Wednesday, August 03, 2016

Xerox Alto Is Rebuilt and Reconnected by the Living Computer Museum — Medium

Paul Allen on a recent addition to The Living Computer Museum; tangentially, see Computing pioneer Alan Kay on AI, Apple and future (FactorDaily)

"The Alto computer itself didn’t reach a wide audience — Xerox failed to recognize its potential and produced only a limited number for themselves, government and universities. But the machine quickly inspired people like me, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and others to create the software and hardware that made GUI central to the computing experience, which soon put the power of computers into the hands of millions of people.
In recognition of the Alto’s historic impact, my team at The Living Computer Museum has restored two of the world’s surviving machines to full working order. And, since Ethernet networking was one of the Alto’s innovations, the LCM team has created the ability for the Altos to talk to modern computers by developing a 3-megabit bridge. As far as we know, this is the first time that Altos have been able to communicate with modern PCs."
Xerox Alto Is Rebuilt and Reconnected by the Living Computer Museum — Medium

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