What Is a Desktop?
In 1981, Xerox created the first computer to be sold with a graphical user interface (GUI), the $16,000 XeroxStar. By this time, research into GUIs had been going on for nearly 40 years, with a few working systems, but all too expensive or experimental to sell. With such a high price tag, though, the XeroxStar was a commercial failure. Soon after, in 1983, Apple released the Lisa. At nearly $10,000, it quickly suffered the same fate.
Finally, in 1984 Apple released the first commercially viable GUI for a personal computer—MacOS for the Macintosh. This system introduced the world to the desktop, and included many of the features of today's desktops. Most importantly, the desktop provided metaphors: files were kept in folders; ...
Get Special Edition Using Linux®, Sixth Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
