> LISA "FINDER" INFO
>
> PART 1 OF 7
>
> Apple Lisa Computer Desktop Manager Info
>
> Compiled by David T. Craig
> 29 December 2000
>
> Here's some information about the internal workings of the Lisa Desktop
> Manager from the early 1980's that may interest readers of the LisaList
> mailing list.
>
> The Desktop Manager was the program that the Lisa ran at startup and which
> gave the Lisa its "desktop metaphore" user interface. This program can be
> considered equivalent to the Macintosh Finder program, but it wasn't until
> Macintosh OS 7 was released in 1990 that the Macintosh's Finder started to
> have a feature set that was close to the Lisa's Desktop Manager of 1983.
>
> The Lisa Desktop Manager was implemented by Dan Smith (now called Dan
> Keller) and Frank Ludolph. Many others had a hand in its design including
> Bill Atkinson, Larry Tesler, and Bruce Daniels. For a great description of
> the development of the Desktop Manager see Dan Smith's March 1986
> interview in the Lisa magazine Semaphore Signal titled "The Past, Present,
> and Future of the Macintosh Desktop". Semaphore Signal issues can be found
> at the following web site:
>
> http://www.semaphorecorp.com/ss/toc.html
>
> This interview can be found in Semaphore Signal issue # 26 dated March
> 1986 at the following web site:
>
> http://www.semaphorecorp.com/ss/ss26.html
>
> At the end of this message I have included the full interview.
>
> From a technical perspective, the Lisa Desktop Manager was just a Lisa
> "shell" program. A shell program was basically a regular Lisa program but
> with a name starting with "SHELL.". At startup the Lisa ran a program
> called the "Environments Window" which let a user pick a shell to execute.
> This environments window normally automatically picked a shell if there
> was only one installed on your Lisa's hard drive, or if the Lisa user had
> previously specified a default shell. Programming a Lisa shell required a
> few extra features that normal Lisa programs did not have since shells had
> to communicate with the Lisa startup and shutdown processes directly.
> Apple created a technical note describing these special features.
>
> The Lisa Desktop Manager is best described by Apple in the following
> documents which I have quoted in this LisaList message:
>
> o The Architecture of the Lisa Personal Computer
> Bruce Daniels
> Apple Computer, 1984
>
> o Lisa User Interface Guidelines
> Chapter 5: Desktop Manager
> Apple Computer
> November 1983 (alpha draft)
>
> Other sources of Desktop Manager information are the Lisa Owner's Guides.
> The Lisa 1 and Lisa 2 owner's guides from 1983 have great chapters on the
> initial versions of the Desktop Manager. The Lisa Office System 3.0 manual
> from 1984 describes the final Desktop Manager version which supported
> features such as the Desk menu which was somewhat equivalent to the
> Macintosh's Apple menu.
>
> Other historical pieces on the Lisa Desktop Manager that are worth reading
> since these are from Apple Lisa team members are:
>
> o The integrated software and user interface of Apple's Lisa
> Edward W. Birss, ca. 1980s
>
> o An Interview with Wayne Rosing, Bruce Daniels, and Larry Tesler
> BYTE Magazine, February 1983
>
> o Inventing the Lisa User Interface
> Frank Ludolph, Rod Perkins, Dan Smith
> ACM Interactions, 1997, vol 4, issue 1, pp 40-53
>
> This Inventing paper is great since it shows samples of screens for the
> Desktop Manager from 1979 to 1984. This paper can be found on the
> following web sites:
>
> http://developer.java.sun.com/developer/techDocs/
> hi/papers/Lisa/Interactions_96.html
>
> http://home.san.rr.com/deans/lisagui.html
>
> https://secure.acm.org/pubs/citations/journals/
> interactions/1997-4-1/p40-perkins/
>
> A short paper on the Lisa user interface can be found in the following
> article:
>
> o The Lisa User Interface
> Frank Ludolph, Rod Perkins
> ACM SIG-CHI 1998
>
> This paper can be found on the web at:
>
> http://dev.acm.org/pubs/articles/proceedings/chi/286498/
> p18-ludolph/p18-ludolph.pdf
>
> For a great discussion of the philosophy behind the Lisa's user interface
> see Frank Ludolph's comments that he presented at demonstration of the
> Xerox Star computer that can be found at the following web site:
>
>
> http://www.stanford.edu/~hodges/Xerox/ReStarDemoAncmt-5-FrankLudolph.txt
>
> I have included this talk at the end of this message.
>
> The author of this message (David Craig) also wrote a short paper on the
> Lisa GUI for college:
>
> o Apple Lisa Graphical Object-Oriented User Interface
> David Craig, 1987
>
> For a wonderful discussion of the origins and changes in the field of GUIs
> see the following paper which contains a series of comments about this
> area during a demonstration of the Xerox Star in 1998 by many former Xerox
> Star people:
>
> o Xerox's Contribution to the Development of Office Automation
> via the Desktop Metaphor and Distributed Computing Systems
>
> This paper can be found at the following web site:
>
> http://www.stanford.edu/~hodges/Xerox/
>
> Here's one other piece of Lisa Desktop Manager trivia that may interest
> current Macintosh users. If you hold down the Option key while in the
> Macintosh Finder and select the Apple menu, you will see a menu item
> labeled "About the Finder". Selecting this menu item displays a dialog
> with a picture that lists the people behind the Macintosh Finder. You can
> even do this with Macintosh OS 9 which was created in 1999. Wait a while
> and you will see the following credit to the Lisa Desktop Manager:
>
> Lisa Desktop Manager
> 1981-1983
> Dan Smith
> Frank Ludolph
> Bill Atkinson
>
> For a good description of how the Lisa's software in general worked see
> LisaGuide, Apple's interactive tour ofthe Lisa. I have a set of screen
> dumps from this program that are useful if you don't have access to
> LisaGuide.
>
> One other piece of Lisa Desktop Manager history is that the Macintosh
> Finder influenced the design of the Lisa Desktop Manager. Per Bruce Horn
> of the Macintosh Finder team, he showed a mock-up of an object-oriented
> Macintosh Finder from 1980 or 1981 to Bill Atkinson who was working on the
> Lisa team at that time. Bill used the Finder mock-up to devise an
> object-oriented GUI for the Lisa that had at that time a less interactive
> dialog-based interface.
>
> END OF PART 1
>
>
> Regards,
> David T. Craig
>
> ###########################################################
> # David T. Craig -- CyberWolf Inc. -- ACI 4D Developer #5
> # Aspen Plaza, 1596 Pacheco, Suite 203
> # Santa Fe, NM 87505 USA
> # voice 505.983.6463 ext 15 -- fax 505.988.2580
> # dcraig_at_email.domain.hidden
> ###########################################################
>
- - - - - - - - - -
LisaList is sponsored by LowEndMac.com, MacLaunch.com, and...
MacResQ Specials: LaCie SCSI CDR From $99! PowerBook 3400/200 Only $879!
Norton AntiVirus 6 Only $19! We Stock PARTS! <http://www.macresq.com>
Shop buy.com and save. <http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/
stat?id=O7sajHhUCjc&offerid=13541.10000001&type=1&subid=0>
/ Buy books, CDs, videos, and more from Amazon.com \
/ <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect-home/lowendmac> \
- - - - - - - - - -
This message is sent to you because you are subscribed to LisaList.
List info <http://lowendmac.net/lists/lisa.html>
Send list messages to: <mailto:lisalist_at_email.domain.hidden>
To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:lisalist-off_at_email.domain.hidden>
For digest mode, email: <mailto:lisalist-digest_at_email.domain.hidden>
Subscription questions: <mailto:listmom_at_email.domain.hidden>
List archive: <http://mail.maclaunch.com/lists/>
Host your mailing list for free at Maclaunch
http://www.maclaunch.com/forms/list.shtml
Received on 2001-01-05 15:55:11