The Alto

I watched the Triumph of the Nerds documentary this weekend, and spotted something impressive in the “inspiration” section. The Xerox Parc Alto. I’d heard about Apple’s GUI “inspiration” before, but hadn’t really seen any examples of the Alto’s interface.

It was pretty far ahead of its time, almost 4 years before the Apple II, and far more sophisticated. It had Ethernet, networked email, a proper GUI. Amazing really, it’s a shame Xerox never saw the potential. I’m sure we would all be using Xerox workstations today if they had.

Here’s a clip of the first 3D networked game, Maze War, on the Alto.