Xerox Alto Restoration Part 17 - Xerox Alto Demo 

I’ve genuinely never seen before something so ridiculously ahead of its time like the Alto, it still impresses me

I won't lie, this actually gives me goosebumps to watch! My jaw was on the floor watching this in 2020, let alone in 1973! The Alto was decades ahead of its time, genuinely unbelievable.

I can’t believe this thing was made in 1973 its crazy how advanced it was.

In 2021 you still have to reboot your system after certain changes you make, this modified the GUI and didn't need a restart. Impressive and so ahead of its time.

Around 1975-76 I worked as a photographer for the Ralph M. Parsons company in Pasadena, California. I attended an off-site demonstration of one of these. I distinctly remember the vertical CRT with black text on a white screen. I only saw the word processor demonstrated, and I believe there was a laser printer attached. It was all fitted into a large desk. Very impressive.

This is from 1973?!?!!?!? How the... This looks better than Dos machines from the mid-80s in every conceivable way. Xerox really dropped the ball with this.

Wow. It's amazing that these types of computers existed in 1972!! Without this computer, there would be no Mac, Windows, or iPhone. I highly respect Xerox for their innovation. If you look at the first Mac, it's quite similar to the Xerox Alto.

The Alto system is 50 years old this year. Total domination of the entire planet's computing paradigm in half a century. It may have been one of the biggest blunders in business history for Xerox, but the idea underlying it...the idea conquered the world.

It always amazes me how efficient the earlier computers were. Nice to see the Alto got restored and working flawlessly.

Imagine how much further technology may have come had this been actually sold in the 70’s

I am mind blown by the section about SmartTalk from 14:00. What!! 1973??! This was so so so ahead of its time. The programming environment back then, with the menu system allowing the objects to be inspected, is just ridiculously advanced compared to what I was using in the 1980s much later with Standard C, etc. Even the GUI.. the scrollbars, window resizing is already there, almost 10 years before the Xerox Star (and then Macintosh which essentially repeated what was already done with Xerox Star). This is all a testament to state funded research being execedingly more innovative than private research. The hard difficult *risky and most innovative* work is done by the state, and then the easy *incremental* work handed over to the private sector for the profits. Actually if you take everything in your mobile phone (the V.N. basic chip architecture, the silicon chip, the GSP, the modern languages (being essentially variations of Algol-69), the internet protocols, transistors, screen technology.. no matter which component you look at, it came out of the state sector (either directly, or a private company with the State as the customer such as with Sun and Xerox) when the component was invented.

The Alto was released in 1973 and is considered one of the first machines that could be called a personal computer (even though it wasn't intended for the home and costed tens of thousands of dollars per unit). There had been a couple of other desktop sized machines with a keyboard and monitor released prior to the Alto, but they weren't home machines either. The Alto differed from the previous machines in that it had a GUI, which was a unique idea at the time. The GUI concept had been developed in the 1960's by Douglas Engelbart at Stanford University (he also invented the mouse, video conferencing, point and click, hyperlinks, and other stuff). Engelbart gave a demonstration of all these ideas in 1968 (which is available on RU-vid - it's a fascinating watch). Anyway, the Alto borrowed his GUI idea. Steve Jobs visited Xerox in 1979 and asked to steal the GUI concept for himself. He and Xerox reached an agreement. He would release the GUI with the Macintosh in 1984. Other manufacturers (Commodore, Tandy and IBM) would release products to compete with the GUI Macintosh shortly thereafter. And the rest is history.

It's amazing how the Alto's paint program from 1973 has more advanced features than Windows 10's Paint. Just imagine how much more advanced computer technology would be today if the bigwigs at Xerox took this seriously. Unfortunately they didn't share the vision that the PARC team had and thought personal computers had no future.

It's amazing this is being done on a computer from 1973. Not even mspaint has some of the functions in that draw application.

Smalltalk was the best thing about this whole project. Tell Ken to port the text-based browser Lynx to this system! That's totally doable.

It's the high resolution that blows me away. And ofcourse the class definitions in smalltalk that is practically still standard today. What's google gonna log as user agent?😃

I will never believe how Xerox couldn't see the application of this technology. I understand watching this just how futuristic it must've seemed at that time but it was real... They had it in front of them. So the futuristic aspect should've made them even more excited to realize how large of a leap forward this was for the computer. Thank you for sharing this.

Truly excellent work to get this up and working - its just amazing how far ahead Xerox were then, shame their Management at the time couldn't of handled things better, as they could have been the major name in computing instead of just known for producing photocopiers today . . .

I don´t know exactly why,but i find this vintage computer stuff so fascinating.

I was lucky enough to play with them at PARC during development, when I was maybe 10; my friend's dad worked there and we'd go in with him on weekends. Just as how kids today are far better at using smartphones than adults, we took to the Alto instantly, with no preconceived notions of command line or whatever - we just grabbed the mouse and were off. I distinctly remember those discs seen on the table at 19:00 and how people were so excited about removable storage.

OMG! This is the same amazing insanity as a relay computer running x86 architecture software like Microsoft Edge!! This is so cool you guys were able to restore it! My faith in humankind has been restored ☺️👏👏🕊️ Bravo! When I grow up mabye I too like the great Robert Noyce can design a quantum computer 30yrs ahead of it's time. This will be my inspiration 😎💻💾

nice display. the resolution is highly acceptable today for word processing programs.

Had Xerox made some refinements and started mass-producing the Alto for the office market, Xerox would have made *GOBS* of money! Many of the decision-makers at Xerox are probably *STILL* kicking themselves! Microsoft and Apple probably wouldn't have been the big players that they are now.

Beautiful job guys!! I'm so happy you got this restored and working so well. This was an amazing machine, LIGHT years ahead of its time, especially in the office environment. It would have been a different world today if Xerox cared more about their computer division. Ken, you're an Alto Master, and we're thankful that you've shared your knowledge of this system.

Despite the cost, I can imagine Xerox would have sold enough Altos to big offices & government to fund the second generation. It would have been a very different computer world had they been given support.

Xerox PARC must have been an awesome place to work at back then. People invented their own stuff to work on next inventions. The team was cerafully selected from the brightest minds of that era. I read a great book about it - "Dealers Of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age" by Michael A. Hiltzik.

One thing I can see that maybe inspired Steve Jobs is that it has white interface and black letters/lines - not like most at that time where background was dark and lines and letters white. It has more open feeling - more light. And of course mouse and cursor is big thing. You can select with mouse very quickly another folder - no need to taping up or down button 10 times. And finally I have to admit it has really good design - it has that sci-fi feeling to it - white shell, black frame, oddly pleasing vertical screen with cool white glow and sharp image. Very minimalistic and functional at the same time. Only thing - not very intuitive for todays standards 50y later :). But you made great job restoring it. Really beautiful machine.

Great demo - and a wonderful restoration. Thanks to all who participated in making this a reality!!!

Outstanding work guys. Always been interested in the Alto, you've done a great job getting this machine running and thank you for posting these videos for everyone to watch.

That is simply incredible. 1973?!

it has been really great watching your Alto restoration videos and now this video showing the software examples is fantastic also.. thanks for taking the time to make them so we can all enjoy seeing this historic computer..

Priceless! Thankyou all so much for restoring and maintaining that machine. As a kid I read about the Alto and I am super happy to see that great demo.

Very satisfying to see all your efforts pay off... thanks for your work!

I've grown up being told the Xerox PARC Alto was where it all started, it was fantastic to see it in action. Brilliant video.

So, I have rewatched the Alto restoration for the third or forth time now, and it still thrills me. This machine is so utterly amazing.

Incredible. I’ve known about the Alto since the 90s but this is my first time seeing it in action... breathtaking!!! The way the draw program renders curves is beautiful. Thank you for an amazing demo!!!

Marc, thank you to you and your friends there for sharing this series about the restoration of your Alto. Great job getting that historic computer system up and running again.

Truly amazing job by Xerox back in the days! I can't believe it how they did it in the 70s.

15:25 Apparently a rite of passage for any Smalltalk user was when they made so many changes to their system image that it would not boot any more, and they had to reinitialize it from scratch. ;)

have watched all the videos as they were released. amazing. great job.

This is honestly blowing my mind, 1973??!!!

Incredibly interesting, thank you very much!

This thing is the real grandfather of the PC! It's just pure awesome hardcore hardware porn at it's finest! You insert a disk, then it sucks the air out and then you can *feel* every operation this machine does on the disk. :D And all the modern features it has ... in 1973. Unbelievable! Xerox should be ruling the IT world, if only their management would have realized what they got there.

Recompile while still running using the mouse 😨 with oriented object language in 1973 ... this is unbelievable

The cat is hilarious. Great job on this amazing machine!

You Guys are Rock Stars, I hope to someday have a fraction of your talents in Software/hardware design and troubleshooting.

I really appreciate vintage tech products , Nostalgia

Great work guys! This machine must be worth a fortune now.

Imagine if xerox followed through with this, we all would be using xerox phone now days. So impressive and ahead of its time.

This was the highlight of my trip to VCF this year!

Xerox engineers is a masters of digital universe

Now I see a computer I would have missed an opportunity to learn to use. I have done keypunch keyboarding on key-to-disk terminals and have not accomplished anything else than working overtime. As a staunch typist, I would have loved to work on the Xerox Alto. Now I am working on a Dell microcomputer with Microsoft Windows 10 Professional, and I do not unhappily miss routine work.

We really took a step back from this technology. Just to think that this existed in 1973 and the concept want even used until '85 is insane.

An absolute thing of beauty

The simple physics used to govern the movement of the games impressed me the most.

That keyboard sounds divine.

Fantastic demo! All the hard work you put into getting this system going again really shows. I wish I could have made VCF West to see it in person! I should go through some of the functions on my Lisa in a similar in depth manor... you can see how some things are related, but they are really quite different systems.

Thank you for doing this for us! Fantastic!

Excellent stuff - it's an amazing demonstration... I can see why Steve Jobs got excited over it!

Amazingly ahead of its time!

This blows me away...unreal and sureal alternate reality stuff

My jaw hit the floor when he casually started showing FTP so effortlessly... And I had to pinch myself... Unbelievable for 1973.

incredible machine

Thanks for sharing this series. So much amazing tech, 20 years before its time. Xerox could have been Apple and Microsoft (and perhaps Cisco) combined!

I really like the sound of the key switches on the Alto's keyboard. What kind of key switches does it use?

Absolutely wonderful.

1 word - AMAZING for each time :))) bravo for rescurers

Whoever (or whatever team) dreamt this all up was a genius.

I'm upside down. You have to see it to believe it. It is to see a computer so perfected for that time. No doubt Steve Job found these ideas from the Xerox Alto. The definition of the screen is probably what surprises me the most 😃

Fantastic! Thanks for sharing this!

Hard to imagine that Xerox never actually tried to market the Alto to the masses in the 70s’ probably at affordable prices. Otherwise, the names Microsoft and Apple will likely be unheard of. The product and the technology are so far ahead of its time.

Really interesting and damn that guy sure knows a lot about this thing.

I miss the portrait orientation monitors of early computing. Found an abandoned Xerox computer with 8" floppies and a big old amber monitor in portrait orientation. When we got it back to my place I was able to boot it, but couldn't get it to do much besides list contents of the disk. It had a really cool keyboard with a circular trackpad on it. So I was convinced it must have a GUI somewhere.

this is why i am subscribed to you, this and the hp terminals :)

Wow! That's fascinating!

surprising resolution and font types. also the use of a three button mouse is well ahead of its time.

I just love vintage computers

wonderful video

Woooow the legend itself.

Excelente trabajo de restauración, amigos les hago una pregunta: porque no trabajan también blanqueando los plásticos del monitor, mouse, unidades de disco etc? creo que sería lo que le devolvería también el toque original, es una sugerencia. Saludos desde Argentina y felicitaciones a todo el equipo.

Its still amazing today how long a list can be when viewed in portrait.

Amazing

Historic Machine, History Right Here.

FRIGGIN AMAZING !!!!!!!

Это просто поразительная машина для своего времени. Вся эта система как будто создана человеком из будущего видевшим современные компьютерные системы, но ограниченным технологиями тех лет.

I'd love to use this computer!

The Smalltalk is actually like Atom IDE. You can also program its look and feel through cascading stylesheets. Vertical monitors are also favoured by some programmers nowadays. Probably Windows Pinball is a game nod to this machine.

The original Xerox engineers who developed the gui and the 2 innovations must be kicking themselves and the Xerox CEO for not having the vision

Its cool how x11 mouse commands were the same as alto. I really want to see blit are you guys going to ever do a demo of blit terminals? Draw is very intuitive.. text edit is a lot like laytex

8:01 The line may look thinner, but interestingly, the masking out of the underlying line remains the same width as before.

Amazing!

Ken is a Legend.

Wonderful restoration and demo. Thank you all. I could not find any reference to the IranWars game you showed. Do you have any documentation about it?

I remember seeing a commercial on TV briefly showing the Xerox Alto, about 1972-3 or so. I thought to myself that this was the future, and it was! I believed it odd that Xerox would show a TV commercial for something it didn't mass-produce and sell as a business machine. Xerox shelved it--Steve Jobs and Bill Gates picked it up and the rest is history!

So apple and window stole these ideas from xerox wow I will give a lots of respect for xerox thank you

Would be insane if you could get a browser stack running on that system. Would have to cheat with some modern hardware to network interface (which probably would have magnitudes more of processing power), but still, it would be really neat.

absolute fantastic, thanks, is it that system which jobs buy as patent (or just inspired him) for his first windows system? Or he buy just xerox mouse system?

12:30 The windows may overlap, but I believe the updates don’t handle that correctly. When Steve Jobs took his crew around, they never noticed that limitation. Bill Atkinson in particular, believed they had solved that problem. But they hadn’t: when he came up with his region architecture for QuickDraw, that was the first actual efficient solution to the problem of updating nonrectangular areas of the screen.

I probably either subliminally caught this, or maybe I read it somewhere, but isn’t the Alto literally taken from the town in central California, Palo Alto? I guess it’s got to be, since that’s where the research center is. Always entertaining and educational. THANKS AGAIN!!

Is this like 1 hash a minute? That.. is amazing.