The Xerox Parc Alto was “a groundbreaking computer with wide influence on the computer industry. It was based on a graphical user interface using windows, icons, and a mouse, and worked together with other Altos over a local area network. It could also share files and print out documents on an advanced Xerox laser printer. Applications were also highly innovative: a WYSISYG word processor known as “Bravo,” a paint program, a graphics editor, and email for example. Apple’s inspiration for the Lisa and Macintosh computers came from the Xerox Alto.”
The key thing to remember is that while desktop computing had huge places to go, it was useful almost instantly. In contrast cryptocurrencies have been globally available for almost a decade and a half, with only self-imposed drawbacks – nothing even remotely like the limits on early computer hardware or usurious network pricing — but despite that nobody has found them useful enough even at the level of a small company replacing a typewriter with a word processor. Almost nobody uses them instead of PayPal / Venmo, the few licit businesses which still accept them almost always immediately convert to a stable currency, and when these major players fail it has almost no real-world impact. That’s actually astonishing for a globally-available technology with billions of real dollars in funding.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_2200
Despite all of the hardware limitations, real businesses found things like that useful for work which wasn’t selling desktop computers.
The future was visible, too:
https://www.computerhistory.org/timeline/1974/
The Xerox Parc Alto was “a groundbreaking computer with wide influence on the computer industry. It was based on a graphical user interface using windows, icons, and a mouse, and worked together with other Altos over a local area network. It could also share files and print out documents on an advanced Xerox laser printer. Applications were also highly innovative: a WYSISYG word processor known as “Bravo,” a paint program, a graphics editor, and email for example. Apple’s inspiration for the Lisa and Macintosh computers came from the Xerox Alto.”
The key thing to remember is that while desktop computing had huge places to go, it was useful almost instantly. In contrast cryptocurrencies have been globally available for almost a decade and a half, with only self-imposed drawbacks – nothing even remotely like the limits on early computer hardware or usurious network pricing — but despite that nobody has found them useful enough even at the level of a small company replacing a typewriter with a word processor. Almost nobody uses them instead of PayPal / Venmo, the few licit businesses which still accept them almost always immediately convert to a stable currency, and when these major players fail it has almost no real-world impact. That’s actually astonishing for a globally-available technology with billions of real dollars in funding.