[COFF] Re: "Hot Spot" High Performing Centres in Computing

[Dan Cross <crossd@gmail.com>]

On Mon, Oct 2, 2023 at 9:08 AM Noel Chiappa <jnc@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> wrote:
>     > From: Larry McVoy
>
>     > And the mouse unless my boomer memory fails me.
>
> I think it might have; I'm pretty sure the first mice were done by
> Engelbart's group at ARC (but I'm too lazy to check). ISTR that they were
> used in the MOAD.

They were and they were, but they were clunky, wooden things. He did
refer to it as a "mouse" in the MOAD, but he also referred to the
cursor as a "bug", which did not catch on.

> PARC's contribution to mice was the first decent mouse. I saw an ARC mouse at
> MIT (before we got our Altos), and it was both large, and not smooth to use;
> it was a medium-sized box (still one hand, though) with two large wheels
> (with axes 90 degrees apart), so moving it sideways, you had to drag the
> up/down sheel sideways (and vice versa).
>
> PARC'S design (the inventor is known; I've forgetten his name) with the large
> ball bearing, rotation of which was detected by two sensore, was _much_
> better, and remained the standard until the invention of the optical mouse
> (which was superior because the ball mouse picked up dirt, and had to be
> cleaned out regularly).

Invented by Ronald Rider, developed by Bill English?

> PARC's other big contribution was the whole network-centric computing model,
> with servers and workstations (the Alto). Hints of both of those existed
> before, but PARC's unified implementation of both (and in a way that made
> them cheap enough to deploy them widely) was a huge jump forward.
>
> Although 'personal computers' had a long (if now poorly remembered) history
> at that point (including the LINC, and ARC's station), the Alto showed what
> could be done when you added a bit-mapped display to which the CPU had direct
> access, and deployed a group of them in a network/server environment; having
> so much computing power available, on an individual basis, that you could
> 'light your cigar with computes' radcally changed everything.

This is long, but very interesting: https://spectrum.ieee.org/xerox-parc

Markov's book, "What the Dormouse Said" (which I heard recommended by
Tom Lyon) goes into great detail about the interplay between
Engelbart's group at SRI and PARC. It's a very interesting read;
highly recommended. Engelbart comes off as a somewhat tragic figure.

        - Dan C.