Re: Sharing the Family PC is Patent-Pending

[Barry Margolin]

In article <2g2eonF3rca0U1@uni-berlin.de>, Daeron <daeron@demon.net> 
wrote:

> Barry Margolin wrote:
> 
> >>Aren't all the mainframe timesharing systems, some of which were
> >>around 30 or 40 years ago, which maintain separate user sessions each
> >>with their own environment, prior art for this?  As I recall, the APL
> >>system actually called saved environments "workspaces".
> 
> > 30 years ago, computers didn't even have "desktops", so I don't see how 
> > they could be considered prior art.
> 
> The 'desktop' being a metaphor for processes running in a particular 
> context. The said processes also being restricted as to what they could 
> access. Nowadays three, at least, of those process controll the mouse, 
> keyboard and screen. Nothing new here.

I thought "the desktop" referred to features of a graphical user 
interface.  Sure, it's a metaphor for things that existed 30 years ago, 
but the metaphor itself didn't exist then.

-- 
Barry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu
Arlington, MA