Computing History Part 2 :

Development of Microcomputers,
Silicon Valley, the GUI and Computer
Graphics

Dr AG Hamilton-Taylor,
UWI, Mona
material marked with * in slide
title is derived from Georgia Tech

Some of this material has been developed by Georgia Tech HCI faculty, and
continues to evolve. Contributors include Gregory Abowd, Jim Foley, Diane
Gromala, Elizabeth Mynatt, Jeff Pierce, Colin Potts, Chris Shaw, John Stasko, and
Bruce Walker. This specific presentation also borrows from James Landay and
Jason Hong at UC Berkeley. Comments directed to foley@cc.gatech.edu are
encouraged. Permission is granted to use with acknowledgement for non-profit 1
purposes.
The Evolution of Computing*

• Series of technological advances

lead to and are sometimes
facilitated by a
• Series of paradigm shifts
that in turn are created by a
• Series of key people and events

2
Silicon Valley
• Where is Silicon Valley and what
Companies have headquarters there?
 http://www.siliconmaps.com/silicon-valley-
map/

• Computing History Timeline

 http://www.computerhistory.org/timeline/

3
 Valley:
Prof Fred Terman of Stanford
U.
• In the late 1950’s Prof Fred Terman (aka the
Father of Silicon Valley) recruited prominent
electronics engineering professors to come to
Stanford Univ
 He encouraged professors and their research
students to use their ideas to start companies.
 Hewlett-Packard, the first of these companies,
started in 1939, making test equipment, then
military electronics
– They started making computers later in the 1960’s
 Terman got research contracts from the US military
for Stanford during the Cold War between US and
4
Russia
Roy L. Clay:
The “Godfather of Silicon Valley”
• Clay was the lead software developer for
the first mini-computer that Hewlett-
Packard designed in 1965 - watch
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-hLBvYAih
w

 He lead the design of the operating system,

programming languages, etc
 He is credited for starting the Silicon Valley
work style of flexible hours and sports
activities/recreation at the workplace
 https://ontechstreet.com/2015/02/roy-clay-sr-g
odfather-silicon-valley/ 5
Roy L. Clay:
The “Godfather of Silicon Valley”
• Clay was an investment consultant to the Kleiner,
Perkins, the first venture capital firm in Silicon Valley
 Advised on some investments in Intel and other Silicon
Valley tech companies
• Founded a startup that supplied power certification
and safety test equipment to IBM, Apple and others
 http://www.rodl.com/management.html
• Going home from work one day, 17-yr old Clay was
handcuffed by white police and told “don’t let me
catch you again” on the white side of town (article
optional)
 https://www.mercurynews.com/2014/08/28/roy-l-clay-sr-how
-a-silicon-valley-tech-pioneer-came-close-to-being-michael- 6
brown/
Roy L. Clay:
The “Godfather of Silicon Valley”
• Clay was asked by the venture capitalist
Tom Perkins to advise Bob Noyce of Intel
about the first microprocessor, the 8080.
 Intel was trying to figure out what to do with
the 8080, whether to use it to build traffic light
controllers, elevator controllers, calculators,
etc.
• Clay told Intel “Why don’t you just sell the
chip?” on the open market.
 That is how hobbyists and companies were
able to buy the 8080 to build microcomputers
like the ALTAIR, and the IBM PC. 7

The Invention of the Microprocessor
and the Race to Dominate the
Market
• Texas Instruments (TI)
 Started in 1951 in Texas designing electronics and
seismic and test equipment for the military and
industry (calculators came later)
• Texas Instruments (TI) and Intel both came up
with the first microprocessors in 1971,
 But TI (the larger company at the time) got the
patent.
 A microprocessor is a CPU on a single integrated
circuit (IC)
 Intel had to pay patent fees to TI for years in order
to manufacture microprocessors 8
 The Invention of the Microprocessor
and the Race to Dominate the
Market
• Intel was founded in 1968 by Robert Noyce and
Gordon Moore when they left Fairchild
Semiconductor
 https://www.britannica.com/topic/Intel (optional)
 Noyce was the first to make transistors and IC’s
cheap to manufacture by using silicon to instead of
costly germanium
• History of Silicon Valley semiconductor
manufacturers
 Fairchild was founded in 1957 when 8 engineers had
a row with William Shockley and left Shockley
Semiconductor Co 9
The Intel Founders
• Gordon Moore (left) and Robert Noyce
(centre), Intel founders, before they left
Fairchild
 Photo with the ‘traitorous eight’ founders of
Fairchild who left Shockley

10
 The Invention of the Microprocessor
and the Race to Dominate the
Market
• The Altair used the Intel 8080 in 1975, giving Intel a
headstart in the market
• Other companies quickly joined the competition:
 Apple I and Apple II used the MOStech 6502 processor in
1976
 The first Mac computers used the Motorola 68000 processor
• Some other companies made microprocessors which
were regarded as having better architectural designs
than those from Intel, but:
 IBM used the 8086 in 1981 for the first IBM PC
 Intel kept improving their designs and speed with each new
microprocessor model, and the PC’s got more powerful
– Intel 80286, 80386, 80486, the Pentum and current ii3, 5, i7 and i9
 The PC gave Intel market dominance 11
 Triumph of the Nerds (1996)
• A partial history of the Personal Computer,
 Has some good interviews with some of the key figures
 Has issues which we will analyze, illustrating some of the
problematic attitudes that persist in the industry
• Triumph of the Nerds video Parts 1 to 3
 Some potentially offensive content has been
skipped in the segments of this documentary
presented in lectures
 https://youtu.be/rrC722gKCIc Pt 1 - start to min
29:50
– Stereotypes of Nerds, ALTAIR microcomputer, founding
Microsoft
 https://youtu.be/rrC722gKCIc?t=1876 Pt 1–min 3112
Silicon Valley 2000+
• BUX 2019 at Google Headquarters in Silicon Valley
Summit on Forging connections, ideas, and
opportunities to improve equity and inclusion in UX
 https://summit.blackuxnetwork.com/
 Who’s Who at BUX Summit:
– https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipPgO-8ZDtDwLPg_doRYi98uK92VfMgPo
rDRfHT5apHyobiyshDTwavJOZDCcXCYKA?key=UzQ1SjdCQ1R0dEhBcmEzSm
5heDZMQzF6Y3lxSlVn

• Smile Jamaica Guest C.E.O./Co-founder of

SWAAY - Kamilah Taylor
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocRueJKBjTg
 Now Senior Software Engineer at Gusto Silicon Valley
– first min of https://youtu.be/NLEk_EOjAn4
13
 Global Participation of
Women in STEM and IT
Education
• According to UNESCO data (2014 - 2016),
only around 30 per cent of all female
students select STEM-related fields in higher
education.
• Globally, female students’ enrolment is
particularly low in
 ICT (3%),
 natural science, mathematics and statistics (5%)
 in engineering, manufacturing and construction
(8%).
 Source: http://www.un.org/en/events/women-and-girls-in-science-day/
14
• Black Ugandan Climate Activist Is Cropped Off Photo Leaving
 The Dramatic Story of the Start
of Microsoft (optional reading)
• It’s Jan 1975 and two Harvard students
dropout to race to create software for the first
“hobbyist” microcomputers. The result? A
company called “Micro-Soft”—now the one of
most valuable corporations on earth.
 In an adaptation from his memoir, Paul Allen tells
the story of his partnership with high-school
classmate Bill Gates, until its dramatic ending in
1983.
 Paul Allen on Gates, Microsoft
– https://youtu.be/4IM0SvIiMI4 (optional)
 http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2011/05/paul-all
15
en-201105
 Triumph of the Nerds
• Continued:
 https://youtu.be/WpdhFAKPsT4 Pt 3 - start to min
44
– Invention of the GUI, ethernet, Smalltalk at Xerox PARC
– Apple’s first popular GUI microcomputer – the Mac, the
deal with Xerox management to copy research
– Microsoft develops Windows, Apple sues them
 https://youtu.be/ySqEvijSDGE?t=2215 Pt 2 (min 36
to end)
– IBM and Microsoft split over OS/2 and Windows
• Triumph of the Nerds web site, transcript
 http://www.pbs.org/nerds/ (also see article on the
series posted on OURVLE) 16
The dawn of the PC & GUI Xerox Palo
Alto Research Center (PARC) – 1970
*

• Established 1970
 Bob Taylor heads CSL - Computer Systems Lab
• Goal: “The Paperless Office” and making it easy to
use
 https://youtu.be/ju_fr_8xU9k?t=840 (to min 18) - optional
 Are we there yet?
• “Inventing the future”
 Researchers used their new creations as their own tools –
bootstrapping
 Testing was done with children to see if it was easy to use
 See Alan Kay Video Pt 2 (first 3 min of) and Pt3
 http://youtu.be/5QJTsPQQCCc

17
Xerox PARC Hardware
Milestones *
• Laser printer 1971
 Gary Starkweather
• Ethernet 1973
 Bob Metcalfe
– Watch Ethernet Office System for the Future,
https://youtu.be/pJoH6XuUsoY
• Alto workstation computer 1973
 Chuck Thacker
 Ed McCreight, Chuck Thacker, Butler Lampson,
Bob Sproull, and Dave Boggs
• Real-time windowing operations (BitBlt)
1973 18

 Xerox PARC – The Alto – 1973
*
• First GUI computer, First workstation –
 Was a workstation computer
 forerunner of modern PC’s, Macs
• 808 x 606 raster
bitmapped display
• 3-button mouse,
keyboard
• Ethernet
• Merges printing, display
and networking
• *Watch Xerox ad:
 http://youtu.be/M0zgj2p7Ww4
19
Xerox PARC Software
Milestones *
• Postscript (PDF is a modern version of
this)
 John Warnock. Later founder of Adobe
• Bravo WYSIWYG text editor/formatter
1974
 Butler Lampson and Charles Simonyi
• Gypsy text editor with GUI and modeless
cut and paste editing 1975
 Larry Tessler and Timothy Mott
• Draw drawing program 1975
 William Newman
• Superpaint paint program 1974-75 20
 Innovator: Alan Kay *
• Xerox PARC researcher
 Former student of Ivan Sutherland
• Foundation work on Desktop GUI
interface, GUI overlapping windows,
Smalltalk, other…
• Had idea for Dynabook in 1970’s –
 Tablet computer connected to global wireless
network, multimedia capable, with a
personal library for learning
 Dynabook was not implemented (technology
did not exist to make it then)
 http://www.edibleapple.com/2010/04/30/from 21
 Adele Goldberg
• Head of PARC System Concepts Laboratory, the
team that developed the GUI and Smalltalk
 One of the Primary designers/developers of the Smalltalk
language
• Smalltalk (1972 first version, 1980 public release)
was the first popular Object-oriented language, first
language to facilitate GUI programming
 Smalltalk directly influenced C++, Java, Javascript, C#,
Objective-C, Python, Swift, others
 The object libraries of Java, .NET, Objective-C , etc, are
directly influenced by or derived from the Smalltalk
library/framework
 Object-oriented software and Smalltalk changed how
software is designed and helped to address the software
engineering crisis of the 1970’s (not the first software crisis22
The Alternate Reality Kit:
A Virtual Physics Smalltalk
World

• A ground-breaking research project

done by Randall B. Smith at Xerox
PARC in 1986
• Paved the way for many modern
graphical simulation systems
 Watch first 2 minutes of
– https://youtu.be/w1HhPE0zV6g

23
48 Years of Smalltalk
History
• In commemoration of the 40th anniversary
of the release of Smalltalk-80, the Computer
History Museum is proud to announce a
collaboration with Dan Ingalls to preserve
and host the “Smalltalk Zoo.” Below,
computer scientist Adele Goldberg explains
the vision behind Smalltalk
 Introducing the Smalltalk Zoo
– By Hansen Hsu | December 17, 2020
– Read first few paragraphs and watch Adele Goldberg (1
min):
https://computerhistory.org/blog/introducing-the-smalltal24
k-zoo-48-years-of-smalltalk-history-at-chm/
More Researchers at Xerox
PARC in 1970s and early
1980s*
• Stu Card –
 HCI theory
• George Robertson
 UI innovator
• Bob Metcalfe
 inventor of Ethernet (not Internet!)
• John Warnock
 invented Postscript/PDF
 founded Adobe
• ……

25
Paradigm: WIMP / GUI *
• Windows, Icons, Menus, Pointers
• Graphical User Interface
• Timesharing=multi-user; now we need
multitasking
• WIMP interface allows you to do several
things simultaneously
• Has become the familiar GUI interface
• Xerox Alto & Star; Perq, Lisa, Macintosh, …

26
Xerox Star – 1981 *

• First commercial PC designed for

“business professionals”
 desktop metaphor, pointing, WYSIWYG,
high degree of consistency and
simplicity
• First system based on usability
engineering
 Paper prototyping and analysis
 Usability testing and iterative
refinement 27
Xerox Star Desktop
Xerox Star Workstation –
1981*

• Refinement of Xerox Alto

• Commercial flop
 $15k cost
 closed architecture
 lacking key functionality
(e.g. spreadsheet)

29
 Paradigm: Personal Computer
*
• System is more powerful if it’s easier to
use
 Small, powerful machine dedicated to
individual use
 Made possible by single-chip processor,
semiconductor memory, which drives down
costs
• The Space Race drove development of
integrated circuits
 They needed small computers onboard the
rockets
 30
Early Personal Computers *
• 1977 Apple II
 $2500

• 1979 VisiCalc - “killer app”

for Apple II
 $100

• 1981 IBM PC/XT

 $1500
31
 Paradigm Shift - Spreadsheet

• Visicalc, 1979
 Conceived by Dan Bricklin, and refined
by Bob Frankston,
 There were some timeshared mainframe
systems that did some of the things it
did, but not all.
 First to run on personal computers
 Overtaken by Lotus-123, which was
overtaken by Excel
32
33
34
 The Untold Story of the IBM PC
• Watch video of two of the
team of twelve Designers
 Marc Dean and Patty
McHugh
– https://drive.google.com/file/
d/1xpfvkQozZvS2Wx7vpe--1h
CpKztQIzxm/view

 Patty McHugh designed

the original IBM PC
motherboard
– holds one of the nine patents
for the original IBM PC
– Was a Director, IBM New
Business Development 35
(retired)
 Dr Mark Dean –IBM Vice Presiden
(retired), Almaden Research Center

• Holds three of the nine patents for the original IBM

PC.
 Designed the Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) bus
– permitted add-on devices to be connected to the
motherboard/system
– National Inventors Hall of Fame honour for Dean and colleague
Dennis Moeller.
 Designed the Color Graphics Adapter in the original IBM PC,
• Was chief engineer for the development of the
modern PC
 IBM PC/AT, IBM PS/2 Model 70 & 80, etc.
 The PS/2 is essentially the version of the PC we use today
• Watch Interview https://youtu.be/_bmAGRtgb6c
36
•
 The Apple tour of Xerox PARC -
1979
• Xerox management wanted to license some
of the PARC tech such as the mouse to Apple
 Xerox, which dominated the copier market, was
under pressure because of new competition from
Japan
 Job’s proposed that Xerox buy a hundred thousand
shares of Apple for a million dollars in ‘exchange’
for a tour of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center
(PARC),
 This was before Apple IPO (Initial Public Offering)
– i.e. before Apple shares were sold to the public, so it was
considered like getting a big discount on the Apple shares,
which were expected to go up in value greatly, 37
 The Apple tour of Xerox PARC -
1979
• Xerox PARC researchers were not consulted,
and were shocked by the decision of Xerox
Management
 They tried to hide as much of their previous work
as possible
 Adele Goldberg refused to show the work of her
team until she was ordered to do so by Xerox
management
 PARC scientist Larry Tesler recalls Jobs' famous
Xerox visits https://youtu.be/ZOF-j6Nxm04 (optional)
Steve Jobs visits Xerox Palo Alto Research Center in 1979
(dramatization) https://youtu.be/2u70CgBr-OI (optional)
 (optional) Xerox PARC, Apple, and the truth about innovation.38
Apple Lisa – 1982 *
• The original Apple Lisa concept did NOT
have a GUI, but it was a fast machine (for
it’s time)
• After the Xerox PARC visit, it was
redesigned based on ideas of Xerox Star
and the GUI
 More personal rather than an office tool
 It was very expensive - $$10K to $$$12K
 It was a Failure (high cost)

39
 Apple Macintosh – 1984 *

• At $2500 it was lower priced than

Lisa,
 But the early IBM PC was $1500
• Good interface guidelines
• Third party
applications
• Great graphics,
laser printer
40
Apple v. Microsoft case
• Microsoft first licensed parts of the
early Mac OS to create Windows 1.0,
then copied more to create later
Windows versions outside of the
license
 Apple sued, and it went to the supreme
court
 Microsoft won. The court decided that the
look and feel of software could not be
patented or copyrighted 41
 IBM OS/2
• IBM OS/2 (Operating System/2) was designed as a
replacement for PC DOS
 DOS was primitive, e.g. it had no security features
(e.g. no user accounts for user to login), no
networking capabilities, no GUI, no multitasking, etc
 OS/2 was designed to be secure, networked, etc.
– It had user accounts that required a login, and
administrator account, file ownership protection,
multitasking, etc. It had an optional GUI
• Multitasking allows several programs to be run at the same
time, to print while continuing to run other programs, etc
– Many of these OS/2 features eventually appeared in
later versions of Windows such as Win NT, Win
2000, Win XP, Win 7 42
IBM OS/2

43
IBM and Microsoft split
• IBM contracted Microsoft to help them
develop OS/2, but later demanded that
Microsoft stop developing Windows or
license it to them on IBM’s terms.
• Microsoft refused, and that was the end of their
collaboration with IBM
• OS/2 was released in 1987.
• Microsoft started working on Windows in
1985, but the first two versions (Win 1.0
and Win 2.0) did not catch on. They were
primitive. 44
 Win 3.0 Takes the GUI market from the
Mac, and the PC Operating Systems
market from IBM
• Windows 3.0, released in 1990, was a global hit,
selling 30 million copies in the first year
 This made Microsoft one of the top global
companies, and made Bill Gates the richest
man in the world
 Win 3.0 was a big improvement over Win 2.0 in
terms of how it looked and worked.
 It was released at the same time that Intel
developed the new 80386 chip, which
supported multitasking
 It took most of the global GUI market from the
Mac
 Win 3.0 vastly surpassed OS/2 sales, and OS/2 45
Caribbean
• UWI Mona Computing got their first
Windows 3.0 computers (from
Gateway, a clone company) in 1991
 This allowed students to start doing
assignments involving UI programming,
color graphics, etc

46