Larry Tesler (1945-2020), a US computer programmer, helped to give us cut, copy and paste on computers. He did that in 1974 with Tim Mott while working at Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). Tesler (Bronx Science ’61, Stanford ’65) passed away this past week.
Xerox, which had made a fortune in the 1960s selling photocopiers to offices, wanted to use its sales channels to put a computer on every secretary’s desk in the 1980s. And so in the 1970s Xerox PARC worked on the Alto, a computer easy enough for a secretary to use. That is why computers today use an interface based on a desktop metaphor: files, folders, trashcan, etc. All of that comes from Xerox PARC.
Cut and paste: But secretaries do not cut and paste. Nor do computer programmers. But editors at publishing companies did. They used actual scissors and a pot of paste to move text. Xerox had bought Ginn & Co, a textbook publisher in Boston. Their editors became guinea pigs for Gypsy, the word processing program for the Alto that Tesler and Tim Mott were working on. Cut and paste became a must.
Gypsy was a wysiwyg editor: what you see on the screen is what will print out. “Wysiwyg” is short for “What you see is what you get” – a catchphrase from Geraldine on the “The Flip Wilson Show” (1970-74), then on US television.
Tesler later worked on Smalltalk, the computer language at the heart of the Alto, and the Notetaker, a portable (well, luggable) version of the Alto. He tried to get Xerox to buy Notetakers, but upper management was not interested.
In 1978 he attended his date’s company picnic. Four picnic tables were enough for all the employees and their families and guests. It was Apple Computer.
In May 1979 a fortune teller told him that within in a year he would leave his job. But he loved working at Xerox PARC!
In December later that year a scruffy man in blue jeans arrived at PARC. He had a black beard that did not seem to grow and a knowing smirk. It was Steve Jobs of Apple Computer. Age 24. He had sold Xerox 100,000 shares on condition that they would let him see what was going on at Xerox PARC.
Tesler showed Jobs and his programmers the Alto and what it could do.
Tesler:
“They were totally blown away … Jobs was waving his arms around, saying, ‘Why hasn’t this company brought this to market? What’s going on here? I don’t get it!'”
Jobs:
“It was one of those apocalyptic moments. I remember within ten minutes of seeing the graphical user interface stuff, just knowing that every computer would work this way some day. It was so obvious.”
He was right.
In April 1980 the fortune teller’s prediction came true: Steve Jobs asked him to work for Apple. Jobs understood and valued his work while Xerox did not. Tesler worked on developing the Lisa and the Macintosh, Apple’s knock-offs of the Alto.
– Abagond, 2020.
Source: mainly Google Images; “Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age” (1999) by Michael Hiltzik.
See also:
- Apple Computer
- Steve Jobs
- Steve Wozniak
- Jonathan Ive
- iPhone
- I saw the iPhone for the first time – in August 2007
- Xerox PARC
- Alan Kay – he hired Tesler
- NASA
- computer
- Turing
- The Internet: a brief history
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Emphasis should be placed on the fact that this is not the same Tessler that the famous electric auto company is symbolic of nor did he have a hand in founding it…
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Nikola Tesla was a Serbian-American inventor, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, and futurist who is best known for his contributions to the design of the modern alternating current (AC) electricity supply.
Tesla. His name was Tesla, not Tesler
The “famous” electric auto company itself is named after the famous inventor Mr. Tesla.
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@August
Umm their names are different because they are two different people.
Tesla was brilliant but also a racist. He also had a sexist view of women.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2012/11/19/tesla-eugenics-and-rationalizing-dehumanization/
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Jeeez.
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@ MJB
“Umm their names are different because they are two different people.”
I’m pretty sure August already caught that. He was explaining the difference between the two men to untoldstory.
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