Lunduke
News • Science & Tech
The History of the Graphical User Interface -- 1945 to 1980
A visual, historical tour of the early years of computer GUI's... starting in 1945.
August 21, 2023
post photo preview

The 1980s and 1990s were an amazing time in computer history… with so many well known stories of computer GUI’s that have become instantly recognizable.

The Macintosh. Windows. So many others.

But how did we get here? What were things like before the 1980s? How did the graphical user interfaces of computers get their start?

For that… we need to go back to the end of World War II. When songs like "Sentimental Journey" ruled the radio.

1945

In 1945, Vannevar Bush (the first Director of the USA’s Office of Scientific Research and Development during World War II) wrote an article, published in The Atlantic, entitled “As We May Think”.

This article turns out to be one of the most critical works in the history of computing and it describes a new machine… which Bush calls the “Memex”. Essentially… what we now call the Personal Computer.

“It consists of a desk, and while it can presumably be operated from a distance, it is primarily the piece of furniture at which he works. On the top are slanting translucent screens, on which material can be projected for convenient reading. There is a keyboard, and sets of buttons and levers. Otherwise it looks like an ordinary desk.”

Bush also describes ways of storing, retrieving, and interacting with information within the “Memex”. What he describes is the precursor to things like Hypertext, structured file systems, wide area networks (and the Internet) and… Graphical User Interfaces.

I can’t recommend reading this essay strongly enough. Vannevar Bush was absolutely brilliant.

1963

Flash forward to 1963. A man named Ivan Sutherland, who was working on his PhD in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, was inspired by Bush’s Memex to build a highly graphical computer system.

Not a hypothetical one. Not a concept. Something real.

He built the software on Lincoln TX-2 — which had a whopping 64K 36-bit words of memory, absolutely mammoth for the time. This massive amount of memory was going to be necessary for the ambitious graphical plan that Sutherland had in mind.

Fun side note: The Lincoln TX-2 was also the computer where the first simulation of packet switching networks was run by Leonard Kleinrock. Like using the Internet? Thank Leonard and the Lincoln TX-2.

What Sutherland created was something truly remarkable.

A system where the user could work, with a lightpen, on a graphical display with immediate feedback. Vector graphics. Flowcharting. 3D Modelling. Object oriented design.

If you have never seen this demo before, it is an absolute must watch. As you’re watching, remember that this was from 1963. And nothing like this had ever been done before.

 
So many moments in this demo absolutely blow me away. Around the 11 minute mark, he demonstrates zooming in on a vector graphics document. Way, way in. Modifying a vector object, then zooming out again.
 
In 1963. With 64k of 36-bit words to work with. Simply astounding.
 

1968

During the 1960s, Douglas Engelbart was working on a computing system of his own, funded by the US Air Force, NASA, and ARPA. His work was heavily influenced by both Bush’s “As We May Think” essay, and by Sutherland’s Sketchpad. He built on both of them heavily to create many of the User Interface concepts we know today.

In order to accomplish his goals, in 1968, Engelbart’s development efforts settled on the SDS 940. Powered by a 24-bit CPU (yeah, you read that right), 64 kilowords of 24bit memory and (get this) 4.5 MB of Swap. Oh! And 96 MB of storage.

In the ‘60s! The SDS 940 was an absolute beast of a machine!

Using this machine, Engelbart’s team developed what they called the “oN-Line System” or simply “NLS”.

More fun trivia time: Why was the “oN-Line Sytem” called “NLS” instead of “OLS”? You see, one of the early machines in use (prior to the SDS 940) simply wasn’t beefy enough to handle more than one user. So, for a time, the system was actually two related systems… the “Off-Line Text System” (which they abbreviated to “FLTS”) and the “On-Line Text System” (NLTS). Those just seemed like the best acronyms to them. Eventually the system added graphical capabilities (read: not just text). So they dropped the “Text”… and NLTS became NLS.

In December of 1968, Engelbart gave a 90 minute demonstration of the NLS that would come to be known as “The Mother of All Demos”.

 
The Mouse (a three button one, no less). Word processing. File revision control. Windows. Hypertext. The works.

If you haven’t seen this (or seen it lately), it is highly recommended.

Remember that this is all happening in 1968. 14 years before the release of the Commodore 64.

1969

Remember that amazing SDS 940? The computer behind “The Mother of All Demos”?

Well, Xerox bought Scientific Data Systems in 1969. And, with it, the SDS 940.

Scientific Data Systems was renamed Xerox Data Systems.

Remember this for later.

1972

While all of this was going on, during the 1960s, a team at the University of Illinois was building and refining PLATO - Programmed Logic for Automatic Teaching Operations. A computer system for teaching.

Over time new versions of PLATO were rolled out with increasingly advanced features. And, by 1972, PLATO IV had some pretty darned impressive ones.

Bitmapped graphics. A touch screen (in a 16x16 grid… so not exactly super precise… but still impressive). Digital audio stored to a hard drive. Voice and music synthesizers. Along with drawing software and, I kid you not, emojis. Yeah. The first emojis were created in 1972 on the PLATO IV.

The Plato IV - Image courtesy of the University of Illinois

Remember how Xerox had purchased the company that made the SDS 940? Well, researchers from Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (Xerox PARC) were given a detailed tour of PLATO IV in 1972.

And they took notes.

A gentleman by the name of Butler Lampson — who, as it would happen, was instrumental in the development of the Berkeley Time Sharing System for the SDS 940 — was one of the founding members, and a principal scientist, of Xerox PARC.

In December of 1972, Lampson wrote a memo to Xerox Corporate to request funds to build “a substantial number (10 - 30)" of Alto workstation computers.

Inspiration around the Alto came from many places. Including from the work of Engelbart on the SDS 940 (the mouse, windows, and more) and from PLATO IV.

1973

And now we arrive to a point in history that is a bit more often discussed.

In 1973, Xerox PARC unveils the Alto. A computer with a mouse. Movable windows. A “desktop” (with folders and icons). WYSIWYG document layout. Bitmap and vector graphics editing. Object Oriented programming (in Smalltalk).

This system had it all.

It took many of the concepts that came before… from Memex to Sketchpad to oN-Line System to PLATO IV… and refined. Combined it all together, added some innovations of their own, and polished it into a complete system ready for use.

For the first time, we had a graphical user interface that was more than a demo. More than a proof of concept.

The Smalltalk environment on the Alto. Image courtesy of the Computer History Museum.

As ground-breaking, and truly remarkable as the Alto was… only about 2,000 were ever made. And, for several years, the idea of a mass market Personal Computer with a graphical User Interface proved elusive.

1979

First launched in 1979, but not shipped until 1980, the PERQ workstation represented one of the first post-Alto attempts at a commercial, graphical user interface workstation PC.

The PERQ I workstation. Image courtesy of the Computer History Museum.

These were certainly not cheap systems. As you can see from this PERQ 1979 pricing list:

But it certainly came with a lot of features. This was a heck of a system!

The primary operating system was single-tasking, graphical, and heavily centered around the Pascal programming language. (Which… is a sentence that could also be used to exactly describe both the Apple Lisa and Apple Macintosh that would appear a few years later.)

Unfortunately the PERQ is mostly lost to time and seldom referenced nowadays. The final revision (the PERQ 2) launched in 1983, with the company being purchased… and the new parent company scrapping the in-development PERQ 3 by 1985.

A text editor from a PERQ workstation.

Which… brings us to the end of the 1970s.

Around this time, Steve Jobs took a tour of Xerox PARC and left with a great many ideas.

And, within the next 5 to 6 years, multiple companies (including Apple, Microsoft, Visi Corp, and Commodore… just to name a few) would release graphical user interfaces to run on their operating systems and personal computers.

And so much of it stems from 1945… and the Memex.

community logo
Join the Lunduke Community
To read more articles like this, sign up and join my community today
7
What else you may like…
Videos
Podcasts
Posts
Articles
Groupthink, Tech Journalism, & The Lunduke Journal

Why The Lunduke Journal uses the "10th Man Rule" to counter groupthink in the Tech Industry. (And why you'll definitely disagree with Lunduke sometimes.)

Stick it to Big Tech, 50% off everything at The Lunduke Journal:
https://lunduke.substack.com/p/stick-it-to-big-tech-50-off-everything

00:18:10
PSX Emu Dev Forbids Arch Linux Packages

DuckStation developer says, "Next step will be removing Linux support entirely, because I'm sick of the headaches and hacks." Specifically naming Wayland as a source of problems.

00:15:52
The Age of Non-Woke Open Source is Beginning

Non-Woke "Political Protest Forks" like XLibre & Redot are thriving. Non-DEl Linux Distributions like Open Mandriva are as well. But Woke projects? Not doing so well.

The Article:
https://lunduke.substack.com/p/open-source-political-protest-forks

00:21:04
November 22, 2023
The futility of Ad-Blockers

Ads are filling the entirety of the Web -- websites, podcasts, YouTube videos, etc. -- at an increasing rate. Prices for those ad placements are plummeting. Consumers are desperate to use ad-blockers to make the web palatable. Google (and others) are desperate to break and block ad-blockers. All of which results in... more ads and lower pay for creators.

It's a fascinatingly annoying cycle. And there's only one viable way out of it.

Looking for the Podcast RSS feed or other links? Check here:
https://lunduke.locals.com/post/4619051/lunduke-journal-link-central-tm

Give the gift of The Lunduke Journal:
https://lunduke.locals.com/post/4898317/give-the-gift-of-the-lunduke-journal

The futility of Ad-Blockers
November 21, 2023
openSUSE says "No Lunduke allowed!"

Those in power with openSUSE make it clear they will not allow me anywhere near anything related to the openSUSE project. Ever. For any reason.

Well, that settles that, then! Guess I won't be contributing to openSUSE! 🤣

Looking for the Podcast RSS feed or other links?
https://lunduke.locals.com/post/4619051/lunduke-journal-link-central-tm

Give the gift of The Lunduke Journal:
https://lunduke.locals.com/post/4898317/give-the-gift-of-the-lunduke-journal

openSUSE says "No Lunduke allowed!"
September 13, 2023
"Andreas Kling creator of Serenity OS & Ladybird Web Browser" - Lunduke’s Big Tech Show - September 13th, 2023 - Ep 044

This episode is free for all to enjoy and share.

Be sure to subscribe here at Lunduke.Locals.com to get all shows & articles (including interviews with other amazing nerds).

"Andreas Kling creator of Serenity OS & Ladybird Web Browser" - Lunduke’s Big Tech Show - September 13th, 2023 - Ep 044
Lunduke Journal 50% off (including Lifetime) ends tonight!

Ay, caramba! These Lunduke Journal discounts end tonight (Friday) at midnight!

  • 50% off Monthly — Now $3 / Month (normally $6 / Month)
  • 50% off Yearly — Now $27 / Year (normally $54 / Year)
  • 50% off Yearly MP4 Downloads — Now $27 / Year (normally $54 / Year)
  • 50% off Lifetime Subscriptions — Now $100 (normally $200)

Grab one. Support The Lunduke Journal. Save some moolah.

Here’s all the details on how to snag a discount:

https://lunduke.substack.com/p/stick-it-to-big-tech-50-off-everything

  • Lunduk
15 hours ago

What Good Am I in the Age of GenAI Coding?

I am not an AI skeptic. On the contrary, I welcome the new overlords. (I’m kidding with the last part.) I know some are asking: “If AI is doing the coding, will human coders go the way of typesetters?”

I’d say we coders are going the way of buggy builders who became automobile builders. My metaphor needs work — but I’m trying to say: there will be more work for us, not less.

This week, my employer is training 250k of us on Vibe Coding. I’m ahead of the game, as I’ve been exploring GenAI extensively ever since ChatGPT rocked the world. Let me give a bit of a testimony about my Vibe Coding project — to build an accelerator: “just drop in your data” and have a prebuilt, industry-best-practice dashboard.

Step 1:
I’m not a telecom expert, so I had 4 different AIs do deep research on the topic. Then I had ChatGPT consolidate their findings into a “best of.” Now I have 50 telecom industry KPIs and their definitions to work from.

In a real project, I’d ...

Can I get an "Amen"?!

post photo preview
post photo preview
LibreOffice Developer’s Hotmail Account Locked After LibreOffice Criticizes Microsoft
“Wow that looks bad,” says Microsoft employee.

Mike Kaginski, a LibreOffice developer (who works for Collabora), has had his Microsoft-hosted email account, which he uses for open source development, locked for “activity that violates our Microsoft Services Agreement”.

 

Kaginski discovered this when attempting to send an email to the LibreOffice development mailing list (hosted by FreeDesktop). It remains unclear if that specific email (which he sent via another address and was rather bland and technical) was the reason for the ban… or if attempting to send the email was simply the first time the ban was noticed by him.

This happened just days after LibreOffice officially accused Microsoft of engaging in a “Lock-in” strategy by creating “artificially complex”, XML-based office documents.

Are the two events related? Hard to say with any certainty.

To make matters worse, Kaginski has had no success in getting Microsoft to lift his locked email account — with the company making him jump through numerous, impossible hoops (such as requiring him to sign in to submit an appeal for his account being locked… but not allowing him to sign in… because his account is locked).

You got that? Sign in to fix the account you can’t sign in with.

Gotta love a good Catch-22.

Good job, Microsoft.

The Lunduke Journal reached out to a contact, within Microsoft, who made it clear that their group was not aware of the LibreOffice Developer’s locked account, but they were aware of the LibreOffice complaint article regarding “artificially complex” XML lock-in. Adding, “wow that looks bad”.

The Lunduke Journal’s Analysis

The odds of locking a LibreOffice developer’s email account being an official Microsoft corporate decision seems highly unlikely.

Microsoft, as a company, makes a lot of bad decisions — but this would just be too stupid for words. A massive PR blunder.

But could a single employee, feeling grumpy, have done it on an impulse? As some sort of revenge for LibreOffice’s “harsh” words about Microsoft? Sure. That seems entirely plausible?

Though, it’s also entirely plausible that some poorly designed AI-driven “naughty activity” detection bot flagged his account. Or, perhaps, the developer was reported by some random Open Source hooligan who likes to cause chaos (there’s a lot of those).

Either way, the fact that Microsoft requires people to log in — on accounts which cannot log in — in order to file an “appeal” is incredibly amusing. And is very, very typical Microsoft.

Read full Article
post photo preview
Open Source “Political Protest Forks” Thriving
Many called XLibre & Redot nothing more than “political protests” that would quickly die and be forgotten. Boy were those naysayers wrong.

Over the last year, we’ve seen a couple of high profile forks, of large Open Source projects, which were inspired — in part — by a desire to move away from the political discrimination and Leftist Extremism within the original projects.

At the time, when each of these forked projects were started, many predicted that they would go nowhere. That they were nothing more than “political protest forks” — and they would die out quickly.

Let’s check in on both of those project to see if that has happened.

XLibre - The Xorg Fork

Since officially launching, at the end of June (last month), the XLibre project has published a handful of official releases (now up to version 25.0.0.5)… with a significant number of changes and fixes.

 

In fact, considering the significant new features (such as XNamespace Extensions), the first release of XLibre is larger (in every way I can think to measure) than any Xorg release in the last decade. With the number of contributors growing.

How about Operating System support? Many predicted that XLibre would be ignored by every Linux distribution on the planet. That it would go nowhere and nobody would use it.

According to the “Are we XLibre yet?” wiki, a number of systems have already (officially) adopted XLibre. Including: Devuan, Artix, GhostBSD, and (my personal favorite) OpenMandriva.

 

This is important to note: All of that support has occurred even though XLibre has only existed for one month. Several systems already officially supporting it is nothing short of “crazy impressive”. Borderline unprecedented.

In addition, a number of systems have 3rd party repositories which allow users to install and use XLibre. Including: Arch, FreeBSD, Gentoo, NixOS, Slackware, and (seriously) macOS.

 

In short: Growing group of developers. Rapidly growing platform support. New releases which put the original project (Xorg) to shame.

Redot - The Godot Game Engine Fork

The Redot project — which forked off of Godot back in October of 2024 — had a stable release (4.3.1) back in June, and just had a new test release (4.4 Alpha 2). Both with both new features and fixes.

 

In fact, Redot has had 13 releases since the project started late last year.

With an absolutely massive number of commits since then.

 

In short: Steady, new releases. New features and bug fixes. Both stable and testing releases.

These Projects are Thriving

It’s hard to look at either of these projects and come to any conclusion other than they are absolutely thriving.

At this point, it’s looking like those who predicted rapid failure for these “Political Forks” were not only wrong… but wildly, obscenely wrong.

There’s a lesson in there.

Read full Article
post photo preview
Groupthink & Tech Journalism
Why The Lunduke Journal uses the “10th Man Rule” to counter groupthink in the Tech Industry.

If my audience always agrees with me — 100% of the time — I’m probably doing something wrong.

That’s core to the ethos of The Lunduke Journal.

Any Brand X Tech Journalist can publish articles and shows filled with ideas, and facts, which their audience is known to already approve of. It’s easy to play it safe. To tell people — and corporations — what they want to hear. To pander.

We have enough Tech Journalists who do exactly that. Heck, we’re lousy with ‘em.

Put another way: The Lunduke Journal is not here to make friends. Not here to win some “Tech Reporter Popularity Contest”(tm).

Why The Lunduke Journal Exists

The Lunduke Journal exists to tell the truth about the Tech Industry (and world of Computing) — as I see it — no matter what. To tell the stories the other Tech Journalists are terrified of touching, for fear of losing that afore mentioned popularity contest.

The Lunduke Journal publishes leaks from major corporations — royally ticking off all of Big Tech in the process.

The Lunduke Journal shines a light on the discriminatory, DEI, & woke practices of Tech — causing nearly every Tech Industry person, with a Left-leaning political stance, to label me enemy number one (often attacking me, with wildly vulgar statements, in a desperate attempt to discredit me).

The Lunduke Journal investigates the shady business practices of Open Source Foundations and organizations — resulting in nearly every leader within the Free and Open Source world to either fear or despise me (often both).

In fact, The Lunduke Journal publishes stories — ranging from investigative pieces to pure opinion and analysis — which will, undoubtedly, infuriate (or at least annoy) every single nerd on this green Earth of ours.

Prefer Linux, Windows, or Mac? Left, Center, or Right politically? Pro or Anti-Government control over Tech? Star Wars or Star Trek?

Never fear. There will surely be a Lunduke Journal story which you will strongly disagree with. Just give it a little time.

Let me tell you why.

The Tenth Man Principle

Groupthink can be a very dangerous thing. Especially when you already agree with the consensus of the group.

There is a concept where, if 9 men all agree on something — an idea, a fact, a strategy — it is the duty of the 10th man to take a different approach. To pursue a contrary idea or strategy.

In some ways this is a variation on “Playing Devil’s Advocate”, but I prefer the “10th Man Principle” — it is more focused on challenging an entrenched consensus.

Which is where The Lunduke Journal comes in.

When I sit down and read Tech News — and listen to Tech Podcasts or Videos — and 90% of the coverage is all repeating the same position… whenever an extreme consensus has been reached… a red flag is raised. The 10th Man Principle is triggered.

My job is then to take whatever that topic is — a piece of breaking Tech news, a historical fact, an opinion on how Tech should be governed, etc. — and spin it around. Look at it from a completely different angle — and pursue that new line of thinking.

This isn’t about simply being contrarian for the sake of being contrarian.

I must investigate that topic rigorously. Focus on known, verifiable facts. Challenge any assumptions made (by myself or others) in whatever that consensus is. Dig deep. Dig where others have not. See where that investigation leads.

Sometimes that investigation leads to nothing overly interesting or worth publishing. Other times… the results are illuminating and profoundly valuable.

If you’ve followed The Lunduke Journal for any length of time, you’ve seen the results of this ethos. Over and over again.

And I Love It

There are, obviously, some challenges with this approach. To put it mildly.

Corporate sponsorship is — for reasons I clearly do not need to explain — impossible.

Luckily, The Lunduke Journal has an amazing (and generous) audience which keeps the lights on, making corporate sponsorship completely unnecessary. So Big Tech can kiss my tuchus.

On that note, getting employees of any Corporation or Foundation to talk “on the record” is simply not going to happen. In fact, many organizations have firm (and, often, stated) policies of “Don’t talk to Lunduke… ever”.

But, you know what? The brave whistleblowers within those companies have proven far more enlightening than any official statement from an executive could hope to be.

Oh, and that “Tech Journalism Popularity Contest”(tm)? Pshht. Forget about it. Not a chance. Not as long as I continue with the “10th Man Principle”.

If I’m doing my job right, the list of people who consider me an enemy of whatever entrenched, consensus position they hold… will continue to grow.

While, at the same time, the rag-tag group of Lunduke Journal supporters — those amazing nerds who see the need for this work (even though, on occasion, I publish something which challenges one of their deeply held convictions… or, perhaps, because of it) — will also continue to grow.

You know what? I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Read full Article
See More
Available on mobile and TV devices
google store google store app store app store
google store google store app tv store app tv store amazon store amazon store roku store roku store
Powered by Locals