The Xerox Alto in a 1979 advertisement that predicts the future

It’s amazing how accurately this 1979 Xerox Alto computer commercial predicts the future. Here you have email newsletters, the first WYSIWYG editor, a laser printer, an Ethernet network, a calendar with reminders, and even the forerunner of the modern language model.

It is worth reminding that it was in the Xerox PARC research center that the main components of the modern PC, its OS and software were developed in the 1970s. All that Steve Jobs stole from them for his Apple Macintosh, which was released in 1984 and, unlike the Xerox Alto, was commercially successful.

The Xerox Alto, the first model of which was released on March 3, 1973 (50 years ago!), cost $32,000 in 1979 prices (in 2023, it is more than $230,000). Not surprisingly, sales totaled only 2 120 copies.