Skip to content
◈ALB Atlas

Xerox Alto Dead

Xerox Alto
KindMachine
Introduced1973
Discontinued1981
StatusDead
ManufacturerXerox PARC
ClassWorkstation
PlatformBitmapped GUI, Ethernet
Sourcebitsavers.org ↗

The future, built in 1973 — bitmap display, mouse, windows, Ethernet, WYSIWYG editing, email. Everything modern computing became. Xerox sold copiers instead.

Created by Xerox PARC

Chuck Thacker's team built the Alto in 73 days as an 'interim Dynabook' — the first personal computer with a bitmapped display, the first with a mouse, the first on Ethernet. Bravo (WYSIWYG editor), Draw, Gypsy, Laurel (email), and Smalltalk ran on it.

~2,000 were built, never sold commercially — distributed across PARC, universities, and the government. The 1979 demo to Apple's engineers was the famous transfer; the Alto's real product was the future.

Sources

  1. bitsavers.org/pdf/xerox/alto/
  2. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox_Alto