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Bill Atkinson: Polaroids Showing the Evolution of the Lisa GUI [video]

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146 points zdw | 1 comments | 21 Jun 25 15:13 UTC | HN request time: 0.223s | source
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fidotron ◴[25 Jun 25 11:54 UTC] No.44376229[source]▶
This stuff is why I am so cynical about modern software development management. Bill Atkinson wrote QuickDraw, a masterpiece of low level programming, but also had a very solid grasp about what it was for right down to the UX it was to enable, and as shown here how the UX evolved with user testing. These days the idea someone can span that range is seen as an impossibility.
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hyperhello ◴[25 Jun 25 12:18 UTC] No.44376423[source]▶
His software was so strong, it made the Macintosh what it was at the time, and indirectly shaped Windows and Linux’s UI to either imitate or showboat against it. The magnitude of his contributions to everything we think was normal now can’t even be stated. Apple drifts around more but the products still have a lot of his DNA in it.
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JKCalhoun ◴[25 Jun 25 12:27 UTC] No.44376500[source]▶
Agree. I hate to see Bill and team not get the credit they deserve. There is the idea (so famously put forward by Bill Gates) that Windows and Lisa (Mac) both ripped off Xerox — and I think that is misleading at best. As you can see in the Polaroids, Lisa took the lead from Xerox but then charted their own course. (Windows, it is said, then copied that.)
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amelius ◴[25 Jun 25 17:27 UTC] No.44379788[source]▶
And then in a twist of the plot, Steve Jobs said "great artists steal" ...
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1. al_borland ◴[26 Jun 25 23:53 UTC] No.44392603[source]▶
The full saying goes, “good artists copy; great artists steal.” It’s usually attributed to Picasso originally.

I didn’t really understand what this meant until I heard Johnny Cash’s version of Hurt. He transformed the song, made it his own, to the point where a lot of people don’t know about the original. Even Trent Reznor said Hurt is Johnny Cash’s song now. This is how a great artist steals; they elevate and transform the original into something new that is able to connect with more people in a deeper way.

When Jobs said it, I’m sure his view was that Apple took what they saw at Xerox and made it their own, to a level that makes Xerox’s original largely irrelevant, like a great artist would. Meanwhile, Microsoft were not great artists, and simply copied.