Although computers were in use long before the 1970s, they were incredibly difficult to operate. Early computers had barely enough processing power to Solve the problems they were given. Further, nobody had taken time to look into how the computers were given the problems: their user interface.
The first big inroads were made at Xerox's legendary Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). PARC's "Alto" computers drew on earlier innovations like Doug Engelbart's computer mouse of 1968. The Alto was the very first computer where a click with a mouse on a file would open it. It also had the earliest "what you see is what you get" word processor, showing documents on its screen just as they would look if printed out.
Adding menus and icons to allow the user to make choices easily, and putting programs in different windows on the screen, PARC developed the first graphical user interface. Suddenly, people with only minimal training could write out a letter, click a mouse button, and have it printed out on PARC's laser printer.
Xerox developed their user interface throughout the 1970s, and in 1979 PARC gave a demonstration of their ideas to a group of engineers from a small company called Apple Computer. Apple had been working on similar concepts for their top-secret "Lisa" computer, and they were amazed by what they saw. Apple cofounder Steve Jobs left PARC buzzing with enthusiasm. Apple integrated Xerox's user interface ideas with their own, extending them and developing a new way of working with computers. In 1984 they launched the first successful personal computer with a graphical user interface: the Apple Macintosh.
