the Xerox Alto computing system, showing him the LAN connecting Alto computers.

The representative demonstrated their email software and an object-oriented programming language called SmallTalk.

Jobs appeared highly impressed while observing people operating the Alto computer’s graphical user interface programs with a mouse instead of typing on a keyboard.

“It was obvious to me that all computers would work like this someday,” Jobs correctly predicted.

In 1980, Jobs and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak introduced the Apple III computer (which included a bitmapped screen and a palm-sized mouse) for a price beginning at $4,340 or $13,727 in today’s dollars.

In 1981, Xerox Corporation began selling a graphical-user-interface desktop business computer called the Xerox Star 8010 Information System to businesses and the public for $16,595, which today would be $52,488 — a bit pricey for a home computer user.

During the same year, IBM introduced its IBM Personal Computer (Model 5150) at $1,565, which would be $4,959 in today’s dollars — much more reasonable than the Xerox Star 8010 and more affordable than the Apple III.

The IBM personal computers were popular and widely used by businesses and the home computing public.

In 1983, Apple released its Macintosh computer for $2,495 ($7,892 in 2022 dollars).

Throughout the 1980s, the three dominant names in computers and software: IBM, Apple, and Microsoft, continued improving their computer hardware, operating systems, software, and peripherals.

It was too late for Xerox to become a competitive player in personal computing. Being primarily a copying machine maker, they couldn’t generate enough computer revenue sales.

As a result, in 1985, Xerox Corporation discontinued the production of its Xerox Star 8010 computing system.

“Xerox could have owned the entire computer industry,” Steve Jobs once said, reportedly stating he believed all computers would someday work like the Xerox Alto.

Xerox Corporation had its start in 1906 as the Haloid Photographic Company, producing photographic paper and other equipment.

During the 1930s, American physicist Chester F. Carlson invented a unique electrostatic dry chemical image copying process called xerography, a Greek word meaning “dry writing.”

Carlson created the first xerographic image on Oct. 22, 1938.

In 1947, Haloid Photographic Company obtained the commercial rights for using xerography.

In 1958, the company changed its name to Haloid Xerox Company; the following year, it began manufacturing the Xerox copier machine, and in 1961, it became Xerox Corporation.

We first witnessed employees of a large corporation using a mouse to operate several computer graphical interfaces with the birth of the Xerox Alto digital computing system.

Xerox Alto digital computing system with CPU, Monitor, keyboard, mouse,

and the unpopular 5-key chording keyset. Source: Computer Museum

(1973)