Precursors

Researchers at the Stanford Research Institute, led by Douglas Engelbart, developed a text-mode hyperlink interface governed by a mouse, which they also invented.[5]​[6]​ This concept was expanded and transferred to the graphical environment by researchers at the Xerox PARC in the American city of Palo Alto. The environment was called PARC User Interface and it defined the concepts of windows "Window (computing)"), check box, radio buttons, menus "Menu (computing)") and mouse pointer. The interface was implemented commercially on the Xerox Star 8010 computer.

Xerox Alto

The Xerox Alto, developed at Xerox PARC in 1973, was one of the first personal computers, as well as the first to use the desktop metaphor and a graphical user interface.[7][8]​.

Xerox Star 8010

The Xerox Star workstation, officially known as the 8010 Star Information System, was introduced by printers and email.[10]​[11]​.

Apple Lisa, Macintosh, Apple II GS.

After a visit to Xerox PARC in 1979, the Apple team headed by Jef Raskin focused on designing a graphical environment for its new 16-bit generation, which would be embodied in the Apple Lisa in 1983. That graphical system was ported to the successor to the Apple II, the Apple II GS. A second team works on the Apple Macintosh that will be released in 1984 with an improved version of the Lisa graphical environment ("we intended to make a computer as easy to operate as a toaster"). From that moment on, the Mac will reign as the paradigm of usability of a graphical environment; Although the operating system undergoes radical changes underneath, non-advanced users are not aware of this and do not suffer the problems of other platforms.

Workbench

Workbench is the name given by Commodore to the graphical interface of AmigaOS, the Commodore Amiga operating system launched in 1985. Unlike the most popular systems (GEM, Mac OS, MS Windows...) it is a true multitasking environment only rivaled by the X Window System interface of the different flavors of Unix. The phrase most repeated by a friend is: «to slaughter Martians, format a floppy disk and send or receive a Fax all at the same time and without crashing, you need a 386 with a hard drive, 16 MB of RAM and OS/2; an Amiga 500 with a floppy disk and only its base memory (512 KB of RAM and 512 KB of ROM) is capable of all that. Although very popular due to the machine's spectacular (for then) graphics and its large roster of video games, the negligence of its successive owners will be the main reason why it ended up being restricted to only the Amiga platform.

GEOS

For the Commodore 64 and its successor the Commodore 128, the GEOS graphical environment was developed in 1986. This environment was ported to the IBM PC, used in several PDAs, and Nokia used it as the basis of its current operating system.

GEM

GEM (Graphical Environment Manager) is a GUI designed by Digital Research in 1985 to run on various IBM PC and compatible command-line operating systems: it works on both IBM DOS /MS-DOS and CP/M 86. Its maximum popularity on the PC comes from the Amstrad PC1512 and the Amstrad PC1640, the clones that broke the price barrier in Europe by popularizing the PC, until then mostly relegated to offices. Although it is incorporated in its first generation of laptops and in the Sinclair PC200"), it will be replaced in the next generation of Amstrad PCs by Microsoft Windows 2.xx. On the PC it will live a second youth as it comes standard with DR-DOS such as TaskMax.

But it will be on the Atari ST and successors where it will become the official graphical environment of the platform, achieving great popularity, both for being in principle a cheap alternative to the MAC in desktop publishing, and for taking over the professional music market niche.

Apple and Microsoft

In 1982, Apple had started as a micro-business formed by two employees, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, and had grown into a $300 million company. By 1983, it had become a $1 billion company, the same value as IBM.

In 1985, Microsoft released Windows 1.0, a graphical environment for compatible IBM PC computers, with many similarities to the Mac OS. Apple's response to the introduction of the Windows operating system was to file a multi-billion dollar lawsuit against Microsoft for copyright violation.

In 1987 IBM was forced to enter the market for personal computers with a graphical environment with its IBM Personal System/2 (PS/2) model, allying with Bill Gates (Microsoft), who had developed OS/2. The graphical interface of this operating system was very similar to that of Apple. OS/2 did not become the new industry standard, mainly due to the conflict of interest between IBM and Microsoft.

The appearance of clone IBM computers made the Windows system popular, which took away Apple's market. This recovered at the end of 1990 by launching new products.

An unmistakable sign of Apple's success was the appearance of similar products: a small company called Nutek Computers Inc. announced that it was developing a computer compatible with the Macintosh.

In 1991, Apple CEO John Sculley revealed that the company was considering competing against Microsoft in the software field by selling its operating system to third parties. Apple revealed that it was holding talks with its former rival, IBM, aimed at sharing technologies. They decided to create a joint venture to develop an advanced operating system that they would both use on their new machines and license to third parties. This plan presented a direct challenge to Microsoft.

Microsoft manages to make Windows the most used operating system in the world, leaving Apple in second place.

GUIs and ZUI

The types of graphical user interfaces (GUIs) found in computer games, and advanced virtual reality-based GUIs, are frequently used in research tasks. Many research groups in North America and Europe are currently working on Zooming User Interface or ZUI, which is a logical advancement of GUIs, mixing 3D with 2D. It could be expressed as "2 and a half dimensions in one-dimensional vector objects."

Touch screen user interface

Some GUIs are designed to meet the rigorous requirements of vertical markets. These are known as purpose-specific GUIs. An example of a GUI for specific use is the now familiar touch screen or touchscreen (a screen that, when touched, carries out the mouse commands "Mouse (computing)" in the software). It is currently implemented in many restaurants and many self-service stores around the world. Pioneered by Gene Mosher") on the Atari ST computer in 1986, the use he specified in touch-screen GUIs has spearheaded a global, innovative revolution in the use of computers across the food and beverage industries, and in retail sales.

Other examples of purpose-specific GUIs related to the touch screen are ATMs, information kiosks, and monitoring and control screens in industrial uses, which employ a real-time operating system (RTOS). Mobile phones and gaming systems or consoles also use touch screens. Furthermore, home automation is not possible without a good user interface, or GUI.

Natural User Interface (NUI)

Natural NUIs are those in which you interact with a system, application, etc., without using input devices such as mouse, keyboard, stylus, etc. Instead, hands or fingertips are used.

Voice Interface (VUI)

These are programs capable of identifying and interpreting speech. The clearest example we have is the recent rise of artificial intelligences, like Siri, which are controlled by voice.

Text Interface (TUI)

It is mainly used in the field of operating system programming and is the evolution of the primitive command line interface used by early computer programs.

Brain-computer interface

Or also called BCI (Brain-Computer Interface) technology. It is the most innovative type of interface that exists to date, and although it does not yet have many everyday applications, it is being used to control bionic prostheses and give simple instructions to software through brain waves.

It is common to be able to change the language of the user interface.[12]​.

Many environments and games use 3D graphics methods to project 3D objects from the graphical user interface onto the screen. The use of 3D graphics has become increasingly common in major operating systems (e.g. Windows Aero, and Aqua&action=edit&redlink=1 "Aqua (user interface) (not yet written)") (MacOS)) to create attractive interfaces, called eye candy, or for functional purposes that are only possible using three dimensions. For example, user switching is represented by rotating a cube with faces representing each user's workspace, and window management is represented by a Rolodex-style flipping mechanism in Windows Vista (see Windows Flip 3D). In both cases, the operating system transforms the windows on the fly while continuing to update their content.

Zooming user interface (ZUI) is a related technology that promises to offer the rendering benefits of 3D environments without the usability drawbacks of orientation and hidden object issues. In 2006, Hillcrest Labs introduced the first ZUI for television.[13] Other innovations include Project Looking Glass from Sun, Metisse, which was similar to Project Looking Glass,[14] BumpTop, in which users can manipulate documents and windows with realistic motion and physics as if they were physical documents, Croquet OS, which is built for collaboration, and compositing window managers such as Enlightenment and Compiz. Augmented reality and virtual reality also make use of 3D graphical user interface elements.[15]​.

• - AJAX.

• - Information architecture.

• - Dynamic link library.

• - Software engineering.

• - Interface.

• - User interface.

• - Human-computer interaction.

• - Command Line Interface (CLI).

• - Fitts' Law.

• - Look and feel.

• - Desktop metaphor.

• - Rich Internet Applications, in Spanish: Rich Internet Applications.

• - Usability.

• - Royo, Javier. Digital Design. Paidós Ibérica Editions, 2018.

• - Shneiderman, Ben. Designing The user interface, Strategies for effective Human-computer interaction. Addison-wesley,1998.

• - Wikimedia Commons hosts a multimedia category on Graphic User Interface.

• - Apple v. Microsoft").

• - Ars Technica: A History of the GUI by Jeremy Reimer .

• - Graphic User Interfaces (History).

• - Images of almost all operating system graphical environments.

• - cydiaimpactor.web.app.

Precursors

Researchers at the Stanford Research Institute, led by Douglas Engelbart, developed a text-mode hyperlink interface governed by a mouse, which they also invented.[5]​[6]​ This concept was expanded and transferred to the graphical environment by researchers at the Xerox PARC in the American city of Palo Alto. The environment was called PARC User Interface and it defined the concepts of windows "Window (computing)"), check box, radio buttons, menus "Menu (computing)") and mouse pointer. The interface was implemented commercially on the Xerox Star 8010 computer.

Xerox Alto

The Xerox Alto, developed at Xerox PARC in 1973, was one of the first personal computers, as well as the first to use the desktop metaphor and a graphical user interface.[7][8]​.

Xerox Star 8010

The Xerox Star workstation, officially known as the 8010 Star Information System, was introduced by printers and email.[10]​[11]​.

Apple Lisa, Macintosh, Apple II GS.

After a visit to Xerox PARC in 1979, the Apple team headed by Jef Raskin focused on designing a graphical environment for its new 16-bit generation, which would be embodied in the Apple Lisa in 1983. That graphical system was ported to the successor to the Apple II, the Apple II GS. A second team works on the Apple Macintosh that will be released in 1984 with an improved version of the Lisa graphical environment ("we intended to make a computer as easy to operate as a toaster"). From that moment on, the Mac will reign as the paradigm of usability of a graphical environment; Although the operating system undergoes radical changes underneath, non-advanced users are not aware of this and do not suffer the problems of other platforms.

Workbench

Workbench is the name given by Commodore to the graphical interface of AmigaOS, the Commodore Amiga operating system launched in 1985. Unlike the most popular systems (GEM, Mac OS, MS Windows...) it is a true multitasking environment only rivaled by the X Window System interface of the different flavors of Unix. The phrase most repeated by a friend is: «to slaughter Martians, format a floppy disk and send or receive a Fax all at the same time and without crashing, you need a 386 with a hard drive, 16 MB of RAM and OS/2; an Amiga 500 with a floppy disk and only its base memory (512 KB of RAM and 512 KB of ROM) is capable of all that. Although very popular due to the machine's spectacular (for then) graphics and its large roster of video games, the negligence of its successive owners will be the main reason why it ended up being restricted to only the Amiga platform.

GEOS

For the Commodore 64 and its successor the Commodore 128, the GEOS graphical environment was developed in 1986. This environment was ported to the IBM PC, used in several PDAs, and Nokia used it as the basis of its current operating system.

GEM

GEM (Graphical Environment Manager) is a GUI designed by Digital Research in 1985 to run on various IBM PC and compatible command-line operating systems: it works on both IBM DOS /MS-DOS and CP/M 86. Its maximum popularity on the PC comes from the Amstrad PC1512 and the Amstrad PC1640, the clones that broke the price barrier in Europe by popularizing the PC, until then mostly relegated to offices. Although it is incorporated in its first generation of laptops and in the Sinclair PC200"), it will be replaced in the next generation of Amstrad PCs by Microsoft Windows 2.xx. On the PC it will live a second youth as it comes standard with DR-DOS such as TaskMax.

But it will be on the Atari ST and successors where it will become the official graphical environment of the platform, achieving great popularity, both for being in principle a cheap alternative to the MAC in desktop publishing, and for taking over the professional music market niche.

Apple and Microsoft

In 1982, Apple had started as a micro-business formed by two employees, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, and had grown into a $300 million company. By 1983, it had become a $1 billion company, the same value as IBM.

In 1985, Microsoft released Windows 1.0, a graphical environment for compatible IBM PC computers, with many similarities to the Mac OS. Apple's response to the introduction of the Windows operating system was to file a multi-billion dollar lawsuit against Microsoft for copyright violation.

In 1987 IBM was forced to enter the market for personal computers with a graphical environment with its IBM Personal System/2 (PS/2) model, allying with Bill Gates (Microsoft), who had developed OS/2. The graphical interface of this operating system was very similar to that of Apple. OS/2 did not become the new industry standard, mainly due to the conflict of interest between IBM and Microsoft.

The appearance of clone IBM computers made the Windows system popular, which took away Apple's market. This recovered at the end of 1990 by launching new products.

An unmistakable sign of Apple's success was the appearance of similar products: a small company called Nutek Computers Inc. announced that it was developing a computer compatible with the Macintosh.

In 1991, Apple CEO John Sculley revealed that the company was considering competing against Microsoft in the software field by selling its operating system to third parties. Apple revealed that it was holding talks with its former rival, IBM, aimed at sharing technologies. They decided to create a joint venture to develop an advanced operating system that they would both use on their new machines and license to third parties. This plan presented a direct challenge to Microsoft.

Microsoft manages to make Windows the most used operating system in the world, leaving Apple in second place.

GUIs and ZUI

The types of graphical user interfaces (GUIs) found in computer games, and advanced virtual reality-based GUIs, are frequently used in research tasks. Many research groups in North America and Europe are currently working on Zooming User Interface or ZUI, which is a logical advancement of GUIs, mixing 3D with 2D. It could be expressed as "2 and a half dimensions in one-dimensional vector objects."

Touch screen user interface

Some GUIs are designed to meet the rigorous requirements of vertical markets. These are known as purpose-specific GUIs. An example of a GUI for specific use is the now familiar touch screen or touchscreen (a screen that, when touched, carries out the mouse commands "Mouse (computing)" in the software). It is currently implemented in many restaurants and many self-service stores around the world. Pioneered by Gene Mosher") on the Atari ST computer in 1986, the use he specified in touch-screen GUIs has spearheaded a global, innovative revolution in the use of computers across the food and beverage industries, and in retail sales.

Other examples of purpose-specific GUIs related to the touch screen are ATMs, information kiosks, and monitoring and control screens in industrial uses, which employ a real-time operating system (RTOS). Mobile phones and gaming systems or consoles also use touch screens. Furthermore, home automation is not possible without a good user interface, or GUI.

Natural User Interface (NUI)

Natural NUIs are those in which you interact with a system, application, etc., without using input devices such as mouse, keyboard, stylus, etc. Instead, hands or fingertips are used.

Voice Interface (VUI)

These are programs capable of identifying and interpreting speech. The clearest example we have is the recent rise of artificial intelligences, like Siri, which are controlled by voice.

Text Interface (TUI)

It is mainly used in the field of operating system programming and is the evolution of the primitive command line interface used by early computer programs.

Brain-computer interface

Or also called BCI (Brain-Computer Interface) technology. It is the most innovative type of interface that exists to date, and although it does not yet have many everyday applications, it is being used to control bionic prostheses and give simple instructions to software through brain waves.

It is common to be able to change the language of the user interface.[12]​.

Many environments and games use 3D graphics methods to project 3D objects from the graphical user interface onto the screen. The use of 3D graphics has become increasingly common in major operating systems (e.g. Windows Aero, and Aqua&action=edit&redlink=1 "Aqua (user interface) (not yet written)") (MacOS)) to create attractive interfaces, called eye candy, or for functional purposes that are only possible using three dimensions. For example, user switching is represented by rotating a cube with faces representing each user's workspace, and window management is represented by a Rolodex-style flipping mechanism in Windows Vista (see Windows Flip 3D). In both cases, the operating system transforms the windows on the fly while continuing to update their content.

Zooming user interface (ZUI) is a related technology that promises to offer the rendering benefits of 3D environments without the usability drawbacks of orientation and hidden object issues. In 2006, Hillcrest Labs introduced the first ZUI for television.[13] Other innovations include Project Looking Glass from Sun, Metisse, which was similar to Project Looking Glass,[14] BumpTop, in which users can manipulate documents and windows with realistic motion and physics as if they were physical documents, Croquet OS, which is built for collaboration, and compositing window managers such as Enlightenment and Compiz. Augmented reality and virtual reality also make use of 3D graphical user interface elements.[15]​.

• - AJAX.

• - Information architecture.

• - Dynamic link library.

• - Software engineering.

• - Interface.

• - User interface.

• - Human-computer interaction.

• - Command Line Interface (CLI).

• - Fitts' Law.

• - Look and feel.

• - Desktop metaphor.

• - Rich Internet Applications, in Spanish: Rich Internet Applications.

• - Usability.

• - Royo, Javier. Digital Design. Paidós Ibérica Editions, 2018.

• - Shneiderman, Ben. Designing The user interface, Strategies for effective Human-computer interaction. Addison-wesley,1998.

• - Wikimedia Commons hosts a multimedia category on Graphic User Interface.

• - Apple v. Microsoft").

• - Ars Technica: A History of the GUI by Jeremy Reimer .

• - Graphic User Interfaces (History).

• - Images of almost all operating system graphical environments.

• - cydiaimpactor.web.app.