A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems - Mac OS X Internals

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38 Chapter 1 A Technical History of Apple’s Operating Systems than using an existing computer, the hardware was specially designed for the software. Figure 1–13 shows a mockup of the STAR user interface. Frame Graphic Paginate Button Close Button Help Button Text Display � Title Chart �� Scrollbar Keyboard Document FIGURE 1–13 The Xerox STAR system � � � Book Resear Letter Form Hercules Printer Memo Form Book Draft Amit S. Audience Feedback Amit IN Directory Chapter Drafts Out OUT Mouse Adjust Select Directory Folder Out-Basket In-Basket The STAR user interface provided the user with an electronic metaphor for the physical office. As Figure 1–13 shows, there were electronic analogs of common office objects: paper, folders, file cabinets, mailboxes, calculators, printers, and so on. It would be an understatement to say that the STAR interface greatly influenced many systems that came after it. Noteworthy aspects of the STAR user interface included the following. • The user’s first view of the working environment was the Desktop, which displayed icons (small pictures) of familiar objects such as documents, folders, file drawers, in-baskets, and out-baskets.
Mac OS X Internals (www.osxbook.com) 39 • The user could click on an icon and push the key to open the icon, which resulted in a window displaying the icon’s contents. Icons could represent either Data (Document, Folder, or Record File) or Function. The user could copy, delete, file, mail, move, open, close, and print data icons. Function icons operated on data icons. Many of the function icons were analogous to modern-day application icons. Examples of function icons include File Drawer, In- and Out-Baskets, Printer, Floppy Disk Drive, User, User Group, Calculator, Terminal Emulator, and Network Resource Directory. • Windows had title bars displaying the corresponding icon names and a context-sensitive command menu. Context-sensitive help was accessible via the ? button. Horizontal and vertical scroll bars provided page-up, page-down, and jump-to features. However, STAR windows could only be tiled 29 and were explicitly designed not to overlap; overlapping behavior was considered a nuisance (for the end user) in the Alto by STAR’s designers. • An abstraction called Property Sheets was analogous to today’s control or property panels. A related abstraction called Option Sheets implemented a visual interface for providing options (arguments) to commands. For example, the “Find” option sheet was a powerful tool for searching text in a part or whole of a document or selection. Even textual properties such as case, face, font, position, and size could be used for searching. It also allowed optionally user-confirmed replacement of the found text and its properties. The STAR system was rather expensive, with a base configuration initially costing $16,500. 1.3. THE GRAPHICAL AGE AT APPLE Apple was instrumental in making personal computing affordable for the masses with the Apple ][. However, even after the Apple ][’s success, computers were diffi- cult to learn for most people—a fact that was perceived by Apple and many others as a large impediment to computer use. The Lisa (Local Integrated Software Archi- 29 Window overlapping was allowed, and in fact was turned on by default, in STAR’s successor View- Point.
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