History of the graphical user interface

This is a sub-article to Graphical user interface

Graphical user interface

In computing, a graphical user interface is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices with images rather than text commands. GUIs can be used in computers, hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices, household appliances and...

The graphical user interface
Graphical user interface
In computing, a graphical user interface is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices with images rather than text commands. GUIs can be used in computers, hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices, household appliances and...

, understood as the use of graphic icons and a pointing device to control a computer, has a four decade history of incremental refinements built on some constant core principles. Several vendors have created their own windowing systems based on independent code, but with basic elements in common that define the WIMP

WIMP (computing)

In human–computer interaction, WIMP stands for "windows, icons, menus and pointers", denoting a style of interaction using these elements. It was coined by Merzouga Wilberts in 1980...

"window, icon, menu, pointing device" paradigm. There have been important technological achievements, and enhancements to the general interaction in small steps over previous systems. There have been a few significant breakthroughs in terms of use, but the same organizational metaphors

Interface metaphor

An Interface metaphor is a set of user interface visuals, actions and procedures that exploit specific knowledge that users already have of other domains. The purpose of the interface metaphor is to give the user instantaneous knowledge about how to interact with the user interface...

and interaction idioms

Programming idiom

A programming idiom is a means of expressing a recurring construct in one or more programming languages. Generally speaking, a programming idiom is an expression of a simple task or algorithm that is not a built-in feature in the programming language being used, or, conversely, the use of an...

are still in use. Although many GUI Operating Systems are operated by using a mouse, the keyboard can also be used by using keyboard shortcuts or arrow keys.

Initial developments

Early dynamic information devices such as radar

Radar

Radar is an object-detection system which uses radio waves to determine the range, altitude, direction, or speed of objects. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, weather formations, and terrain. The radar dish or antenna transmits pulses of radio...

displays, where input devices were used for direct control of computer-created data, set the basis for later improvements of graphical interfaces.

The concept of a windowing system was introduced by the first real-time graphic display systems for computers: the SAGE Project and Ivan Sutherland

Ivan Sutherland

Ivan Edward Sutherland is an American computer scientist and Internet pioneer. He received the Turing Award from the Association for Computing Machinery in 1988 for the invention of Sketchpad, an early predecessor to the sort of graphical user interface that has become ubiquitous in personal...

's Sketchpad

Sketchpad

Sketchpad was a revolutionary computer program written by Ivan Sutherland in 1963 in the course of his PhD thesis, for which he received the Turing Award in 1988. It helped change the way people interact with computers...

Augmentation of Human Intellect (NLS)

Doug Engelbart's Augmentation of Human Intellect project at SRI in the 1960s developed the On-Line System

NLS (computer system)

NLS, or the "oN-Line System", was a revolutionary computer collaboration system designed by Douglas Engelbart and implemented by researchers at the Augmentation Research Center at the Stanford Research Institute during the 1960s...

(NLS), which incorporated a mouse-driven cursor and multiple windows used to work on hypertext. Engelbart had been inspired, in part, by the memex

Memex

The memex is the name given by Vannevar Bush to the hypothetical proto-hypertext system he described in his 1945 The Atlantic Monthly article As We May Think...

desk-based information machine suggested by Vannevar Bush

Vannevar Bush

Vannevar Bush was an American engineer and science administrator known for his work on analog computing, his political role in the development of the atomic bomb as a primary organizer of the Manhattan Project, the founding of Raytheon, and the idea of the memex, an adjustable microfilm viewer...

in 1945. Much of the early research was based on how children learn.

Xerox PARC

Engelbart's work directly led to the advances at Xerox PARC

Xerox PARC

PARC , formerly Xerox PARC, is a research and co-development company in Palo Alto, California, with a distinguished reputation for its contributions to information technology and hardware systems....

. Several people went from SRI to Xerox PARC in the early 1970s.
In 1973 Xerox PARC

Xerox PARC

PARC , formerly Xerox PARC, is a research and co-development company in Palo Alto, California, with a distinguished reputation for its contributions to information technology and hardware systems....

developed the Alto

Xerox Alto

The Xerox Alto was one of the first computers designed for individual use , making it arguably what is now called a personal computer. It was developed at Xerox PARC in 1973...

personal computer. It had a bitmapped

Raster graphics

In computer graphics, a raster graphics image, or bitmap, is a data structure representing a generally rectangular grid of pixels, or points of color, viewable via a monitor, paper, or other display medium...

screen, and was the first computer to demonstrate the desktop metaphor

Desktop metaphor

The desktop metaphor is an interface metaphor which is a set of unifying concepts used by graphical user interfaces to help users more easily interact with the computer. The desktop metaphor treats the monitor of a computer as if it is the user's desktop, upon which objects such as documents and...

and graphical user interface

Graphical user interface

(GUI). It was not a commercial product, but several thousand units were built and were heavily used at PARC, as well as other XEROX offices, and at several universities for many years. The Alto greatly influenced the design of personal computers during the late 1970s and early 1980s, notably the Three Rivers PERQ

PERQ

The PERQ, also referred to as the Three Rivers PERQ or ICL PERQ, was a pioneering workstation computer produced in the early 1980s....

, the Apple Lisa

Apple Lisa

The Apple Lisa—also known as the Lisa—is a :personal computer designed by Apple Computer, Inc. during the early 1980s....

and Macintosh, and the first Sun

Sun Microsystems

Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...

workstations.

The GUI was first developed at Xerox PARC by Alan Kay

Alan Kay

Alan Curtis Kay is an American computer scientist, known for his early pioneering work on object-oriented programming and windowing graphical user interface design, and for coining the phrase, "The best way to predict the future is to invent it."He is the president of the Viewpoints Research...

, Larry Tesler

Larry Tesler

Larry Tesler is a computer scientist working in the field of human-computer interaction. Tesler has worked at Xerox PARC, Apple Computer, Amazon.com, and Yahoo!...

, Dan Ingalls

Daniel Henry Holmes Ingalls, Jr.

Daniel Henry Holmes Ingalls, Jr. is a pioneer of object-oriented computer programming and the principal architect, designer and implementor of five generations of Smalltalk environments. He designed the bytecoded virtual machine that made Smalltalk practical in 1976...

and a number of other researchers. It used windows

Windowing system

A windowing system is a component of a graphical user interface , and more specifically of a desktop environment, which supports the implementation of window managers, and provides basic support for graphics hardware, pointing devices such as mice, and keyboards...

, icons

Computer icon

A computer icon is a pictogram displayed on a computer screen and used to navigate a computer system or mobile device. The icon itself is a small picture or symbol serving as a quick, intuitive representation of a software tool, function or a data file accessible on the system. It functions as an...

, and menus

Menu (computing)

In computing and telecommunications, a menu is a list of commands presented to an operator by a computer or communications system. A menu is used in contrast to a command-line interface, where instructions to the computer are given in the form of commands .Choices given from a menu may be selected...

to support commands such as opening files, deleting files, moving files, etc. In 1974, work began at PARC on Gypsy, the first bitmap What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get (WYSIWYG) cut & paste editor. In 1975, Xerox engineers demonstrated a Graphical User Interface "including icons and the first use of pop-up menus".

In 1981 Xerox introduced a pioneering product, Star

Xerox Star

The Star workstation, officially known as the Xerox 8010 Information System, was introduced by Xerox Corporation in 1981. It was the first commercial system to incorporate various technologies that today have become commonplace in personal computers, including a bitmapped display, a window-based...

, incorporating many of PARC's innovations. Although not commercially successful, Star greatly influenced future developments, for example at Apple, Microsoft

Microsoft

Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...

and Sun Microsystems

Sun Microsystems

Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...

Xerox Alto and Xerox Star

The Xerox Alto

Xerox Alto

The Xerox Alto was one of the first computers designed for individual use , making it arguably what is now called a personal computer. It was developed at Xerox PARC in 1973...

(and later Xerox Star

Xerox Star

) was an early personal computer developed at Xerox PARC in 1973. It was the first computer to use the desktop metaphor and mouse-driven graphical user interface (GUI).

It was not a commercial product, but several thousand units were built and were heavily used at PARC, other Xerox facilities, at least one government facility and at several universities for many years. The Alto greatly influenced the design of personal computers in the following decades, notably the Apple Macintosh and the first Sun workstations.

Apple Lisa and Macintosh (and later, the Apple IIgs)

Beginning in 1979, started by Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs

Steven Paul Jobs was an American businessman and inventor widely recognized as a charismatic pioneer of the personal computer revolution. He was co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Apple Inc...

and led by Jef Raskin

Jef Raskin

Jef Raskin was an American human-computer interface expert best known for starting the Macintosh project for Apple in the late 1970s.-Early years and education:...

, the Lisa

Apple Lisa

The Apple Lisa—also known as the Lisa—is a :personal computer designed by Apple Computer, Inc. during the early 1980s....

and Macintosh teams at Apple Computer

Apple Computer

Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs and markets consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. The company's best-known hardware products include the Macintosh line of computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad...

(which included former members of the Xerox PARC group) continued to develop such ideas. The Macintosh, released in 1984, was the first commercially successful product to use a GUI. A desktop metaphor

Desktop metaphor

was used, in which files looked like pieces of paper; directories looked like file folders; there were a set of desk accessories

Desk Accessory

A desk accessory is a small helper-type application that can be run concurrently with any other application on the system. Early examples, such as SideKick and Macintosh desk accessories, used special programming models to provide a small degree of multitasking on a system that initially did not...

like a calculator, notepad, and alarm clock that the user could place around the screen as desired; and the user could delete files and folders by dragging them to a trash can on the screen. Drop down menus were also introduced.

There is still some controversy over the amount of influence that Xerox's PARC

Xerox PARC

PARC , formerly Xerox PARC, is a research and co-development company in Palo Alto, California, with a distinguished reputation for its contributions to information technology and hardware systems....

work, as opposed to previous academic research, had on the GUIs of Apple's Lisa

Apple Lisa

The Apple Lisa—also known as the Lisa—is a :personal computer designed by Apple Computer, Inc. during the early 1980s....

and Macintosh, but it is clear that the influence was extensive, because first versions of Lisa GUIs even lacked icons. These prototype GUIs are at least mouse driven, but completely ignored the WIMP

WIMP (computing)

In human–computer interaction, WIMP stands for "windows, icons, menus and pointers", denoting a style of interaction using these elements. It was coined by Merzouga Wilberts in 1980...

( "window, icon, menu, pointing device") concept. Rare screenshots of first GUIs of Apple Lisa prototypes are shown here and here. Note also that Apple engineers visited the PARC facilities (Apple secured the rights for the visit by compensating Xerox with a pre-IPO purchase of Apple stock) and a number of PARC employees subsequently moved to Apple to work on the Lisa and Macintosh GUI. However, the Apple work extended PARC's considerably, adding manipulatable icons, a fixed drop-down menu bar and drag&drop manipulation of objects in the file system (see Macintosh Finder

Macintosh Finder

The Finder is the default file manager used on Mac OS and Mac OS X operating systems; it is responsible for the overall user-management of files, disks, network volumes and the launching of other applications...

) for example. A list of the improvements made by Apple to the PARC interface can be read here (folklore.org) It's hard to say which particular features were originated in which project, though. Jef Raskin warns that many of the reported facts in the history of the PARC and Macintosh development are inaccurate, distorted or even fabricated, due to the lack of usage by historians of direct primary sources.

In 1986 the Apple IIgs

Apple IIGS

The Apple , the fifth and most powerful model in the Apple II series of personal computers produced by Apple Computer. The "GS" in the name stands for Graphics and Sound, referring to its enhanced graphics and sound capabilities, both of which greatly surpassed previous models of the line...

was launched, a very advanced model of the successful Apple II

Apple II

The Apple II is an 8-bit home computer, one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products, designed primarily by Steve Wozniak, manufactured by Apple Computer and introduced in 1977...

series, based on 16-bit

16-bit

-16-bit architecture:The HP BPC, introduced in 1975, was the world's first 16-bit microprocessor. Prominent 16-bit processors include the PDP-11, Intel 8086, Intel 80286 and the WDC 65C816. The Intel 8088 was program-compatible with the Intel 8086, and was 16-bit in that its registers were 16...

technology (in fact, virtually two machines into one). It came with a new operating system, the Apple GS/OS, which features a Finder

Macintosh Finder

-like GUI, very similar to that of the Macintosh series, able to deal with the advanced graphic abilities of its Video Graphics Chip (VGC).

Graphical Environment Manager (GEM)

Digital Research

Digital Research, Inc. was the company created by Dr. Gary Kildall to market and develop his CP/M operating system and related products. It was the first large software company in the microcomputer world...

(DRI) created the Graphical Environment Manager

Graphical Environment Manager

GEM was a windowing system created by Digital Research, Inc. for use with the CP/M operating system on the Intel 8088 and Motorola 68000 microprocessors...

as an add-on program for personal computers. GEM was developed to work with existing CP/M

CP/M

CP/M was a mass-market operating system created for Intel 8080/85 based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc...

and MS-DOS

MS-DOS

MS-DOS is an operating system for x86-based personal computers. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems, and was the main operating system for IBM PC compatible personal computers during the 1980s to the mid 1990s, until it was gradually superseded by operating...

operating systems on business computers such as IBM-compatibles. It was developed from DRI software, known as GSX, designed by a former PARC employee. The similarity to the Macintosh

Macintosh

The Macintosh , or Mac, is a series of several lines of personal computers designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. The first Macintosh was introduced by Apple's then-chairman Steve Jobs on January 24, 1984; it was the first commercially successful personal computer to feature a mouse and a...

desktop led to a copyright lawsuit from Apple Computer

Apple Computer

, and a settlement which involved some changes to GEM. This was to be the first of a series of 'look and feel' lawsuits related to GUI design in the 1980s.

GEM received widespread use in the consumer market from 1985, when it was made the default user interface built in to the TOS

Atari TOS

TOS is the operating system of the Atari ST range of computers. This range includes the 520 and 1040ST, their STF/M/FM and STE variants and the Mega ST/STE. Later, 32-bit machines were developed using a new version of TOS, called MultiTOS, which allowed multitasking...

operating system of the Atari ST

Atari ST

The Atari ST is a home/personal computer that was released by Atari Corporation in 1985 and commercially available from that summer into the early 1990s. The "ST" officially stands for "Sixteen/Thirty-two", which referred to the Motorola 68000's 16-bit external bus and 32-bit internals...

line of personal computers. It was also bundled by other computer manufacturers and distributors, such as Amstrad

Amstrad

Amstrad is a British electronics company, now wholly owned by BSkyB. As of 2006, Amstrad's main business is manufacturing Sky Digital interactive boxes....

. Later, it was distributed with the best-sold Digital Research version of DOS for IBM PC compatible

IBM PC compatible

IBM PC compatible computers are those generally similar to the original IBM PC, XT, and AT. Such computers used to be referred to as PC clones, or IBM clones since they almost exactly duplicated all the significant features of the PC architecture, facilitated by various manufacturers' ability to...

s, the DR-DOS

DR-DOS

DR-DOS is an MS-DOS-compatible operating system for IBM PC-compatible personal computers, originally developed by Gary Kildall's Digital Research and derived from Concurrent PC DOS 6.0, which was an advanced successor of CP/M-86...

6.0. The GEM desktop faded from the market with the withdrawal of the Atari ST line in 1992 and with the popularity of the Microsoft

Microsoft

Windows 3.0

Windows 3.0, a graphical environment, is the third major release of Microsoft Windows, and was released on 22 May 1990. It became the first widely successful version of Windows and a rival to Apple Macintosh and the Commodore Amiga on the GUI front...

in the PC front by the same years.

DeskMate

Tandy's DeskMate appeared in the early 1980s on its TRS-80

TRS-80

TRS-80 was Tandy Corporation's desktop microcomputer model line, sold through Tandy's Radio Shack stores in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The first units, ordered unseen, were delivered in November 1977, and rolled out to the stores the third week of December. The line won popularity with...

machines and was ported to its Tandy 1000

Tandy 1000

The Tandy 1000 was the first in a line of more-or-less IBM PC compatible home computer systems produced by the Tandy Corporation for sale in its Radio Shack chain of stores.-Overview:...

range in 1984. Like most PC GUIs of the time it depended on a Disk operating system

Disk operating system

Disk Operating System and disk operating system , most often abbreviated as DOS, refers to an operating system software used in most computers that provides the abstraction and management of secondary storage devices and the information on them...

such as TRS-DOS

TRS-DOS

TRS-DOS was the operating system for the Tandy TRS-80 line of 8-bit Zilog Z80 microcomputers that were sold through Radio Shack through the late 1970s and early 1980s. Tandy's manuals recommended that it be pronounced triss-doss...

or MS-DOS

MS-DOS

. The application was popular at the time and included a number of programs like Draw, Text and Calendar as well as attracting outside investment such as Lotus 1-2-3 for DeskMate.

Amiga Intuition and the Workbench

The Amiga

Amiga

The Amiga is a family of personal computers that was sold by Commodore in the 1980s and 1990s. The first model was launched in 1985 as a high-end home computer and became popular for its graphical, audio and multi-tasking abilities...

computer was launched by Commodore

Commodore International

Commodore is the commonly used name for Commodore Business Machines , the U.S.-based home computer manufacturer and electronics manufacturer headquartered in West Chester, Pennsylvania, which also housed Commodore's corporate parent company, Commodore International Limited...

in 1985 with a GUI called Workbench

Workbench (AmigaOS)

-Overview:Commodore named their Amiga computer's first operating system Workbench 1.0 and continued with the Workbench name until version 3.1, when it was changed to AmigaOS, prompted by Apple renaming their propriety OS from "System" to "MacOS"...

. Workbench was based on an internal engine developed mostly by RJ Mical, called Intuition

Intuition (Amiga)

Intuition is the windowing system and user interface engine of AmigaOS. It was developed almost entirely by RJ Mical. Intuition should not be confused with Workbench, the AmigaOS spatial file manager, which relies on Intuition for handling windows and input events.Users may remember the initial...

, which drove all the input events. The first versions used a blue/orange/white/black default palette, which was selected for high contrast on televisions and composite monitor

Composite monitor

A composite monitor is any analog video display that receives input in the form of an analog composite video signal through a single cable — in contrast to multiple-cable or multiple-wire video sources such as VGA cable...

s. Workbench presented directories as drawers to fit in with the "workbench

Workbench

A workbench is sturdy table at which manual work is done. They range from simple flat surfaces to very complex designs that may be considered tools in themselves. Workbenches vary in size from tiny jewelers benches to the huge benches used by staircase makers...

" theme.
Intuition was the widget and graphics library that made the GUI work. It was driven by user events through the mouse, keyboard, and other input devices.

Due to a mistake made by the Commodore sales department, the first floppies of AmigaOS

AmigaOS

AmigaOS is the default native operating system of the Amiga personal computer. It was developed first by Commodore International, and initially introduced in 1985 with the Amiga 1000...

(released with the Amiga1000) named the whole OS "Workbench". Since then, users and CBM itself referred to "Workbench" as the nickname for the whole AmigaOS

AmigaOS

AmigaOS is the default native operating system of the Amiga personal computer. It was developed first by Commodore International, and initially introduced in 1985 with the Amiga 1000...

(including Amiga DOS, Extras, etc.). This common consent ended with release of version 2.0 of AmigaOS

AmigaOS versions

There have been many different versions of the AmigaOS operating system during its two decades of history.Initially the Amiga operating system had no strong name and branding, as it was seen as an integral part of the Amiga system as a whole. Early names used for the Amiga operating system included...

, which re-introduced proper names to the installation floppies of AmigaDOS

AmigaDOS

AmigaDOS is the disk operating system of the AmigaOS, which includes file systems, file and directory manipulation, the command-line interface, and file redirection....

, Workbench, Extras, etc.

Early versions of AmigaOS

AmigaOS

AmigaOS is the default native operating system of the Amiga personal computer. It was developed first by Commodore International, and initially introduced in 1985 with the Amiga 1000...

did treat the Workbench as just another window on top of a blank screen, but this is due to the ability of AmigaOS

AmigaOS

AmigaOS is the default native operating system of the Amiga personal computer. It was developed first by Commodore International, and initially introduced in 1985 with the Amiga 1000...

to have invisible screens with a chromakey or a genlock

Genlock

Genlock is a common technique where the video output of one source, or a specific reference signal from a signal generator, is used to synchronize other television picture sources together. The aim in video and digital audio applications is to ensure the coincidence of signals in time at a...

– one of the most advanced features of Amiga platform – even without losing the visibility of Workbench itself. In later AmigaOS

AmigaOS

AmigaOS is the default native operating system of the Amiga personal computer. It was developed first by Commodore International, and initially introduced in 1985 with the Amiga 1000...

versions Workbench could be set as a borderless desktop.

Amiga users were able to boot their computer into a command line interface (aka. CLI/shell

Shell (computing)

A shell is a piece of software that provides an interface for users of an operating system which provides access to the services of a kernel. However, the term is also applied very loosely to applications and may include any software that is "built around" a particular component, such as web...

). This was a keyboard-based environment without the Workbench GUI. Later they could invoke it with the CLI/SHELL command LoadWB which loaded Workbench GUI.

One major difference between other OS's of the time and for some time after was the Amiga's fully Multi-Tasking Operating System, a powerful built-in animation system using a hardware blitter and copper and 4 channels of 26k 8 bit sampled sound. This made the Amiga the first Multi Media computer years before other OS's.

Like most GUIs of the day, Amiga's Intuition followed Xerox's, and sometimes Apple's, lead. But a CLI was included which dramatically extended the functionality of the platform. However, the CLI/Shell of Amiga is not just a simple text-based interface like in MS-DOS

MS-DOS

, but another graphic process driven by Intuition, and with the same gadgets included in Amiga's graphics.library. The CLI/Shell interface integrates itself with the Workbench, sharing privileges with the GUI.

The Amiga Workbench evolved over the 1990s, far beyond the official withdrawn from Commodore in 1994. See the next section.

MS-DOS file managers and utility suites

Because most of the very early IBM PC

IBM PC

The IBM Personal Computer, commonly known as the IBM PC, is the original version and progenitor of the IBM PC compatible hardware platform. It is IBM model number 5150, and was introduced on August 12, 1981...

and compatibles lacked any common true graphical capability (they used the 80-column basic text mode compatible with the original MDA display adapter), a series of file manager

File manager

A file manager or file browser is a computer program that provides a user interface to work with file systems. The most common operations performed on files or groups of files are: create, open, edit, view, print, play, rename, move, copy, delete, search/find, and modify file attributes, properties...

s arose, including Microsoft

Microsoft

's DOS Shell

DOS Shell

The DOS Shell is a file manager, debuted in MS-DOS and IBM DOS 4.0 . It was discontinued after version 6.0, but retained as part of the "Supplemental Disk" until 6.22 for MS-DOS; as such, it was not a core part of the operating system throughout its evolution, but rather an add-on...

, which features typical GUI elements as menus, push buttons, lists with scrollbars and mouse pointer. The name Text user interface

Text user interface

TUI short for: Text User Interface or Textual User Interface , is a retronym that was coined sometime after the invention of graphical user interfaces, to distinguish them from text-based user interfaces...

was later invented to name this kind of interface. Many MS-DOS text mode applications, like the default text editor for MS-DOS 5.0 (and related tools, like QBasic

QBasic

QBasic is an IDE and interpreter for a variant of the BASIC programming language which is based on QuickBASIC. Code entered into the IDE is compiled to an intermediate form, and this intermediate form is immediately interpreted on demand within the IDE. It can run under nearly all versions of DOS...

), also used the same philosophy. The IBM DOS Shell included with IBM DOS 5.0 (circa 1992) supported both text display modes and actual graphics display modes, making it both a TUI and a GUI, depending on the chosen mode.

Advanced file managers for MS-DOS

MS-DOS

were able to redefine character shapes with EGA

Enhanced Graphics Adapter

The Enhanced Graphics Adapter is the IBM PC computer display standard specification which is between CGA and VGA in terms of color and space resolution. Introduced in October 1984 by IBM shortly after its new PC/AT, EGA produces a display of 16 simultaneous colors from a palette of 64 at a...

and better display adapters, giving some basic low resolution icons and graphical interface elements, including an arrow (instead of a coloured cell block) for the mouse pointer. When the display adapter lacks the ability to change the character's shapes, they default to the CP437

Code page 437

IBM PC or MS-DOS code page 437 is the character set of the original IBM PC. It is also known as CP 437, OEM 437, PC-8, MS-DOS Latin US or sometimes misleadingly referred to as the OEM font, High ASCII or Extended ASCII....

character set found in the adapter's ROM

Read-only memory

Read-only memory is a class of storage medium used in computers and other electronic devices. Data stored in ROM cannot be modified, or can be modified only slowly or with difficulty, so it is mainly used to distribute firmware .In its strictest sense, ROM refers only...

. Some popular utility suites for MS-DOS, as Norton Utilities

Norton Utilities

Norton Utilities is a utility software suite designed to help analyze, configure, optimize and maintain the computer. The current version 15 of Norton Utilities Premier Edition for Windows XP/Vista/7 was released December 27, 2010....

(pictured) and PC Tools used these techniques as well.

DESQview

DESQview

DESQview was a text mode multitasking program developed by Quarterdeck Office Systems which enjoyed modest popularity in the late 1980s and early 1990s...

was a text mode

Text mode

Text mode is a kind of computer display mode in which the content of the screen is internally represented in terms of characters rather than individual pixels. Typically, the screen consists of a uniform rectangular grid of character cells, each of which contains one of the characters of a...

multitasking program introduced in July 1985. Running on top of MS-DOS

MS-DOS

, it allowed users to run multiple DOS programs concurrently in windows. It was the first program to bring multitasking and windowing capabilities to a DOS environment in which existing DOS programs could be used. DESQview was not a true GUI but offered certain components of one, such as resizable, overlapping windows and mouse pointing.

Applications under MS-DOS with proprietary GUIs

Before the MS-Windows

Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...

age, and with the lack of a true common GUI under MS-DOS, most graphical applications which worked with EGA

Enhanced Graphics Adapter

, VGA

Video Graphics Array

Video Graphics Array refers specifically to the display hardware first introduced with the IBM PS/2 line of computers in 1987, but through its widespread adoption has also come to mean either an analog computer display standard, the 15-pin D-subminiature VGA connector or the 640×480 resolution...

and better graphic cards had proprietary built-in GUIs. One of the best known such graphical applications was Deluxe Paint

Deluxe Paint

Deluxe Paint is a bitmap graphics editor series originally created by Dan Silva for Electronic Arts .The original version was created for the Commodore Amiga and was released in November 1985...

, a popular painting software with a typical WIMP interface.

The original Adobe Acrobat Reader

Adobe Acrobat

Adobe Acrobat is a family of application software developed by Adobe Systems to view, create, manipulate, print and manage files in Portable Document Format . All members of the family, except Adobe Reader , are commercial software, while the latter is available as freeware and can be downloaded...

executable file for MS-DOS was able to run on both the standard Windows 3.x GUI and the standard DOS command prompt. When it was launched from the command prompt, on a machine with a VGA

Video Graphics Array

graphics card, it provided its own GUI.

Microsoft Windows (16-bit versions)

Windows 1.0

Windows 1.0 is a 16-bit graphical operating environment, developed by Microsoft and released on 20 November 1985. It was Microsoft's first attempt to implement a multi-tasking graphical user interface-based operating environment on the PC platform. Windows 1.0 was the first version of Windows...

, a GUI for the MS-DOS

MS-DOS

operating system

Operating system

An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...

was released in 1985. The market's response was less than stellar. Windows 2.0

Windows 2.0

Windows 2.0 is a 16-bit Microsoft Windows GUI-based operating environment that was released on December 9, 1987 and is the successor to Windows 1.0. With Windows 2.1x in 1988, Windows 2.0 was supplemented by Windows/286 and Windows/386...

followed, but it wasn't until the 1990 launch of Windows 3.0

Windows 3.0

, based on Common User Access

Common User Access

Common User Access is a standard for user interfaces to operating systems and computer programs. It was developed by IBM and first published in 1987 as part of their Systems Application Architecture...

that its popularity truly exploded. The GUI has seen minor redesigns since, mainly the networking enabled Windows 3.11 and its Win32s

Win32s

Win32s is a 32-bit application runtime environment for the Microsoft Windows 3.1 and 3.11 operating systems. It allowed some 32-bit applications to run on the 16-bit operating system using call thunks.- Concept and Characteristics :...

32-bit patch. The 16-bit

16-bit

line of MS Windows were discontinued with the introduction of Windows 95

Windows 95

Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented graphical user interface-based operating system. It was released on August 24, 1995 by Microsoft, and was a significant progression from the company's previous Windows products...

and Windows NT

Windows NT

Windows NT is a family of operating systems produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released in July 1993. It was a powerful high-level-language-based, processor-independent, multiprocessing, multiuser operating system with features comparable to Unix. It was intended to complement...

32-bit

The range of integer values that can be stored in 32 bits is 0 through 4,294,967,295. Hence, a processor with 32-bit memory addresses can directly access 4 GB of byte-addressable memory....

based architecture in the 1990s. See the next section.

The main window of a given application can occupy the full screen in maximized status. The users must then to switch between maximized applications using the Alt+Tab keyboard shortcut; no alternative with the mouse

Mouse (computing)

In computing, a mouse is a pointing device that functions by detecting two-dimensional motion relative to its supporting surface. Physically, a mouse consists of an object held under one of the user's hands, with one or more buttons...

except for de-maximize. When none of the running application windows is maximized, switching can be done by clicking on a partially visible window, as is the common way in other GUIs.

In 1988, Apple sued Microsoft for copyright infringement of the LISA

Apple Lisa

The Apple Lisa—also known as the Lisa—is a :personal computer designed by Apple Computer, Inc. during the early 1980s....

and Apple Macintosh GUI. The court case lasted 4 years before almost all of Apple's claims were denied on a contractual technicality. Subsequent appeals by Apple were also denied. Microsoft and Apple apparently entered a final, private settlement of the matter in 1997.

GEOS

GEOS (8-bit operating system)

GEOS is an operating system from Berkeley Softworks . Originally designed for the Commodore 64 and released in 1986, it provided a graphical user interface for this popular 8-bit computer.GEOS closely resembled early versions of Mac OS and included a graphical word processor and paint program...

was launched in 1986. Originally written for the 8-bit home computer Commodore 64

Commodore 64

The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982.Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595...

and shortly after, the Apple II

Apple II

series it was later ported to IBM PC systems. It came with several application programs like a calendar and word processor, and a cut-down version served as the basis for America Online's DOS client. Compared to the competing Windows 3.0 GUI it could run reasonably well on simpler hardware. But it was targeted at 8-bit

8-bit

The first widely adopted 8-bit microprocessor was the Intel 8080, being used in many hobbyist computers of the late 1970s and early 1980s, often running the CP/M operating system. The Zilog Z80 and the Motorola 6800 were also used in similar computers...

machines and the 16-bit

16-bit

computer age was dawning.

The X Window System

The standard windowing system in the Unix

Unix

Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...

world is the X Window System

X Window System

The X window system is a computer software system and network protocol that provides a basis for graphical user interfaces and rich input device capability for networked computers...

(commonly X11 or X), first released in the mid-1980s. The W Window System

W Window System

The W window system is a windowing system and precursor in name and concept to the modern X window system.W was originally developed at Stanford University by Paul Asente and Brian Reid for the V operating system...

(1983) was the precursor to X; X was developed at MIT as Project Athena

Project Athena

Project Athena was a joint project of MIT, Digital Equipment Corporation, and IBM to produce a campus-wide distributed computing environment for educational use. It was launched in 1983, and research and development ran until June 30, 1991, eight years after it began...

. Its original purpose was to allow users of the newly emerging graphic terminals to access remote graphics workstation

Workstation

A workstation is a high-end microcomputer designed for technical or scientific applications. Intended primarily to be used by one person at a time, they are commonly connected to a local area network and run multi-user operating systems...

s without regard to the workstation's operating system or the hardware. Due largely to the availability of the source code used to write X, it has become the standard layer for management of graphical and input/output devices and for the building of both local and remote graphical interfaces on virtually all Unix, Linux

Linux

Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...

and other Unix-like

Unix-like

A Unix-like operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, while not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification....

operating systems, with the notable exception of Mac OS X.

X allows a graphical terminal user to make use of remote resources on the network as if they were all located locally to the user by running a single module of software called the X server. The software running on the remote machine is called the client application. X's network transparency protocols allow the display and input portions of any application to be separated from the remainder of the application and 'served up' to any of a large number of remote users. X is available today as free software.

NeWS

The PostScript

PostScript

PostScript is a dynamically typed concatenative programming language created by John Warnock and Charles Geschke in 1982. It is best known for its use as a page description language in the electronic and desktop publishing areas. Adobe PostScript 3 is also the worldwide printing and imaging...

-based NeWS

NeWS

NeWS was a windowing system developed by Sun Microsystems in the mid 1980s. Originally known as "SunDew", its primary authors were James Gosling and David S. H. Rosenthal...

(Network extensible Window System) was developed by Sun Microsystems

Sun Microsystems

Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...

in the mid-1980s. For several years SunOS

SunOS

SunOS is a version of the Unix operating system developed by Sun Microsystems for their workstation and server computer systems. The SunOS name is usually only used to refer to versions 1.0 to 4.1.4 of SunOS...

included a window system combining NeWS and the X Window System

X Window System

The X window system is a computer software system and network protocol that provides a basis for graphical user interfaces and rich input device capability for networked computers...

. Although NeWS was considered technically elegant by some commentators, Sun eventually dropped the product. Unlike X, NeWS was always proprietary software

Proprietary software

Proprietary software is computer software licensed under exclusive legal right of the copyright holder. The licensee is given the right to use the software under certain conditions, while restricted from other uses, such as modification, further distribution, or reverse engineering.Complementary...

The 1990s: Mainstream usage of the desktop

The widespread adoption of the PC platform at homes and small business popularized computers among people with no formal training. This created a fast growing market, opening an opportunity for commercial exploitation and of easy-to-use interfaces and making economically viable the incremental refinement of the existing GUIs for home systems.

Also, the spreading of Highcolor and Truecolor capabilities of display adapters providing thousands and millions of colors, along with faster CPUs and accelerated graphic cards, cheaper RAM

Ram

-Animals:*Ram, an uncastrated male sheep*Ram cichlid, a species of freshwater fish endemic to Colombia and Venezuela-Military:*Battering ram*Ramming, a military tactic in which one vehicle runs into another...

, storage devices up to an order of magnitude larger (from megabyte

Megabyte

The megabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage or transmission with two different values depending on context: bytes generally for computer memory; and one million bytes generally for computer storage. The IEEE Standards Board has decided that "Mega will mean 1 000...

s to gigabyte

Gigabyte

The gigabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage. The prefix giga means 109 in the International System of Units , therefore 1 gigabyte is...

s) and larger bandwidth

Bandwidth (computing)

In computer networking and computer science, bandwidth, network bandwidth, data bandwidth, or digital bandwidth is a measure of available or consumed data communication resources expressed in bits/second or multiples of it .Note that in textbooks on wireless communications, modem data transmission,...

for telecom networking at lower cost helped to create an environment in which the common user was able to run complicated GUIs which began to favor aesthetics.

Windows 95 and "a computer in every home" (the 32-bit versions)

Main article: Windows 95

Windows 95

. See also Windows NT

Windows NT

After Windows 3.11, Microsoft began to develop a new consumer-oriented version of the operating system. Windows 95 was intended to integrate Microsoft's formerly separate MS-DOS and Windows products and includes an enhanced version of DOS, often referred to as MS-DOS 7.0, although many people believe that Windows 95's MS-DOS was not really DOS at all. It also featured a significant redesign of the GUI, dubbed "Cairo". While Cairo never really materialized, parts of Cairo found their way into subsequent versions of the operating system starting with Windows 95. Both Win95 and WinNT could run 32-bit applications, and could exploit the abilities of the Intel 80386

Intel 80386

The Intel 80386, also known as the i386, or just 386, was a 32-bit microprocessor introduced by Intel in 1985. The first versions had 275,000 transistors and were used as the central processing unit of many workstations and high-end personal computers of the time...

CPU, as the preemptive

Preemption (computing)

In computing, preemption is the act of temporarily interrupting a task being carried out by a computer system, without requiring its cooperation, and with the intention of resuming the task at a later time. Such a change is known as a context switch...

multitasking

Computer multitasking

In computing, multitasking is a method where multiple tasks, also known as processes, share common processing resources such as a CPU. In the case of a computer with a single CPU, only one task is said to be running at any point in time, meaning that the CPU is actively executing instructions for...

and up to 4GiB of linear address memory space

Flat memory model

Flat memory model or linear memory model refers to a memory addressing paradigm in low-level software design such that the CPU can directly address all of the available memory locations without having to resort to any sort of memory segmentation or paging schemes.Memory management and...

. Windows 95 was touted as a 32-bit based operating system but it was actually based on a hybrid kernel (VWIN32.VXD) with the 16-bit user interface (USER.EXE) and graphic device interface (GDI.EXE) of Windows for Workgroups (3.11), which had 16-bit kernel components with a 32-bit subsystem (USER32.DLL and GDI32.DLL) that allowed it to run native 16 bit applications as well as 32-bit applications. In the marketplace, Windows 95 was an unqualified success, promoting a general upgrade to 32-bit technology, and within a year or two of its release had become the most successful operating system ever produced.

Windows 95 saw the beginning of the Browser wars

Browser wars

Browser wars is a metaphorical term that refers to competitions for dominance in usage share in the web browser marketplace. The term is often used to denote two specific rivalries: the competition that saw Microsoft's Internet Explorer replace Netscape's Navigator as the dominant browser during...

when the World Wide Web began receiving a great deal of attention in the popular culture and mass media. Microsoft at first did not see potential in the Web and Windows 95 was shipped with Microsoft's own online service called The Microsoft Network, which was dial-up only and was used primarily for its own content, not internet access. As versions of Netscape Navigator

Netscape Navigator

Netscape Navigator was a proprietary web browser that was popular in the 1990s. It was the flagship product of the Netscape Communications Corporation and the dominant web browser in terms of usage share, although by 2002 its usage had almost disappeared...

and Internet Explorer

Internet Explorer

Windows Internet Explorer is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft and included as part of the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, starting in 1995. It was first released as part of the add-on package Plus! for Windows 95 that year...

were released at a rapid pace over the following few years, Microsoft used its desktop dominance to push its browser and shape the ecology of the web mainly as a monoculture.

Windows 95 evolved through the years into Windows 98

Windows 98

Windows 98 is a graphical operating system by Microsoft. It is the second major release in the Windows 9x line of operating systems. It was released to manufacturing on 15 May 1998 and to retail on 25 June 1998. Windows 98 is the successor to Windows 95. Like its predecessor, it is a hybrid...

and Windows ME

Windows Me

Windows Millennium Edition, or Windows Me , is a graphical operating system released on September 14, 2000 by Microsoft, and was the last operating system released in the Windows 9x series. Support for Windows Me ended on July 11, 2006....

. Windows ME was the last in the line of the Windows 3.x based operating systems from Microsoft. Windows underwent a parallel 32-bit evolutionary path, where Windows NT 3.1 was released in 1993. Windows NT (for New Technology) was a native 32-bit operating system with a new driver model, was unicode-based, and provided for true separation between applications. Windows NT also supported 16-bit applications in an NTVDM, but it did not support VXD based drivers. Windows 95 was supposed to be released before 1993 as the predecessor to Windows NT. The idea was to promote the development of 32-bit applications with backward compatibility - leading the way for more successful NT release. After multiple delays, Windows 95 was released without unicode and used the VXD driver model. Windows NT 3.1 evolved to Windows NT 4, then Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, then Windows 7. Windows XP and higher were also made available in 64-bit modes. Windows server products branched off with the introduction of Windows Server 2003 (available in 32-bit and 64-bit IA64 or x64), then Windows Server 2008 and then Windows Server 2008 R2. Windows 2000 and XP shared the same basic GUI although XP introduced Visual Styles. With Windows 98, the Active Desktop

Active Desktop

Active Desktop was a feature of Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0's optional Windows Desktop Update that allows the user to add HTML content to the desktop, along with some other features. This function was intended to be installed on the then-current Windows 95 operating system...

theme was introduced, allowing a HTML

HTML

HyperText Markup Language is the predominant markup language for web pages. HTML elements are the basic building-blocks of webpages....

approach for the desktop, but this feature was coldly received by customers, who frequently disabled it. At the end, Windows Vista definitively discontinued it, but has a new SideBar

Sidebar

Sidebar may refer to:* Sidebar * Sidebar * Sidebar , a type of graphical user interface element** Windows Sidebar, in Windows Vista...

on the desktop.

Mac OS

The Macintosh's GUI has been infrequently revised since 1984, with major updates including System 7

System 7 (Macintosh)

System 7 is a single-user graphical user interface-based operating system for Macintosh computers. It was introduced on May 13, 1991 by Apple Computer. It succeeded System 6, and was the main Macintosh operating system until it was succeeded by Mac OS 8 in 1997...

, and underwent its largest revision with the introduction of the "Aqua

Aqua (user interface)

Aqua is the GUI and primary visual theme of Apple Inc.'s Mac OS X operating system. It is based around the theme of water, as its name suggests, with droplet-like elements and liberal use of translucency and reflection effects...

" interface in 2001's Mac OS X

Mac OS X

Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...

. It was a new operating system built primarily on technology from NeXTStep

NEXTSTEP

NeXTSTEP was the object-oriented, multitasking operating system developed by NeXT Computer to run on its range of proprietary workstation computers, such as the NeXTcube...

with UI elements of the original Mac OS grafted on. Mac OS X uses a technology called Quartz

Quartz (graphics layer)

Quartz specifically refers to a pair of Mac OS X technologies, each part of the Core Graphics framework: Quartz 2D and Quartz Compositor. It includes both a 2D renderer in Core Graphics and the composition engine that sends instructions to the graphics card...

for graphics rendering and drawing on-screen. Some interface features of Mac OS X are inherited from NeXTStep (such as the Dock

Dock (computing)

The Dock is a prominent feature of the graphical user interface of the Mac OS X operating system. It is used to launch applications and switch between running applications...

, the automatic wait cursor, or double-buffered windows giving a solid appearance and flicker-free window redraws), while others are inherited from the old Mac OS operating system (the single system-wide menu-bar). Mac OS X v10.3

Mac OS X v10.3

Mac OS X Panther is the fourth major release of Mac OS X, Apple’s desktop and server operating system. It followed Mac OS X v10.2 "Jaguar" and preceded Mac OS X Tiger...

introduced features to improve usability including Exposé

Exposé (Mac OS X)

Exposé is a feature of the Mac OS X operating system. First previewed on 23 June 2003 at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference as a feature of the then forthcoming Mac OS X v10.3, Exposé allows a user to quickly locate an open window, or to hide all windows and show the desktop without the need...

which is designed to make finding open windows easier.

With Mac OS X v10.4

Mac OS X v10.4

Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger is the fifth major release of Mac OS X, Apple's desktop and server operating system for Macintosh computers. Tiger was released to the public on 29 April 2005 for US$129.95 as the successor to Mac OS X Panther , which had been released 18 months earlier...

, new features were added, including Dashboard (a virtual alternate desktop for mini specific-purpose applications) and a search tool called Spotlight

Spotlight (software)

Spotlight is a system-wide desktop search feature of Apple's Mac OS X operating system. Spotlight is a selection-based search system, which creates a virtual index of all items and files on the system. It is designed to allow the user to quickly locate a wide variety of items on the computer,...

, which provides users with an option for searching through files instead of browsing through folders.

GUIs built on the X Window System

In the early days of X Window development, Sun Microsystems and AT&T attempted to push for a GUI standard called OPEN LOOK

OPEN LOOK

OPEN LOOK is a graphical user interface specification for UNIX workstations. It was originally defined in the late 1980s by Sun Microsystems and AT&T.-History:...

in competition with Motif

Motif (widget toolkit)

In computing, Motif refers to both a graphical user interface specification and the widget toolkit for building applications that follow that specification under the X Window System on Unix and other POSIX-compliant systems. It emerged in the 1980s as Unix workstations were on the rise, as a...

. OPEN LOOK was a well-designed standard developed from scratch in conjunction with Xerox

Xerox

Xerox Corporation is an American multinational document management corporation that produced and sells a range of color and black-and-white printers, multifunction systems, photo copiers, digital production printing presses, and related consulting services and supplies...

, while Motif was a collective effort that fell into place, with a look and feel patterned after Windows 3.11. Many who worked on OPEN LOOK at the time appreciated its design coherence. Motif prevailed in the UNIX GUI battles and became the basis for the Common Desktop Environment

Common Desktop Environment

The Common Desktop Environment is a desktop environment for Unix and OpenVMS, based on the Motif widget toolkit.- Corporate history :...

(CDE). CDE was based on VUE

VUE

In computing, Visual User Environment was Hewlett-Packard's Desktop environment for the X Window System. It was a rival and precursor to the Open Group's CDE. Work began on VUE in 1988 at Apollo Computer for use with Domain/OS, as an alternative to Apollo's standard DM and wmgr...

(Visual User Environment), a proprietary desktop from Hewlett-Packard

Hewlett-Packard

Hewlett-Packard Company or HP is an American multinational information technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, USA that provides products, technologies, softwares, solutions and services to consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses and large enterprises, including...

that in turn was based on the Motif look and feel.

In the late 1990s, there was significant growth in the Unix world, especially among the free software community

Free software community

The free-software community is an informal term that refers to the users and developers of free software as well as supporters of the free-software movement. The movement is sometimes referred to as the open-source software community or a subset thereof...

. New graphical desktop movements grew up around Linux and similar operating systems, based on the X Window System. A new emphasis on providing an integrated and uniform interface to the user brought about new desktop environments, such as KDE Plasma Desktop, GNOME

GNOME

GNOME is a desktop environment and graphical user interface that runs on top of a computer operating system. It is composed entirely of free and open source software...

and XFCE

Xfce

Xfce is a free software desktop environment for Unix and other Unix-like platforms, such as Linux, Solaris, and BSD – though recent compatibility issues have arisen with regard to BSD Unix platforms...

which are supplanting CDE in popularity on both Unix and Unix-like operating systems. The XFCE, KDE and GNOME look and feel each tend to undergo more rapid change and less codification than the earlier OPEN LOOK and Motif environments.

In the latter part of the first decade of the 21st century X Window GUIs such as Compiz Fusion and KWin

KWin

KWin is a window manager for the X Window System. It is an integral part of the KDE Software Compilation, although it can be used on its own or with other desktop environments.- History :- Look and feel :...

began to incorporate translucency and drop shadow

Drop shadow

In computer graphics, a drop shadow is a visual effect consisting of drawing that looks like the shadow of an object, giving the impression that the object is raised above the objects behind it. The drop shadow is often used for elements of a graphical user interface such as windows or menus, and...

effects.

Amiga

Later releases added improvements over the original Workbench, like support for high-color Workbench screens, context menus, and embossed 2D icons with pseudo-3D aspect. Some Amiga users preferred alternative interfaces to standard Workbench, such as Directory Opus Magellan

Directory Opus

Directory Opus is a popular file manager program, originally written for the Amiga computer system in the early to mid 1990s...

.

The use of improved, third-party GUI engines became common amongst users who preferred more attractive interfaces – such as Magic User Interface

Magic User Interface

The Magic User Interface is an object-oriented system by Stefan Stuntz to generate and maintain graphical user interfaces. With the aid of a preferences program, the user of an application has the ability to customize the outfit according to personal taste....

(MUI), and ReAction

ReAction GUI

ReAction GUI it is the name of the widget toolkit engine that is used in AmigaOS 3.5-4.1.It is an evolution of ClassACT, which is an object oriented system of classes that enhanced the aspect of the Workbench 2.0 GUI of AmigaOS.- History :...

. These object-oriented graphic engines driven by user interface classes and methods were then standardized into the Amiga environment and changed Amiga Workbench to a complete and modern guided interface, with new standard gadgets, animated buttons, true 24-bit-color icons, increased use of wallpapers for screens and windows, alpha channel, transparencies and shadows as any modern GUI requires.

Modern derivatives of Workbench are Ambient

Ambient desktop

Ambient is a MUI-based desktop environment for MorphOS. Its development was started in 2001 by David Gerber. Its main goals were that it should be simple and fast...

for MorphOS

MorphOS

MorphOS is an Amiga-compatible computer operating system. It is a mixed proprietary and open source OS produced for the Pegasos PowerPC processor based computer, PowerUP accelerator equipped Amiga computers, and a series of Freescale development boards that use the Genesi firmware, including the...

, Scalos, Workbench for AmigaOS 4

AmigaOS 4

AmigaOS 4, , is a line of Amiga operating systems which runs on PowerPC microprocessors. It is mainly based on AmigaOS 3.1 source code, and partially on version 3.9 developed by Haage & Partner...

and Wanderer

Zune (GUI toolkit)

Zune is an object-oriented GUI toolkit which is part of the AROS project and nearly a clone, at both an API and look and feel level, of Magic User Interface , a well-known Amiga shareware product by Stefan Stuntz....

for AROS

Aros

Aros may refer to:*Aros , a river in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium*AROS Research Operating System, a free software implementation of AmigaOS* Aros, the original Viking name of Aarhus, the second largest city in Denmark...

.
There is a brief article on Ambient and descriptions of MUI icons, menus and gadgets at aps.fr and images of Zune

Zune (GUI toolkit)

stay at main AROS site.

Use of object oriented graphic engines dramatically changes the look and feel of a GUI to match actual styleguides.

RISC OS

Early versions of what came to be called RISC OS

RISC OS

RISC OS is a computer operating system originally developed by Acorn Computers Ltd in Cambridge, England for their range of desktop computers, based on their own ARM architecture. First released in 1987, under the name Arthur, the subsequent iteration was renamed as in 1988...

were known as Arthur, which was released in 1987 by Acorn Computers. RISC OS was a colour GUI operating system which used three-button mice, a taskbar (called the icon bar

Icon bar

In computing, the icon bar is the name of the dock in Acorn's RISC OS operating system, and is fundamental to the OS. Its introduction in 1987 was a new concept in GUIs...

), and a file navigator similar to that of Mac OS. Acorn created RISC OS in the 1980s for their ARM

ARM architecture

ARM is a 32-bit reduced instruction set computer instruction set architecture developed by ARM Holdings. It was named the Advanced RISC Machine, and before that, the Acorn RISC Machine. The ARM architecture is the most widely used 32-bit ISA in numbers produced...

-CPU

Central processing unit

The central processing unit is the portion of a computer system that carries out the instructions of a computer program, to perform the basic arithmetical, logical, and input/output operations of the system. The CPU plays a role somewhat analogous to the brain in the computer. The term has been in...

based computers.

The GUI of RISC OS has developed over versions of RISC OS from 1987 to the present day with versions 5 and 6 having a great ability to customise the interface.

OS/2

Originally collaboratively developed by Microsoft and IBM to replace DOS, OS/2

OS/2

OS/2 is a computer operating system, initially created by Microsoft and IBM, then later developed by IBM exclusively. The name stands for "Operating System/2," because it was introduced as part of the same generation change release as IBM's "Personal System/2 " line of second-generation personal...

version 1.0 (released in 1987) had no GUI at all. Version 1.1 (released 1988) included Presentation Manager (PM), which looked a lot like the later Windows 3.0 UI. After the split with Microsoft, IBM developed the Workplace Shell

Workplace Shell

The Workplace Shell is a object-oriented desktop shell produced by IBM's Boca Raton development lab for OS/2 2.0. It is based on Common User Access and made a radical shift away from the Program Manager type interface that earlier versions of OS/2 shared with Windows 3.x or the...

(WPS) for version 2.0 (released in 1992), a quite radical, object-oriented approach to GUIs. Microsoft later imitated much of this in Windows 95.

NeXTSTEP

The NeXTSTEP

NEXTSTEP

NeXTSTEP was the object-oriented, multitasking operating system developed by NeXT Computer to run on its range of proprietary workstation computers, such as the NeXTcube...

user interface was used in the NeXT

Next, Inc. was an American computer company headquartered in Redwood City, California, that developed and manufactured a series of computer workstations intended for the higher education and business markets...

line of computers. NeXTSTEP's first major version was released in 1989. It used Display PostScript

Display PostScript

Display PostScript is an on-screen display system. As the name implies, DPS uses the PostScript imaging model and language to generate on-screen graphics...

for its graphical underpinning. The NeXTSTEP interface's most significant feature was the Dock

Dock (computing)

The Dock is a prominent feature of the graphical user interface of the Mac OS X operating system. It is used to launch applications and switch between running applications...

, carried with some modification into Mac OS X

Mac OS X

Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...

, and had other minor interface details that some found made it easier and more intuitive to use than previous GUIs. NeXTSTEP's GUI was the first to feature opaque dragging of windows in its user interface, on a comparatively weak machine by today's standards, ideally aided by high performance graphics hardware.

BeOS

BeOS is an operating system for personal computers which began development by Be Inc. in 1991. It was first written to run on BeBox hardware. BeOS was optimized for digital media work and was written to take advantage of modern hardware facilities such as symmetric multiprocessing by utilizing...

was developed on custom AT&T Hobbit

AT&T Hobbit

The Hobbit is a microprocessor design of the early 1990s from AT&T. It developed from the company's CRISP design that was in turn developed from the C Machine experimental efforts in the late 1980s at Bell Labs. C Machine, CRISP and Hobbit were optimized for running the C programming language...

-based computers before switching to PowerPC

PowerPC

PowerPC is a RISC architecture created by the 1991 Apple–IBM–Motorola alliance, known as AIM...

hardware by a team led by former Apple executive Jean-Louis Gassée

Jean-Louis Gassée

Jean-Louis Gassée is a former executive at Apple Computer, where he worked from 1981 to 1990. He is most famous for founding Be Inc., creators of the BeOS computer operating system. After leaving Be, he became Chairman of PalmSource, Inc. in November, 2004.-1980s: Apple Computer:Gassée worked for...

as an alternative to Mac OS. BeOS was later ported to Intel hardware. It used an object-oriented kernel written by Be, and did not use the X Window System

X Window System

The X window system is a computer software system and network protocol that provides a basis for graphical user interfaces and rich input device capability for networked computers...

, but a different GUI

Gui

Gui or guee is a generic term to refer to grilled dishes in Korean cuisine. These most commonly have meat or fish as their primary ingredient, but may in some cases also comprise grilled vegetables or other vegetarian ingredients. The term derives from the verb, "gupda" in Korean, which literally...

written from scratch. Much effort was spent by the developers to make it an efficient platform for multimedia applications. Be Inc. was acquired by PalmSource, Inc. (Palm Inc. at the time) in 2001. The BeOS GUI still lives in Haiku

Haiku (operating system)

Haiku is a free and open source operating system compatible with BeOS. Its development began in 2001, and the operating system became self-hosting in 2008, with the first alpha release in September 2009, the second in May 2010 and the third in June 2011....

, an open source software reimplementation of the BeOS.

3D user interface

As of 2009, a recent trend in desktop technology is the inclusion of 3D effects in window management. It's based in experimental research in User Interface Design

User interface design

User interface design or user interface engineering is the design of computers, appliances, machines, mobile communication devices, software applications, and websites with the focus on the user's experience and interaction...

trying to expand the expressive power of the existing toolkits in order to enhance the physical cues that allow for direct manipulation. New effects common to several projects are scale resizing and zooming, several windows transformations and animations (wobbly windows, smooth minimization to system tray...), composition of images (used for window drop shadows and transparency) and enhancing the global organization of open windows (zooming

Zooming User Interface

In computing, a zooming user interface or zoomable user interface is a graphical environment where users can change the scale of the viewed area in order to see more detail or less, and browse through different documents. A ZUI is a type of graphical user interface...

to virtual desktop

Virtual desktop

In computing, a virtual desktop is a term used with respect to user interfaces, usually within the WIMP paradigm, to describe ways in which the size of a computer's desktop environment is expanded beyond the physical limits of the screen's real estate through the use of software, This saves space...

s, desktop cube

Compiz

Compiz is one of the first compositing window managers for the X Window System that uses 3D graphics hardware to create fast compositing desktop effects for window management. The effects, such as a minimization effect and a cube workspace are implemented as loadable plugins...

, Exposé

Exposé (Mac OS X)

, etc.) The proof-of-concept BumpTop

BumpTop

In computing, BumpTop is a desktop environment that simulates the normal behavior and physical properties of a real world desk, and enhances it with automatic tools to organize its contents. It is aimed at stylus interaction, making it more suitable for tablet computers and handheld PCs. It was...

desktop combines a physical representation of documents with tools for document classification possible only in the simulated environment, like instant reordering and automated grouping of related documents.

These effects are popularized thanks to the widespread use of 3D video cards (mainly due to gaming) which allow for complex visual processing with low CPU use, using the 3D acceleration in most modern graphics cards to render the application clients in a 3D scene. The application window is drawn off-screen in a pixel buffer and the graphics card renders it into the 3D scene.

This can have the advantage of moving some of the window rendering to the GPU on the graphics card and thus reducing the load on the main CPU, but the facilities that allow this must be available on the graphics card to be able to take advantage of this.

Examples of 3D user interface software include XGL

Xgl

Xgl was an X server architecture designed to take advantage of modern graphics cards via their OpenGL drivers, layered on top of OpenGL via glitz. It supported hardware acceleration of all X, OpenGL and XVideo applications and graphical effects by a compositing window manager such as Compiz or...

and Compiz

Compiz

from Novell

Novell

Novell, Inc. is a multinational software and services company. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Attachmate Group. It specializes in network operating systems, such as Novell NetWare; systems management solutions, such as Novell ZENworks; and collaboration solutions, such as Novell Groupwise...

, and AIGLX

AIGLX

Accelerated Indirect GLX is an open source project founded by Red Hat and the Fedora community, led by Kristian Høgsberg, to allow accelerated indirect GLX rendering capabilities to the X.Org Server and DRI drivers...

bundled with Red Hat

Red Hat

Red Hat, Inc. is an S&P 500 company in the free and open source software sector, and a major Linux distribution vendor. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina with satellite offices worldwide....

Fedora

Fedora (operating system)

Fedora is a RPM-based, general purpose collection of software, including an operating system based on the Linux kernel, developed by the community-supported Fedora Project and sponsored by Red Hat...

. Quartz Extreme for Mac OS X

Mac OS X

Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...

and Windows 7 and Vista

Windows Vista

Windows Vista is an operating system released in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs...

's Aero

Windows Aero

Windows Aero is the graphical user interface and the default theme in most editions of Windows Vista and Windows 7, operating systems released by Microsoft. It is also available in Windows Server 2008, but is not enabled by default. Its name is a backronym for Authentic, Energetic, Reflective and...

interface use 3D rendering for shading

Shading

Shading refers to depicting depth perception in 3D models or illustrations by varying levels of darkness.-Drawing:Shading is a process used in drawing for depicting levels of darkness on paper by applying media more densely or with a darker shade for darker areas, and less densely or with a lighter...

and transparency effects as well as Expose

Exposé (Mac OS X)

and Windows Flip and Flip 3D, respectively. AmigaOS 4.1 uses Cairo

Cairo (graphics)

cairo is a software library used to provide a vector graphics-based, device-independent API for software developers. It is designed to provide primitives for 2-dimensional drawing across a number of different backends...

2D vector based interface integrated with 3D hardware accelerated Porter-Duff

Alpha compositing

In computer graphics, alpha compositing is the process of combining an image with a background to create the appearance of partial or full transparency. It is often useful to render image elements in separate passes, and then combine the resulting multiple 2D images into a single, final image in a...

image composition engine, while its counterpart clone MorphOS 2.0 features Ambient

Ambient desktop

Ambient is a MUI-based desktop environment for MorphOS. Its development was started in 2001 by David Gerber. Its main goals were that it should be simple and fast...

, a complete 3D GUI based on a subset of OpenGL

OpenGL

OpenGL is a standard specification defining a cross-language, cross-platform API for writing applications that produce 2D and 3D computer graphics. The interface consists of over 250 different function calls which can be used to draw complex three-dimensional scenes from simple primitives. OpenGL...

. Vista uses Direct3D

Direct3D

Direct3D is part of Microsoft's DirectX application programming interface . Direct3D is available for Microsoft Windows operating systems , and for other platforms through the open source software Wine. It is the base for the graphics API on the Xbox and Xbox 360 console systems...

to accomplish this, whereas the other interfaces use OpenGL

OpenGL

Portable devices

Portable devices such as MP3 players and cell phones are a burgeoning area of deployment for GUIs in recent years. Since the mid-2000s, a vast majority of portable devices have advanced to having high screen resolutions and sizes (The iPhone

IPhone

The iPhone is a line of Internet and multimedia-enabled smartphones marketed by Apple Inc. The first iPhone was unveiled by Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple, on January 9, 2007, and released on June 29, 2007...

's 640x960 display for example). Because of this, these devices have their own famed user interfaces and operating system

Operating system

s that have large homebrew

Homebrew (video games)

Homebrew is a term frequently applied to video games or other software produced by consumers to target proprietary hardware platforms not typically user-programmable or that use proprietary storage methods...

communities dedicated to creating their own visual elements, such as Icons, Menus, Wallpapers, and more. Post-WIMP

Post-WIMP

In computing post-WIMP comprises work on user interfaces, mostly graphical user interfaces, which attempt to go beyond the paradigm of windows, icons, menus and a pointing device, i.e. WIMP interfaces....

interfaces are often used in these mobile devices where the traditional pointing devices required by the desktop metaphor are not practical.

External links

http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/gui.arsJeremy Reimer. "A History of the GUI" Ars Technica
Ars Technica
Ars Technica is a technology news and information website created by Ken Fisher and Jon Stokes in 1998. It publishes news, reviews and guides on issues such as computer hardware and software, science, technology policy, and video games. Ars Technica is known for its features, long articles that go...

. May 5, 2005.]
"User Interface Timeline" George Mason University
Nathan Lineback. "The Graphical User Interface Gallery". Nathan's Toasty Technology Page.
Oral history interview with Marvin L. Minsky, Charles Babbage Institute
Charles Babbage Institute
The Charles Babbage Institute is a research center at the University of Minnesota specializing in the history of information technology, particularly the history since 1935 of digital computing, programming/software, and computer networking....

, University of Minnesota. Minsky describes artificial intelligence (AI) research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), including research in the areas of graphics, word processing, and time-sharing.
Oral history interview with Ivan Sutherland, Charles Babbage Institute
Charles Babbage Institute
The Charles Babbage Institute is a research center at the University of Minnesota specializing in the history of information technology, particularly the history since 1935 of digital computing, programming/software, and computer networking....

, University of Minnesota. Sutherland describes his tenure as head of ARPA's Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO) from 1963 to 1965, including new projects in graphics and networking.
Oral history interview with Charles A. Csuri, Charles Babbage Institute
Charles Babbage Institute
The Charles Babbage Institute is a research center at the University of Minnesota specializing in the history of information technology, particularly the history since 1935 of digital computing, programming/software, and computer networking....

, University of Minnesota. Csuri recounts his art education and explains his transition to computer graphics in the mid 1960s, after receiving a National Science Foundation grant for research in graphics.
GUIdebook: Graphical User Interface gallery
VisiOn history – The first GUI for the PC
mprove: Historical Overview of Graphical User Interfaces
Anecdotes about the development of the Macintosh Hardware & GUI

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