Ed Brill

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1. 1  Andrew Pollack http://www.thenorth.com/apblog | 11/13/2006 10:09:14 PM

   ...it has that one guaranteed "tell" of any early version. All the ugly colors. Notice how each UI element is a different color? I'd bet lunch that at least started out as being so that you could tell which one you were impacting when you changed something or selected something.

   It's like when you're working with CSS and you start changing borders and backgrounds so you can see where your elements are.

1. 2  Bill Geimer  | 11/13/2006 10:50:34 PM

   Kind of nice to remember back to when color was only 8 bits deep and primary colors were in. Quite an improvement over orange on black

1. 3  Charles Robinson http://cubert-codepoet.blogspot.com | 11/14/2006 12:21:20 AM

   What OS is that? The icon in the top left and the window corners are completely unfamiliar to me. Hopefully someone won't drag this into a "notes sucks, look how ugly it was in 1986" discussion.

1. 4  Julian Woodward http://www.axiot.com | 11/14/2006 12:29:01 AM

   These look pretty cool. Certainly a major change from version 7 ...

   ;-)

1. 5  Miha Vitorovic  | 11/14/2006 12:51:18 AM

   @3 - I think MS Windows 1.0. Text-mode based, redefining fonts to emulate graphics.

1. 6  Vaughan Rivett http://st1.rivettassociates.com/Web/Vaughans.nsf/ | 11/14/2006 2:31:18 AM

   Excellent!

1. 7  Philip Storry http://www.not-so-rapid.com | 11/14/2006 2:46:47 AM

   Wow. Now that's a slice of history!

   @2 Bill: Eight bits? HAH! Try four. Seriously. That looks like 16-colour EGA to my jaded eyes, which would have required just four bits in your colour pallette.

   And at the time they were taken, I was probably using CGA (two-bit colour, literally), and wishing for the luxuries of such a powerful graphics adapter!

   @3 Charles: As Miha @5 says, it looks like Windows 1.x. Check out this wonderful retrospective, which looks kinda familiar to those screenshots:

   { Link }

   I don't think we can blame Notes for the colour scheme, this one is all down to Windows. And I'll give the Windows team credit - they didn't slip up THAT badly with a colour scheme again until Windows XP shipped! ;-)

1. 8  Ben Rose http://www.jaffacake.net | 11/14/2006 5:49:59 AM

   Nice...I actually thought it was Hannover running on a Mac for a minute.

1. 9  Craig Wiseman  | 11/14/2006 6:12:18 AM

   @8 - There goes Apple again, stealing the Windows UI...

1. 10  Ian Randall http://www.emsoft.com.au | 11/14/2006 8:33:10 AM

   @9 - actually I thought that Apple stole the UI from the Xerox Star for the Apple Lisa and then refined it for the Apple Mac to then have it promptly stolen by Microsoft for the Windows UI.

1. 11  Danny Lawrence  | 11/14/2006 8:41:04 AM

   What is scary is that I know all of (and in some cases worked with) the senders in the first screenshot of "Ray's mail". I'm sure some will recognize "MKapor" and "BFrankston", but seeing some of the others was a "blast from the past"

1. 12  Nathan T. Freeman http://www.openntf.org/nathan/escape.nsf | 11/14/2006 9:17:18 AM

   I like that the big news is that IBM has a 1mbit memory chip. <Keanu>WHOA!</Keanu>

1. 13  Keith Brooks http://www.kbmsg.blogspot.com/ | 11/14/2006 10:16:30 AM

   Oddly enough in 1986 ACS wasout of business according to the 2nd shot. ACS is still in business, I work with them for my client.

1. 14  Craig Wiseman  | 11/14/2006 11:00:00 AM

   @10 Exactly. That's why Apple couldn't win the suit against M$ and had to settle. "You can't kidnap what I've rightfully stolen." isn't typically a valid legal point.

1. 15  Bill Geimer  | 11/14/2006 11:24:41 AM

   @7 - Thanks for the link and the trip down memory chip lane. @10 - Actually worked on an Apple Lisa and am betting half the responders have or are using Macs. But did the Star or anything from Xerox PARC ever make it out of the labs and into the wild.

1. 16  Bob Congdon http://www.bobcongdon.com/blog | 11/14/2006 11:37:40 AM

   @15: Yes, the Xerox Star was a commercial product, released in 1981 { Link }

   Was it successful? No. Read "Fumbling the Future: How Xerox Invented, Then Ignored, the First Personal Computer" { Link } for details.

   I worked with David Canfield Smith { Link } who designed much of the Xerox Star's UI. The Lisa UI was more similar to the Star than the Macintosh was. David's take was that the Mac UI was an evolution of what they had done at Xerox. He didn't feel that Apple had just ripped them off. (In fact, he worked at Apple later on).

   Regarding the Notes screenshots from 1986, CURLEY and LARRY are server names (The Three Stooges). Server names at Iris were usually whimsical or musical, or both. For example there was a partitioned box with two servers called Dolly and Parton. I think Alice was from Alice Cooper. And sysnotes is the filename of the Iris Office Notes database.

1. 17  Chris Miller http://www.IdoNotes.com | 11/14/2006 2:52:18 PM

   I like the lsat posting on Apr 2. "First the rumor and now the official leak" .....

1. 18  Bruce Elgort http://www.TakingNotesPodcast.com | 11/14/2006 7:22:11 PM

   Did you notice the word "cluster" in the 4/1/86 email? Wow were these guys thinking ahead.

1. 19  Andrew Pollack http://www.thenorth.com/apblog | 11/14/2006 8:41:13 PM

   Unless I'm mistaken, it looks like MS DOS with Borland's Turbo C framework -- which was actually all ANSI character based. I don't recall the name of the framework now, though I do recall working with it at the time.

1. 20  NeilT  | 11/15/2006 4:44:54 AM

   What's really interesting to me is that when I pull up my old Notes 3.2 server/client combination for my own personal "blast from the past", It really doesn't look that different from the 86 version here. Just more graphical.

   The "must change the interface to prove I did something" model wasn't in force then. MS really does have some things to answer for....

1. 21  Ben Poole http://benpoole.com | 11/15/2006 6:07:06 AM

   Turning back to the Mac / Lisa / Xerox thing for one moment if I may, I've never understood those who persistently claim that Apple ripped Xerox off.

   It is well-documented that in addition to graphical interface work *that pre-dated the Apple PARC visit* Jobs & co. saw what Xerox had done (itself based on work by others), and *sought permission from Xerox* for their subsequent developments.

   Indeed, Xerox received Apple stock in exchange for the Apple programmers visiting their facility, and some Xerox staff subsequently went to Apple (e.g. Bruce Horn and Jef Raskin).

   I just don't get why this "rip-off" story persists.

1. 22  Charles Robinson http://cubert-codepoet.blogspot.com | 11/15/2006 8:56:43 AM

   @21 - Ben, historical evidence is an inconvenient truth when you all you have is FUD to use as the basis for an attack. :)

1. 23  Barry Briggs http://www.edithere.com/barry | 11/15/2006 10:48:36 AM

   Wow these screen shots bring back memories. Note the CURLY:: -- if memory serves this was the notation for Bob Frankston's internal email product Express (not sure we ever monetized it). And you could tell the routing of the email by the server prepends like YOGI::CURLY::alias.

   Lots of fond memories of some of the people referenced...

1. 24  Barry Briggs http://www.edithere.com/barry | 11/15/2006 10:51:08 AM

   ...or was that the VAX/VMS notation now that I think about it...I'm getting old!

1. 25  Bob Congdon http://www.bobcongdon.com/blog | 11/15/2006 11:37:27 AM

   @24: I think the routing syntax was partially VMS. At Lotus in the early 90s if you wanted to send email, you needed to use a gateway syntax along the lines of

   "LDBVAX::barry@barrybriggs.com" @ LDBVAX

   Or something like that, it's been a while...

1. 26  Craig Wiseman  | 11/15/2006 11:58:51 AM

   @21 - Apple didn't ripped off Xerox illegally or unethically, but they did 'rip off' (ok, it'd be better to say "innovate on") Xerox's work and use it as a basis for their own, hence their difficulties in the case with Microsoft.

1. 27  Bob Congdon http://www.bobcongdon.com/blog | 11/15/2006 12:21:11 PM

   @21/@26: The Apple/Xerox story just won't die. It's become part of common folklore. That doesn't mean that the folklore is right. Reality was more complicated.

   Apple sued Microsoft in 1994 claiming Mac OS "look and feel" was protected by copyright. They lost the case primarily because of a prior licensing agreement between the two companies for Windows 1.0. While the case was still pending, Xerox filed a lawsuit against Apple, claiming Apple had infringed on its GUI copyrights. But Xerox's case was dismissed since the statute of limitations had passed. Innovation doesn't happen in a vacuum, as Steve Jobs (quoting Pablo Picasso) would say "Good artists copy, great artists steal".

   Now I feel that I owe Ed a comment about the old Notes UI: Notice how unread marks are displayed? Using a "*". I think that the switch to using a red highlight and star happened in R3. And now, with Hannover, it's changing to a bold highlight.

1. 28  marc egart  | 11/15/2006 7:31:14 PM

   Is there a way to get Notes V1 or V2 =:) ?

1. 29  Bruce Elgort http://www.TakingNotesPodcast.com | 11/15/2006 9:35:50 PM

   @24,

   Long live VMS. I was a VMS junkie in my early days. One great OS.

1. 30  Keith Brooks http://kbmsg.blogspot.com | 11/15/2006 10:01:13 PM

   I have v1 and v2 but haven't been able to get them loaded yet, something about finding dos 3.1.

   If you email me I can ftp them to you or possibly just email them.

1. 31  Brad Karrfalt  | 11/16/2006 2:03:54 PM

   @24/@25:

   Yes indeedy, that is the old VMS syntax of NODENAME::USER. And any old Vax users will remember the VAXNotes application from which Ray's Notes sprang.

   I spent 8 years @DEC before jumping ship to Lotus in the mid 90's. Can you tell? [:`)

1. 32  Cali  | 11/24/2006 4:50:12 AM

   @23 In Lotus UK in 87 there was even a emailed 'soap' starring Curly and Larry - I have paper copies somewhere...