Graphical User Interfaces

Xerox pioneered the modern GUI at their PARC laboratories during the 1970s. The Star 8010 was the first commercial product, but at more than $16,000 each, it was unsuccessful.

The Apple Lisa was released in 1983, followed by the Macintosh in 1984. Based on the Motorola 68000 CPU, these systems were unable to run either prior Apple or IBM applications.

Microsoft Windows first appeared in 1985; designed to run on the Intel 8088, however, it was slow and unappealing.

The Intel ‘386 supported virtual memory (the Motorola 68000 did not), thus allowing applications to utilize disk storage as if it were more expensive RAM. Microsoft had positioned Excel against Lotus 1-2-3, but wasn’t making much headway. Even though its graphical capabilities were attractive, Excel couldn’t build large spreadsheets until an engineer at Microsoft figured out how to use the virtual memory capability of the ‘386. This triggered the development of version 3.0 of Microsoft Windows—the first commercially successful version.

Microsoft Windows 3.0, which was introduced in May 1990, was "good enough" to get large numbers of people and large corporate audiences to sign up. Microsoft Windows allowed users to continue to use their DOS applications while they migrated to the Windows GUI. This migration path was essential to its success, but so was the power of the GUI.

Graphical User Interfaces improve personal productivity and proficiency, leading to faster and better results.

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