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| Authored by: Tyro on Thursday, August 02 2012 @ 08:58 PM EDT |
Sorry, but you drastically overstate your case. Xerox (not Zerox) was,
admittedly thin inspiration for the Lisa, but even the Lisa was extremely
innovative compared to the Xerox systems that predated it. (Not as much as
those systems were compared to the alternatives, admittedly, but still...)
I saw the Lisa, and got to play with it a bit. I bought a first generation Mac.
The Mac was far superior and innovative in many ways. I can't really compare
it to the Xerox system that preceded the Lisa, as all I have to go by there are
photographs. But this Lisa was innovative in many ways, definitely including
size, shape, and price. And the Mac was better. (Well...not better in all
ways. But one of my criteria was being able to carry the computer home on the
bus.)
From what others have told me the Apple mouse for the Mac was an advance over
the Xerox mouse. It sure was an advance over the light pen that I'd tried to
use earlier.
Note that I'm not claiming that Xerox hadn't made a tremendous innovation. An
innovation so extreme that the corporate management couldn't even GUESS at it's
implication. But Apple innovated beyond that.
Jobs often drove innovation at Apple. It's true that his innovations tended to
be in the realm of esthetics, but that is a significant factor in making
technology usable. The fact that this case is silly is no reason the impugn
Apple's entire history. Most patent cases are silly things that are about
matters where patents should never have been granted. (Do note that very often
things that those who are not experts in the field thing are patent-worthy are
really things that are obvious to experts in the field. This results in most
patents being about things that should NEVER have been deemed patentable. And
certainly the patent descriptions do not "make patent" what is
covered. Not to an expert in the field under consideration, and not to anyone
else, either. Patents have become just a big club for those who are wealthy to
use on anyone who tries to create.)[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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