>>>Apparently the guy who
designed all the different models of Microsoft Tablet PC is Chuck
Thacker, who was the big hardware honcho at Xerox PARC when PARC
invented the personal computer. I think the Alto may be Thacker's,
but I'm not sure.<<<
Bah. Xerox PARC invented very little, in actuality. They took the =
majority of their ideas from SRI (Stanford Research Institutes), and in =
particular one fellow who worked at SRI named Doug Engelbart. Engelbart =
and his team invented the mouse, hyperlinking, on-screen editing, =
videoconferencing, and more. There's the real smart guy.
Of course, SRI is purely a research institute, so that's why you never saw =
any personal computers coming out of there. And also noteworthy, the =
people at SRI invented pen-based computing as well!!!
Don't believe me? Take a gander at these RealPlayer film clips of Doug =
Engelbart giving the first public demonstration of mouse-based computing =
and hyperlinking. The year? 1968!!! About 5-8 years before Xerox started =
doing any of this:
http://sloan.stanford.edu/MouseSite/1968Demo.html
And for the curious, a brief recap of early pen computing:
http://www.sri.com/about/timeline/pen-input.html
--Daedalus
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