While Mainframe and Unix users are unlikely to find it novel that
Windows XP allows several family members to share a PC while enabling
each to have personalized settings and folders, that's not stopping
Microsoft from seeking a patent for 'Methods and arrangements for
providing multiple concurrent desktops and workspaces in a shared
computing environment,' the USPTO disclosed Thursday.
--> Link to Microsoft's Patent Application http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-...DN/20040088709
Jul 20 '05
83  4747 
Barry Margolin <ba****@alum.mi t.edu> wrote in message news:<ba******* *************** ****@comcast.as h.giganews.com> ... I thought "the desktop" referred to features of a graphical user
interface. Sure, it's a metaphor for things that existed 30 years ago,
but the metaphor itself didn't exist then.
Didn't Xerox PARC have something along those lines over 30 years ago?
--
Dan
Barry Margolin wrote: In article <2g************ @uni-berlin.de>, Daeron <da****@demon.n et>
wrote:
Barry Margolin wrote:
Aren't all the mainframe timesharing systems, some of which were
around 30 or 40 years ago, which maintain separate user sessions each
with their own environment, prior art for this? As I recall, the APL
system actually called saved environments "workspaces ".
30 years ago, computers didn't even have "desktops", so I don't see how
they could be considered prior art.
The 'desktop' being a metaphor for processes running in a particular
context. The said processes also being restricted as to what they could
access. Nowadays three, at least, of those process controll the mouse,
keyboard and screen. Nothing new here.
I thought "the desktop" referred to features of a graphical user
interface. Sure, it's a metaphor for things that existed 30 years ago,
but the metaphor itself didn't exist then.
Can you Xerox Parc? By the mid-70's they were well into GUI's.
Bravo, Smalltalk, etc. The first commercial system was the PERQ
circa 1978. Xerox's Star came out soon after. Followed by Apple.
Of course, some of us would say that the PDP-1 had the first GUI.
(circa 1962?) It was the platform for the first computer game -Starwars.
Also the first timesharing system.
/dan
/dan da*@tobias.name (Daniel R. Tobias) writes: Barry Margolin <ba****@alum.mi t.edu> wrote in message news:<ba******* *************** ****@comcast.as h.giganews.com> ... I thought "the desktop" referred to features of a graphical user
interface. Sure, it's a metaphor for things that existed 30 years ago,
but the metaphor itself didn't exist then.
Didn't Xerox PARC have something along those lines over 30 years ago?
Maybe, but implementing this on a Microsoft Windows machine was
not obvious to anybody at that time. In fact I believe it wasn't
obvious even to Microsoft until recently. :-)
--
Rahul
In article <aa************ **************@ posting.google. com> (Fri, 07 May
2004 20:03:16 -0700), Daniel R. Tobias wrote: Barry Margolin <ba****@alum.mi t.edu> wrote in message news:<ba******* *************** ****@comcast.as h.giganews.com> ... I thought "the desktop" referred to features of a graphical user
interface. Sure, it's a metaphor for things that existed 30 years ago,
but the metaphor itself didn't exist then.
Didn't Xerox PARC have something along those lines over 30 years ago?
Yes. Smalltalk-72 had a "desktop" but I'm nearly 100% certain it didn't
have the concepts of "user" or "switching" or whatever Microsoft's claims
involve.
In article <aa************ **************@ posting.google. com>, da*@tobias.name (Daniel R. Tobias) wrote: Barry Margolin <ba****@alum.mi t.edu> wrote in message
news:<ba******* *************** ****@comcast.as h.giganews.com> ... I thought "the desktop" referred to features of a graphical user
interface. Sure, it's a metaphor for things that existed 30 years ago,
but the metaphor itself didn't exist then.
Didn't Xerox PARC have something along those lines over 30 years ago?
The Alto came out in 1980. That was one of their first systems with a
desktop metaphor.
--
Barry Margolin, ba****@alum.mit .edu
Arlington, MA
"Paul Hovnanian P.E." <Pa**@Hovnanian .com> wrote in message This could be an interesting tactic on the part of various companies
with too much cash and not enough actual work to do. Swamp the patent
office with crap. If the reviewers are buried in garbage, maybe they'll
just start rubber stamping them to clear out their in baskets.
Another tactic that an indicted illegal monopolist would do
is to grease the wheels of bureaucracy at the Patent Office,
i.e. bribing federal employees to fast track patent applications
that come from Seattle, Washington, in order to process them
without much delay or scrutiny.
That would explain the patent erroneously issued to
Microsoft for an apple: http://news.com.com/2100-1008_3-5205574.html
-Ramon
Dan Ganek wrote:
< snip > Of course, some of us would say that the PDP-1 had the first GUI.
(circa 1962?) It was the platform for the first computer game -Starwars.
Also the first timesharing system.
No, it was not the first timesharing system. Not by a wide margin
--
No trees were destroyed in the sending of this message, however, a
significant number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.
>>>>> On Sat, 08 May 2004 03:21:58 GMT, Dan Ganek ("Dan") writes:
Dan> The first commercial system was the PERQ circa 1978.
Are you sure about that date?
I think you might be off by 4 or 5 years.
Christopher C. Stacy wrote: >>On Sat, 08 May 2004 03:21:58 GMT, Dan Ganek ("Dan") writes:
Dan> The first commercial system was the PERQ circa 1978.
Are you sure about that date?
I think you might be off by 4 or 5 years.
Hmm I did more googling and you may be right.
(One should always double check their facts :-)
I was doing R&D in GUI's and graphic workstations
at DEC during that time (78-84) and it's all a big
a blur now. It was a very exciting time - Smalltalk,
Star, Perq, Lisa, Apollo, the Mac, etc.
/dan
W Randolph Franklin wrote: According to Paul Hovnanian P.E. <Pa**@Hovnanian .com>:
This could be an interesting tactic on the part of various
companies with too much cash and not enough actual work to
do. Swamp the patent office with crap. If the reviewers are
buried in garbage, maybe they'll just start rubber stamping
them to clear out their in baskets.
Australia has an "innovation patent" that is just like this.
You submit an idea, say for a "circular transportation
facilitation device", and they automatically register your
submission.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asi...ic/1418165.stm
A really crappy patent is IBM's US patent 6,329,919:
"System and method for providing reservations for restroom use
"The present invention is an apparatus, system, and method for
providing reservations for restroom use. In one embodiment, a
passenger on an airplane may submit a reservation request to
the system for restroom use. The reservation system determines
when the request can be accommodated and notifies the
passenger when a restroom becomes available. The system
improves airline safety by minimizing the time passengers
spent standing while an airplane is in flight."
They later dedicated the patent to the public.
Could it be that IBM dislike the current patent system's trend of allowing
the obvious to be patented as much as many of the open-source community so
wanted to apply for the dumbest idea they could think of to show the system
up for what it was - then chickened out of publicising the facts once their
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