> Hi folks,
>
> Does anyone have an archive of Xerox Alto/Star software? I'm curious
> about OS, applications, research work, whatever. I don't own an Alto,
> but I'm concerned about losing the software anyway. I'd really love to
> see a Xerox Alto emulator project started, and obviously some working
> original software archives are kind of vital for that endeavor.
>
> While we're at it, does anyone have system schematics or system
> architecture documentation? Those seem somewhat relevant as well :)
Here's a link:
http://www.spies.com/~aek/alto/index.html
On a page:
http://www.spies.com/~aek/orphanage.html
that links to the first, link, the author implies he's got a
work-in-progress emulator started. He has some docs also.
What I don't think exists anymore is a readable pack containing
Smalltalk-72, Smalltalk-74, or Smalltalk-76. Supposedly, Smalltalk-78
was implemented only on the portable Notetaker. Smalltalk-80 would
most likely have been implemented for the Alto, but by then, much
faster Xerox workstations were available, and people stuck on Altos
would have thought of themselves as second-class citizens.
Archives do exist of Smalltalk-80; however, they are largely
unavailable. Fortunately, Alan Kay, Dan Ingalls, and others
who created ST80 at PARC have duplicated the effort now that
they work for Disney. The revamped ST80 is called Squeak, and
you can download a version of Squeak for almost every platform.
For more information on Squeak, check out this link:
http://squeak.cs.uiuc.edu/
Regards,
-doug q
Received on Thu Sep 21 2000 - 14:20:08 BST