Ken Shirriff has been restoring a vintage Xerox Alto computer (the PC Steve Jobs "borrowed" his ideas from). On Day 10 Shirriff got the Draw 4.5 program up and running. He can't draw with it yet because the mouse that came with the Alto isn't compatible (the donor bought a substitute off eBay, it turns out). But here's what the interface looks like (jpeg cropped into two parts to fit here):
Some of these functions are familiar and some are obscure but it's intriguing to see a 37 year old toolbar. Eventually, maybe, we'll have our Roland Barthes who can explain how present-day visual language was warped, I mean, shaped, by this configuration.
