Fun_People Archive
26 Sep
Re: I hear they invented virtual memory & laser printers, too.

Date: Tue, 26 Sep 95 12:52:12 -0700
From: Peter Langston <psl>
To: Fun_People
Subject: Re: I hear they invented virtual memory & laser printers, too.

From: guy@netapp.com (Guy Harris)

On
   http://mstour.windows.microsoft.com/launch95/live/mstour/2_2_5_2.html

is a list of "Microsoft's Firsts", including:

   01/01/1983   Microsoft announces that Microsoft(R) Word for MS-DOS(R)
		1.0 is the first word processor to support the Mouse.

which I'm sure will come as one *fuck* of a surprise to the folks at Xerox
and Apple (unless "the Mouse" means "the Microsoft(R) Mouse(TM)")....
_____________________________________________________________________________
From: Peter Langston <psl@wolfe.net>

Also a surprise to the folks at 3 Rivers and AT&T (makers of the Perq
and the Blit/Jerq systems, respectively)...
_____________________________________________________________________________
From: joseph@d2.com (Joseph Goldstone)

Not to mention Dan Weinreb, who wrote zwei for the MIT Lisp Machine
in, what, 1979?  Oh well.  Dan added to address list in case he wants
to feel like Don Quixote for a while.
_____________________________________________________________________________
From: Dan Weinreb <dlw@odi.com>

Late 1977, after we had seen very brief demos at Xerox PARC.  Charles
Simonyi, who is usually cited as the main creator of Microsoft Word,
was a/the key developer of BravoX at Xerox PARC, a word processor that
used the mouse, before he went to work for Microsoft, so one might
wonder what he thinks about this "first".  But, when it comes to war,
the victor gets to write the history books.  IBM invented the personal
computer, Lotus invented the spreadsheet, etc.  Perhaps in a few years
we will all learn that Microsoft invented the spreadsheet.

© 1995 Peter Langston