The concept of the graphical interface dates back to the early 1960s with Ivan Sutherland and his Sketchpad, followed by "The Mother of All Demos" by Douglas Engelbart (the inventor of the mouse), and the efforts of Xerox PARC in the 1970s. However, the general public had to wait until the 1980s to experience the benefits of graphical interfaces, which in turn introduced a new element: the icon. With 40 years under their belts, icons have been modified and redesigned multiple times, and today we can trace that journey from its beginning to the present.
At first, there wasn't much to work with. Just a black screen with a blinking cursor, and all commands were entered by hand. For years, that mechanic worked well enough, but the evolutionary leap was inevitable. Computers gained power, audio systems, and above all, graphical capability. With that, black screens and cursors lost relevance, moving to the background. The era of interfaces and icons had begun.
The Pioneers: Xerox Star
The History of Icons portal does an excellent job presenting the most important moments in the history of icons. It goes back to April 1981, with the launch of the Xerox 8010 Information System (much better known as the Xerox Star). David Canfield Smith, a mathematician and one of Star's principal designers, invented both icons and the desktop concept, which in turn relied on the interpretation of "data as objects". The Xerox Star was ahead of its time, something reflected in its price (46,000 dollars adjusted for inflation).
Apple's Golden Age
1983 and 1984 belong entirely to Apple, under the iron hand of Steve Jobs. The Apple Lisa, a technical marvel turned commercial failure, had a hundred people on its design team, but the ideal balance between art and computing came with the Macintosh, and the superior talent of Susan Kare. Through her designs, the typical 1980s computer lost its intimidating profile, and defined a new "baseline of quality" for the entire industry.
Windows, Atari, and Amiga
1985 was the year of the first Windows... and it basically demonstrated that PCs still had a lot of work ahead in terms of icons. However, Atari TOS (the "Tramiel Operating System" used on the Atari ST) introduced the concept of three-dimensionality in icons, taking advantage of that new abundance of the desktop, while the Commodore Amiga went a step further, enabling the editing and custom design of icons.
This was followed by the introduction of color, the ultra-detailed icons of NextSTEP (with Jobs and Susan Kare), Windows 3.0 in 1990 with several lessons learned (again, Susan Kare), the intense colors of GEOS and BeOS (which we have talked about previously), transparency layers, increases in icon size, semi-realism, and a drastic return to simple, two-dimensional designs. Of course, the visual history of icons is far from over, but if you're a designer or need some inspiration to create your own set of icons, I think you shouldn't ignore this portal.
Official site: Click here
https://old.neoteo.com/la-historia-del-puntero-del-raton/
