Xerox PARC Alto (1972)
Accession Number: 1740.1999
Gift of Cliff Purkiser

In 1972 Xerox began work on the Alto desktop computer which prototyped the graphical user interface in common use today. The Alto was based on a special monitor that could display an 8½ x 11 sheet of electronic "paper." Unlike terminals of the day, it used proportionally-spaced characters that looked like they had been typeset. The Alto had a mouse (invented earlier by Doug Engelbart at SRI in 1965), and the now-familiar desktop environment of icons, folders, and documents. In today's terms, it was like a Mac or Windows-based PC, but in 1975, before there were any personal computers, and on a machine with only 128K bytes of memory. As part of that project PARC researchers also invented Ethernet networking to connect Altos together building a distributed system that shared information and resources such as printers. There were 150 Altos at PARC, making it the most advanced personal computer lab in the world at the time.

In 1981, Xerox commercialized successors to the Alto as the "Star 8010 workstation" but the machine failed, largely due to a high purchase price.