“... the luminous Alto display, covered with images and graphical fonts, was a revelation."
John Markoff, New York Times (April 3,2003)
There are many contenders for the title of first ever "personal computer." However, it was Xerox PARC in 1973 that was responsible for creating perhaps the most innovative design in computer history—a personal computer as we would recognize it today. The Alto, named after the Californian Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) where it was created, was made up of a cabinet (containing a 16-bit custom-made processor and disk storage), a monitor, a keyboard, a mouse, and even the first what-you-see-is-what-you-get graphical user interface featuring windows and clickable icons.
The Alto was designed primarily for research and had to be compact enough to fit in an office, but powerful enough to support a user interface while being able to share information between machines. This led it to feature groundbreaking innovations that would not be common until a decade later and would still be cutting edge in the 1990s. These included an object-oriented operating system and the first Ethernet networking cards. It also came with that most essential of research tools, a pinball game. Xerox donated its Alto machines to various research institutions, and they quickly became the bar by which all future personal computer design would be judged. The Alto is also believed to have inspired others, including Apple's cofounder Steve Jobs and his team who were impressed with the Alto's sharp graphics and user interface. The team who produced the Xerox Alto was honored with the prestigious Draper engineering prize in 2004 as the catalyst of a "golden age" of computer research.
