Xerox Alto

The Xerox Alto is one of the first personal computers (a term that was already coined at the time), a general purpose computer designed for individual use (although not as a home computer). However it was expensive and, unlike modern personal computers, not based on a microprocessor. It was developed at Xerox PARC and released on March 1, 1973. It was the first computer to use a desktop metaphor, first commercialized on the later Xerox Star, and one of the first with a mouse-driven graphical user interface (GUI) after Douglas Engelbart's oN-Line System (NLS) and several other innovations in user interfaces of the time.

It was not a commercial product, but several thousand units were built and were heavily used at PARC, other Xerox facilities, and at several universities for many years. The Alto greatly influenced the design of personal computers in the following decades, notably the Apple Macintosh and the first Sun workstations.

History

The Alto was conceived in 1972 in a memo written by Butler Lampson, inspired by the oN-Line System (NLS) developed by Douglas Engelbart at SRI, and was designed primarily by Chuck Thacker. Industrial Design and manufacturing was sub-contracted to Xerox, whose Special Programs Group team included Doug Stewart as Program Manager, Abbey Silverstone Operations, Bob Nishimura, Industrial Designer. An initial run of 30 units was produced by Xerox, El Segundo (Special Programs Group), working with John Ellenby at Xerox PARC and Doug Stewart Xerox, El Segundo as well as Abbey Silverstone at Xerox El Segundo, who were responsible for re-designing the Alto’s electronics. Due to the success of the pilot run, the team went on to produce approximately 2,000 units over the next ten years.