Xerox Alto for sale on eBay | Hacker News Reader

Xerox Alto for sale on eBay

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96 pointsrbanffy30 comments

In case people don't actually realise how historically significant these computers were, Xerox PARC invented most of the common UI abstractions that we take for granted today: http://www.digibarn.com/collections/software/alto/index.html

(Although it looks like the common "desktop layout" screenshots that I'd always associated with the Alto are actually the SmallTalk environment running on the Alto.)

It's an odd sensation to see those desktop screenshots - driven by decades-old software, yet totally familiar...

The hardware may be long obsolete, but Smalltalk is thriving! Pharo Smalltalk and the Seaside framework are at the cutting edge of web development.

Yep, the Smalltalk machines (and the Lisp machines as well, in some ways) are perfect examples of three things:

0. It is perfectly possible to be 20 or 30 years too early

1. Some corporations just suck at understanding the value of what they already own

2. Price matters

If anyone wants to learn more, there's a fantastic book about Xerox PARC called "Dealers of Lightning" by Michael Hiltzik. http://www.amazon.com/Dealers-Lightning-Xerox-PARC-Computer/...

We had some of these at the National Bureau of Standards, where I interned. Someone had to give up an office, for the laser printer.

There were some games on the disks we got from PARC, among them a BreakOut clone written in SmallTalk. You could break into the SM interpreter, get a listener, and start hacking away. I think the BYTE issue on Smalltalk had just come out; we were Very Happy until the Altos went away.

I still have my RK05 disk pack. Nothing to mount it on now except a wall. :-/

I had a working Xerox 860 in my parents attic when I was in high school. The one with the weird round touchpad on the keyboard.

The school I went to got it as a donation and didn't know what to do with it so I adopted it.

I finally got rid of it when multiple 'experts' that I knew convinced me that it was completely worthless. For a long time, its giant wheeled case housed my dual pentium pro motherboard that was too big to fit into a standard ATX case.

Regrets.

I remember using the Altos at PARC during a visit in '73 or so, then using the MIT-LCS pool (actually not that busy) during the late '70s.

The Lisp Machines we had in the EECS computing pool (which I was managing along with our own DECsystem-20) were much cooler even then so the Altos never caught my fancy... :-)

(Edit: expanded slightly.)

I'd pay just to see it booting. Some university should take this...

They could transcribe it to VHDL so it could be burned to an FPGA.

I would love a desktop Alto to play with.

Is the circuit available?

[edit]

Oh, "they". I read "we" :)

I think it's not, but having a working specimen would certainly help making it available.

I would love to boot a software Alto emulator. (With its OS, Smalltalk environment, etc.)

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1803001

Maybe this helps.

If there isn't already one in a museum then this should go there.

I'd love to see someone win this auction and donate it to the Computer History Museum, does anyone know if they have one already? http://www.computerhistory.org/

all we need is the opposite of ebay, people teaming their money to acquire something for the commons, so that all these expensive historical products noone in their right mind would buy wind up in the same place that we can send schoolkids to as punishment.

http://www.kickstarter.com/ but we have to be quick.

They do have at least one - it's featured on one video. I am not sure if it boots or if they could use both to make one that boots completely.

I remember seeing some Xerox computer with a portrait display. Don't know if it could be a model besides this one.

They have an Alto II: http://www.computerhistory.org/VirtualVisibleStorage/artifac... .

There is an emulator. I have some limited success with it (it compiled and lights flashed), but couldn't go further.

Maybe some fellow hacker here gets further

http://altogether.brouhaha.com/

Looks like it just went for 30 grand.

I hope it will be a loving home ;-)

I wonder why they have not been successful.Had this brand taken off, the mass Internet may have started 5~10 years earlier.

Xerox suits decided it won't sell.

PARC didn't make products for sale, it was a pure R&D outfit.

> I wonder why they have not been successful.

Because Xerox considered they could never make a product out of PARC's output (Apple and Microsoft disagreed). None of it ever became actual products, it was either research material or stuff for some unis.

Also, maybe price. This was in the late 70s to early 80s, the hardware in the box was significant, the rest of the world was still running on 80x25 text displays if that.

> I wonder why they have not been successful

The Altos were not official, supported products, but R&D projects and prototypes. I heard several were given away. The "real" products were the Star series.

Those didn't succeed because they were far too expensive. As were the Altos, BTW. A working system could easily run into the US$ 100K range, with workstation and printer.

A couple years later, Apple made the same mistake with the Lisa, pricing it over US$ 10K. They only got something with the US$ 2K-range Macintoshes. And those really caught on when Apple launched their laser printer.

I think I'd rather have a Pixar Image Computer.

so is anyone here willing to admit to spending 30K on a hood ornament? =)

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