Xerox designed the Alto’s user interface around the three-button mouse that sits in front of its keyboard. The disk drive at the top of the cabinet takes a removable 2.5 megabyte cartridge.

In 1972, Xerox released an advert for the Alto, introducing people to the world’s first computer with a graphical user interface, mouse, and distinctive portrait screen.

In the real world, components don’t work like we imagine they do. Wires have resistance, resistors have inductance, and capacitors have resistance. However, some designers like to take advant… ...

The Xerox Alto, pictured above, produced only 2,000 units. Apple, by contrast, sold 100,000 Lisa computers. The Xerox Alto, pictured above, produced only 2,000 units ...

Also, Xerox gave Apple a look at the Alto in exchange for being allowed to buy 100,000 shares of pre-IPO Apple stock for a million bucks. Let's play a game of "pretend they held it till today".

Since its founding as Xerox PARC in 1970, Palo Alto Research Center has been home to several of computing’s most important inventions and technological advancements. Thousands of researchers and ...

Thacker was the main designer behind the Xerox Alto, the first modern PC with a graphical user interface (GUI), complete with resizable windows, a mouse-based interface, and icons representing ...