The Xerox Star: A Retrospective
Presented by:
Yang Wang
Michal Shmueli-Scheuer
This presentation is mainly based on:
“The Xerox Star: A Retrospective”
- Jeff Johnson, Teresa L. Roberts (US West Advanced Tech)
- William Verplank (IDTwo)
- David C. Smith (Cognition, Inc.)
- Charles H. Irby, Marian Beard (Metaphor Com. Sys.)
- Kevin Mackey (Xerox)
A bird’s-eye view of this presentation
Part I: What is Star?
- Brief introduction
- Distinctive features
Part II: History of Star development
- Pre-Xerox, Star, and ViewPoint
- Lessons from experience
I. What is Star?
Brief introduction
• Xerox introduced the 8010 “Star” Information system in
April of 1981.
• Star was designed as an office automation system where
users would produce, retrieve, distribute, and organize
documentation, presentations, memos, and reports.
Assumptions & goals
• Assumption 1:
Users are only interested in getting their work done and not
at all interested in computers.
• Goal 1:
To make the “computer” as invisible to users as possible.
Assumptions & goals (Cont.)
• Assumption 2:
Star’s users would be casual, occasional users rather than
people who spent most of their time at the machine.
• Goal 2:
Star should be easy to learn and remember.
Star’s features
• Machine and network level
• Window and file manager level
• User interface level
• Document editor level
Star’s features
• Machine and network level
• Window and file manager level
• User interface level
• Document editor level
Machine and network level
• Star was designed primarily to operate in a distributed
computing environment.
• All personal workstations would be connected via Ethernet
and would share access to file servers, printers..
• Use 2-button mouse
Star’s features
• Machine and network level
• Window and file manager level
• User interface level
• Document editor level
Window and file manager level
• Windows:
– Star allowed several programs to display information
simultaneously in separate windows.
– Windows don’t overlap because early testing showed that users
spent a lot of time adjusting windows.
• Integrated applications:
– Text, graphics, tables, and mathematical formulas are all edited
inside documents.
– Star was not fully integrated in this sense.
Star’s features
• Machine and network level
• Window and file manager level
• User interface level
• Document editor level
User interface level
• Desktop Metaphor
• Generic Commands
• Direct Manipulation and Graphical User Interface
• Icons and Iconic File Management
• Few Modes
• Objects have properties
• Progressive Disclosure
• Consistency
• Emphasis on Good Graphic and Screen Design
Desktop Metaphor
• Resembles the top of an office desk, together with
surrounding furniture and equipment.
• The system associates different types of data files with
appropriate programs, so users mainly deal with data files
instead of programs.
• Example:
- users “open a document”, rather than “invoke a text editor”
• Make the system easy to learn and use
Generic Commands
• A small set of generic commands simplifies the system.
• Generic commands apply to all types of data, and each
type of data object interprets a generic command in a way
appropriate for it.
• Examples: move, copy, open…
Direct Manipulation &
Graphical User Interface
• Assumption: casual users
• Design philosophy:
– Recognition > Recall
– Seeing and Pointing > Remembering and Typing
• User control the system by manipulating graphic elements
on the screen.
• Make the users easier to learn and use Star.
Icons and Iconic File Management
• Icons: pictures of office objects
• Data files are represented by icons
• Each type of file has a characteristic icon representation
• Allow users to organize files spatially rather than by
distinctive naming.
• Example:
– Files can be kept together by putting them into a folder
Few Modes
• A system has modes if user actions differ in effects or
availability in different situations
• “Modes in interactive computer systems are undesirable
because they restrict the functions available at any given
point and force the user to keep track of the system’s state
to know what effect their actions will have…” ---Tesler
• Star’s approaches to avoid modes:
– Extensive use of generic commands
– Allow applications to operate simultaneously
Objects have properties
• Properties allow objects of the same type to vary in
appearance, layout and behavior.
• In Star, properties are displayed and changed in graphic
forms called property sheets.
Property Sheet
Progressive Disclosure
• Detail is hidden from users until they ask or need to see it
• To avoid overwhelming users with information
• Star provides default settings and hides settings that users
are unlikely to change
• Example: in property sheets
Consistency
• Star and all its applications were designed and developed
in a unified way by a single development group.
• Star achieved a high degree of consistency.
• Example:
– The left button of mouse always selects.
– The right button of mouse always extends the selection.
Emphasis on Good Graphic and
Screen Design
• Windows, icons, and property sheets are useless if user
cannot easily distinguish them from the background or
each other…
• Xerox hired graphic designers to determine the appearance
and placement of objects
• Some principals applied:
– The illusion of manipulable objects (e.g. scrolling window)
– Visual order and user focus
…
Visual order and user focus
• In Star, the icon selected by the
user is indicated by inverting
the image
• Still popular
Star’s features
• Machine and network level
• Window and file manager level
• User interface level
• Document editor level
Document editor level
• WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get)
• Star documents are displayed as they will print
• Extended character set for multilingual capability
• The document editor is supposedly the primary application,
thus most applications are integrated into the document
editor.
History of star development
Memex
Simula
Reactive Engine
NLS
Sketchpad
Alto
SRI
Bravo
Smalltalk
SIL
Draw
Flyer
Markup
Press
Gypsy
Office Talk
Mess
BravoX
Pymalion
Interpress
Doodle
Tajo
Star
(8010)
Lisa
Augment
Cedar
Deluxe paint
Macintosh
ViewPoint
interleaf
(6085)
Metaphor
workstation
Cognition
Mac II
ViewPoint 2.0
MCAE system
Postscript
Memex- 1945
• Vannevar Bush
• As we may think….
After 18 years….
Sketchpad- 1963
• Ivan Sutherland
• Interactive graphic system
• Create graphical figures on a
9 inch CRT display using a
light pen
• Geometric shapes as Objects:
move, copy, rotate..
Sketchpad- 1963
NLS- 1960’s
• Douglas Engelbart
• Compare different devices: light
pen, track ball, joysticks, the
"Graficon“ and Knee brace
• Invent the mouse
NLS- 1960’s
• CRT display
• Full screen oriented
• MOUSE
• First system to organize textual
and graphical information in
trees and networks.
Smalltalk- 1971
• Alan Kay
• “children should program in Smalltalk”
• Smalltalk relied heavily on graphics, animation, mouse
driven input, windows and simultaneous applications.
Fact: The Star wasn’t written in Smalltalk !
Xerox PARC- 1970
• Palo Alto Research Center was established in
order to explore technologies
• Expansion into the office
systems business.
• Personal computer in a
distributed environment
ALTO:
• 2.5 MB HD, 256KB Memory,
bitmapped display, 50KB of
display memory and a mouse.
• Became operational 1972
Xerox PARC- 1970
Ethernet, 1973
• Bob Metcalfe
• Standardized layered
communications protocol
• Provided a way of connecting
computers much more flexibly than
previously possible.
• Soon after the first Altos were
built, they were networked
together.
Pygmalion- 1975
• David C. Smith
• The first large program to be written in Smalltalk
• Programming can be accomplished by interacting
with graphical elements on a screen.
• Computers can be programmed in the language of
the user interface
• By demonstrating what you want done and having the
computer remember and reproduce it.
Fact: The idea of using icons came mainly from Pygmalion !
Pygmalion- 1975
Other software's for Alto
Text
editor
• Bravo- advanced document editing system
WYSIWYG, underline, boldface, italic, font, size..
• Gypsy- text editor
• BravoX- led to Microsoft Word.
Graphic
editor
Different
utilities
• Draw- graphical object editor
• Markup- bitmap graphics editor (paint program)
• Laser printing- press page-description language
(Adobe, postscript)
• Laurel and Hardy- electronic mail
• Officetalk- prototype office automation system
(tracking…)
Star (Xerox 8010)- 1981
• To develop Star, Xerox created the Systems
Development Department (SDD)
• SDD was split between two locations: El Segundo
(So. Cal) and Palo Alto (No. Cal):
• El Segundo did most of the
implementation
• Palo Alto did most of the design
and prototyping
• Mesa, a dialect of Pascal, was the primary product
programming language used
•
The hardware was designed in conjunction
with the software
Star (Xerox 8010)- 1981
Hardware:
• 384KB- 1.5MB Memory, HD
40MB, 17 inch display, 8 inch
floppy disk a mouse and
Ethernet.
Software:
• Uniformity of specifications,
uniform design
• Strict format- Objects and Actions
• Objects- applications and system features
• Actions- actions that the software provide for manipulating the
objects.
• Cost- starting from $16,500
Problems….
• The star didn’t sale as expected.
• Performance, extensibility, maintainability, cost…
• It was monolithic:
• The system knew about all applications, and all parts
of the system knew about all other parts. It was
difficult to correct problems, add new features and
increase performance.
• The monolithic architecture did not lend itself to
distributed, multiparty development.
• Star’s infrastructure was rewritten according to more
flexible model- ViewPoint
Lessons from experience
• Pay attention to industry trends:
• PARC researchers and Star’s designers didn’t pay
enough attention to the “other” personal computer
revolution occurring outside of Xerox.
• Release new technologies to public- become a
standard.
• Pay attention to what customers want:
•
Star should have been designed from the start to be
open and extensible by users, as the Alto was. Star
didn’t have the functionality customers wanted.
Lessons from experience
• Know your competition:
• The price of a star’s workstation was too high to
compete with other microcomputer-based PC
• Avoid geographically split development organizations:
•
The implementers didn’t benefit from much of the
prototyping done as PARC.
•
Lack of shared background
The best way to predict the future
is to invent it..
[Alan Kay]