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The Real History of the GUI

By Mike Tuck
August 13th 2001
Reader Rating: 8.8

When a lot of us hear the word "gooey," we think about sticky buns or creamy sugary fillings (yum). Others think "GUI", as in "Graphical User Interface." A GUI is what computer types call the system of icons, taskbars, and other objects that our computers use to display and access information. A few of us may wonder how the GUI came to be. We remember the halcyon days of DOS prompts and command line interactions; some of us then take an aspirin and lie down. Others continue to wonder how exactly we got from esoteric UNIX, CP/M, and DOS commands on green screens to playing with pretty pictures and colorful desktops.

This article tells how the GUI came about. It starts with the (possibly apocryphal) story of how Cro-Magnon Glug accidentally developed the GUI (along with the personal computer). It then takes us through the better-documented days of Ivan Sutherland's Sketchpad, Xerox's PARC lab, Alan Kay's Smalltalk, and the (possibly even more apocryphal) stories of the rivalry between Jobs' Apple and Bill Gates' Microsoft that gave us the Windows and Mac GUI-driven OSs of today. Along the way we'll learn about the memex, the first wooden mouse, "bit-blitting," the Xerox Star, the Apple Lisa, and what really happened that momentous day in the PARC labs when Steve Jobs and company paid a visit, notepads in hand...

Indeed, some people think the GUI was bestowed upon an eager mankind by Steve Jobs, simply because Apple's Macintosh line of computers was the first place most of us ever encountered a graphical interface. It was for me. I first worked with a GUI around 1984 when my computer friend proudly introduced me to his brand new Mac, complete with a neato video game involving a guy digging holes to trap predatory spiders and a totally cool program called MacPaint. I remember to this day creating a beautiful work of MacPaint art that another friend promptly dubbed "Mondrian Waffles." Too bad I didn't know how to print it out.

But today I work almost completely inside a GUI environment; even while typing this document, I click an iconized button to create a font effect or save the document. Every time I surf the Web, I make use of other people's GUI creations. I click on the buttons that take me to new places; I admire the graphics that someone created; I snort at the poorly designed GUI structure. You do the same things, whether on a Mac, a Windows PC, or something else. It's a GUI world after all. But is it a gift from Steve Jobs? Or is the story more complex?

Let's find out. Oh, and feel free to enjoy a sticky bun while you read. It seems somehow appropriate

Editor's Note: This article is fairly long. If you'd like to read a printed version, simply click on the 'Print This Article' link at the top of this page.

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