The First Gyan
Well, this isn’t one of those forwarded posters that tell you how to give your 100% efforts distributed over a week or something on those lines. Apart from flooding the BB, the other reason for starting this series – yes, hopefully a series – is to share some anecdotes, book reviews, quotes and mainly, histories of some of the most interesting companies and individuals.
I’m not sure how long the stock would last and I’m even more skeptical about how frequent I would be able to write but I, sure, am hopeful that it would be amusing and interesting as long as it does.
So here goes:
No matter, how much critics bash Windows for their bugs and security threats, I think, Windows is a prime mover in making Personal Computing as popular as it is today. What appeals most to the user is the GUI – Graphical User Interface. Things like relevant icons (Trash Can for deleted items, Envelope for a new mail etc.), High end graphics, and access to all the objects through a single click of a mouse, have really made Windows popular amongst common users. You no longer need to know a string of commands to achieve a simple task.
The roots of this GUI go much deeper than Windows, i.e. Windows did not pioneer GUI. The Icons and other such GUI concepts were, if I may say, “Stolen” by Microsoft from Apple. There was a big lawsuit between Microsoft and Apple over the usage of GUI which Microsoft won finally.
Well, if you thought Apple should be attributed for the invention of Icons, you are only half - right. Actually, the GUI used by Apple was also, “inspired” by some of the world changing products by Xerox.
In the late 70’s, the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) of Xerox came up with revolutionary concepts like Icons, Laser Jet Printer etc. But Xerox didn’t quite capitalize on these concepts. They really haven’t thought of the market these products could have. So it was Steve Jobs and Alan Kay who when happened to visit PARC, saw the potential in these concepts and products. Steve, the visionary that he is, managed to get some of the key engineers of PARC work for Apple and incorporated GUI, Mouse, Icons in Apple’s Lisa and Macintosh PCs. This helped Mac become one of the hottest products the industry could ever see. Moreover, it brought a normal user much closer to Personal Computing.
Till then, most of the softwares like VisiCalc, Lotus 1 – 2 – 3 and even Excel were DOS based (command line based). Another visionary, Bill Gates, saw the potential of GUI and started making softwares with Graphics platform. Rest all, as you know is a History.
For more details on how Microsoft evolved, there are a couple of good books that I have come across in our library. One is a good, brief book named “Making of Microsoft”. And it’s not all about Dates and Microsoft Praising! The other one is “Plot to get Bill Gates”. It’s another good book about why Microsoft and Bill Gates are what they are and about the people who really hate him – the anti - Microsoft Lobby. (This lobby is named as NOISE – Netscape, Oracle, IBM, SUN…and Everybody Else! J)
Before I sign off for today, here’s a short appealing story of how small things we take for granted today were a major breakthrough back then. While developing code for printing, the developer had to go a few meters to see how the document has got printed and if the formatting was proper. Tired of doing this for many times, he wrote a code to see how the document will actually look like when printed. He suggested adding this utility to the next release but was only laughed at as nobody saw much practical use in it. And as it turned out, this utility has now become an integral part of every desktop publishing software like Word, Excel, and Acrobat etc. The utility, as you would have guessed by now, is “Print Preview”.
Regards,
Abhishek
Disclaimer:
I have tried to be as accurate as possible about the names and dates mentioned. If you find any discrepancy, corrections and suggestions are always welcome.
I’m not sure how long the stock would last and I’m even more skeptical about how frequent I would be able to write but I, sure, am hopeful that it would be amusing and interesting as long as it does.
So here goes:
No matter, how much critics bash Windows for their bugs and security threats, I think, Windows is a prime mover in making Personal Computing as popular as it is today. What appeals most to the user is the GUI – Graphical User Interface. Things like relevant icons (Trash Can for deleted items, Envelope for a new mail etc.), High end graphics, and access to all the objects through a single click of a mouse, have really made Windows popular amongst common users. You no longer need to know a string of commands to achieve a simple task.
The roots of this GUI go much deeper than Windows, i.e. Windows did not pioneer GUI. The Icons and other such GUI concepts were, if I may say, “Stolen” by Microsoft from Apple. There was a big lawsuit between Microsoft and Apple over the usage of GUI which Microsoft won finally.
Well, if you thought Apple should be attributed for the invention of Icons, you are only half - right. Actually, the GUI used by Apple was also, “inspired” by some of the world changing products by Xerox.
In the late 70’s, the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) of Xerox came up with revolutionary concepts like Icons, Laser Jet Printer etc. But Xerox didn’t quite capitalize on these concepts. They really haven’t thought of the market these products could have. So it was Steve Jobs and Alan Kay who when happened to visit PARC, saw the potential in these concepts and products. Steve, the visionary that he is, managed to get some of the key engineers of PARC work for Apple and incorporated GUI, Mouse, Icons in Apple’s Lisa and Macintosh PCs. This helped Mac become one of the hottest products the industry could ever see. Moreover, it brought a normal user much closer to Personal Computing.
Till then, most of the softwares like VisiCalc, Lotus 1 – 2 – 3 and even Excel were DOS based (command line based). Another visionary, Bill Gates, saw the potential of GUI and started making softwares with Graphics platform. Rest all, as you know is a History.
For more details on how Microsoft evolved, there are a couple of good books that I have come across in our library. One is a good, brief book named “Making of Microsoft”. And it’s not all about Dates and Microsoft Praising! The other one is “Plot to get Bill Gates”. It’s another good book about why Microsoft and Bill Gates are what they are and about the people who really hate him – the anti - Microsoft Lobby. (This lobby is named as NOISE – Netscape, Oracle, IBM, SUN…and Everybody Else! J)
Before I sign off for today, here’s a short appealing story of how small things we take for granted today were a major breakthrough back then. While developing code for printing, the developer had to go a few meters to see how the document has got printed and if the formatting was proper. Tired of doing this for many times, he wrote a code to see how the document will actually look like when printed. He suggested adding this utility to the next release but was only laughed at as nobody saw much practical use in it. And as it turned out, this utility has now become an integral part of every desktop publishing software like Word, Excel, and Acrobat etc. The utility, as you would have guessed by now, is “Print Preview”.
Regards,
Abhishek
Disclaimer:
I have tried to be as accurate as possible about the names and dates mentioned. If you find any discrepancy, corrections and suggestions are always welcome.
posted by Gyan for the Day! | 7:25 pm
2 Comments:
Great going !!!
I was waiting for this day - when you would create your blog.
So... let it flow...
I got this from swetha..this is really a stupendous effort..collating so much of data and analects , putting it all together is indeed a herculean task and you have done it all quite smoothly..hope to read more from your side.
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