Graphical User Interface

operating system (GUI) The use of pictures rather than just

words to represent the input and output of a program. A

program with a GUI runs under some windowing system

(e.g. The X Window System, MacOS, Microsoft Windows,

Acorn RISC OS, NEXTSTEP). The program displays certain

icons, buttons, dialogue boxes, etc. in its windows on

the screen and the user controls it mainly by moving a

pointer on the screen (typically controlled by a mouse)

and selecting certain objects by pressing buttons on the mouse

while the pointer is pointing at them. This contrasts with a

command line interface where communication is by exchange of

strings of text.

Windowing systems started with the first real-time graphic

display systems for computers, namely the SAGE Project

[Dates?] and Ivan Sutherland's Sketchpad (1963). DouglasEngelbart's Augmentation of Human Intellect project at

SRI in the 1960s developed the On-Line System, which

incorporated a mouse-driven cursor and multiple windows.

Several people from Engelbart's project went to Xerox PARC in

the early 1970s, most importantly his senior engineer, BillEnglish. The Xerox PARC team established the WIMP concept,

which appeared commercially in the Xerox 8010 (Star) system

in 1981.

Beginning in 1980(?), led by Jef Raskin, the Macintosh

team at Apple Computer (which included former members of the

Xerox PARC group) continued to develop such ideas in the first

commercially successful product to use a GUI, the Apple

Macintosh, released in January 1984. In 2001 Apple introduced

Mac OS X.

Microsoft modeled the first version of Windows, released

in 1985, on Mac OS. Windows was a GUI for MS-DOS that had

been shipped with IBM PC and compatible computers since

1981. Apple sued Microsoft over infringement of the

look-and-feel of the MacOS. The court case ran for many

years.

[Wikipedia].

(2002-03-25)