1973 Xerox Alto and Star

In 1973, the Xerox Alto started the graphical user interface revolution that would sweep through the computer industry over the following decade. The dek-sized Alto, and its commercialized descendant the Xerox Star, were the first GUI-based computers. Researhers at Xerox PARC (Palo Reseach Center) developed the basic ideas of a graphical user interface along with all the associated innovations-the mouse, the desktop metarphor, icons, windows, menus, atcetera. Although the ideas in the Xerox Star were revolutionary, it was huge failure commercially. This was due mainly to its price tag of $50,000. When Steve Jobs took a tour of Xerox PARC in 1979, he saw the Alto and realized it was the future of computing. He quickly began to wirk towards bringing the technology to market. Many of the ideas in the Alto showed up two years later in the Apple Lisa, and all of the ideas finally made it to market in the Apple Macintosh. Several Xerox researchers also left to join Apple.