Re: [NTLK] Another Newton feature now available for the iPhone

From: Dennis B. Swaney <romad_at_aol.com>
Date: Tue Oct 06 2009 - 17:05:53 EDT

Mike Rodgers wrote:
>
> While I'm not a fan of MS, didn't the two Steve's take a gander at what
> Xeroxor someone had put together at the Palo Alto Research Center. Seems
> there was a cool graphics based OS but it only ran on big iron. The two
> Steves then took the idea and came up with the Mac.
>

It was a research-only project, XEROX's PARC had no plans to market it.
They told Jobs he could use the ideas.

> Remember the spreadsheet Visicalc? After it was copied by Lotus, Lotus
> bought it and went on to sue Borland for violating their look and feel.
>
> Apple vs. Apricot - anyone remember the Apricots?
>

Nope, never heard of them. However, I do remember Franklin trying to
ripoff Apple designs.

> Jobs vs. Sculley (and vice versa) - the Newton was born and killed in that
> battle.
>

Internal to Apple; wasn't MS copying Mac OS items right down to the same
icons for the same application, only mirrored 180 degrees.

> Few of the now existing companies have played fair. Their only concern
> aboutwe consumers is that we keep buying their product.
>
> And of course, MS has always not just borrowed ideas but has stolen them.
> Remember Drivespace, or was it Doublespace. It was intended to give users
> with small hard drives more space via compression. It seems they were
> working with Stac Electronics on that one but canned the deal prior to the
> release of the new OS. When it was released, sales of Stacker went flat.
> Yes, Stac sued and won but they still were left without a market.
>
> There used to be PC's with touchscreens (TI) and computers that ran video
> production (Amiga) long before Microsoft and Apple had such features.
> Multiple desktops (Desqview) comes to mind before I even saw X-windows in
> Unix.
>

As general concepts yes, but MS tries to copy the original as exactly as
written as possible.

> Most ideas are begged, borrowed, stolen and/or recycled. That's how they
> evolve. BTW, isn't Apple's OS built from the Next OS which in turn borrowed
> from Unix which btw is also an original source for some of MS-DOS?
>

APPLE BOUGHT NeXT fairly, unlike Microsoft's DOS swindle.

-- 
Sincerely,
Dennis B. Swaney
Newton MP 2100
iPhone 3GS
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Received on Tue Oct 6 17:06:50 2009

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