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Who invented the USABLE CONSUMER tablet?

That's not an invention. And the critical difference is in whether it's patentable or not. That's why only unique and non trivial things should be patentable, otherwise you'll have to pay for any kind of incremental improvement in technology.

So the only invention is that of the broad category? Of course not. Who invented the telephone? Alexander Graham Bell. Who invented the buttoned telephone? Mr Buttonous Maximus. Who invented the cordless phone? Mr Dontliketo Triponcables.

Understand? All of those things are inventions. If you stick to really broad categories, you miss 99% of inventions. Who invented the automobile? Most people would say Karl Benz. That was certainly significant, but even he was building on the designs of others. And would it be fair to give him the credit for the automobile and every other development since then is just simple improvement?

So the only invention is that of the broad category? Of course not. Who invented the telephone? Alexander Graham Bell. Who invented the buttoned telephone? Mr Buttonous Maximus. Who invented the cordless phone? Mr Dontliketo Triponcables.

Understand? All of those things are inventions. If you stick to really broad categories, you miss 99% of inventions. Who invented the automobile? Most people would say Karl Benz. That was certainly significant, but even he was building on the designs of others. And would it be fair to give him the credit for the automobile and every other development since then is just simple improvement? "

Very well said. The difference is that mr Benz made a quite different machine than the previous car. If BMW released a car identical to a Mercedes apart from the wing mirrors and steering wheel then they would be accused of copying just as Samsung have been with their device where they made an iPhone with a square button!

Unfortunately you make a really good point, but you obviously don't see it. Tim-Berners Lee might have "invented" the world wide web, but Netscape made it what it is today. Xerox might have made a GUI based computer, but Apple took that and introduced overlapping windows, menus, etc. and made it into what people now associate with a computer. Engelbart might have invented the mouse, but to get from there to the ball mouse that eventually shipped with the Mac was a massive change. "Inventions" that are little more than tech demos are largely useless. And to take away the massive investment that companies like Netscape and Apple made to take what was, for all intents and purposes, a good idea and turn that into a desirable product, well, you can go back to Lee's internet, pre-iPad tablets and pre Mac GUIs and let us know how much you enjoy it.

rhavyn,

"And to take away the massive investment that companies like Netscape and Apple made to take what was, for all intents and purposes, a good idea and turn that into a desirable product, well, you can go back to Lee's internet, pre-iPad tablets and pre Mac GUIs and let us know how much you enjoy it."

I wonder if there's an objective way to make determinations about how other timelines would evolve if variables were tweaked here and there. Often times people claim that things would be worse if X hadn't happened. All can say for sure is that things would be different, but for all we know other time lines may actually be better than ours.

No quotation marks needed -- Tim-Berners Lee invented the World Wide Web, period.



No. The web would have been what it is today, regardless of which browser was popular at which time. There were other graphical browsers when Mosaic was catching on.



No.

Prior to Apple's Lisa and Mac, the GUI was already very close to what people now associate with a computer.

Apple didn't invent overlapping windows nor menus -- those features were already included in the Xerox Alto years before Apple existed, and overlapping windows and menus were also already featured in the GUIs from other companies, long before Apple demonstrated them.

Here are overlapping windows on the Alto: http://toastytech.com/guis/altost1.jpg

Here are floating menus on the Alto: http://toastytech.com/guis/altorainbow.jpg

Don't add the qualified claim that Apple invented "drop-down" menus, because drop-down menus are merely floating menus stuck to the bar at the top of the window. Furthermore, the Three Rivers Perq had "drop-down" menus on the side of some of its third-party GUI apps, before the Lisa and the Mac.



No.

The "ball mouse" was invented in 1968, at least eight years before Apple Computer existed: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mouse_(computing)#Variants

Note in the page linked above that, Bill English (the guy who built Englebart's first mouse) created a ball mouse at Xerox Parc, later in 1972, and ball mice were manufactured for Xerox, starting in 1975 (one year before Apple existed) by The Mouse House.

At any rate, there was no particular advantage to the ball mouse. So, even if Apple had invented it or "popularized" it, it really was inconsequential.



If it weren't for the tech demos what would Steve Jobs and Bill Gates have had to copy?

No. Tech demos are notorious for having far-reaching consequences in the computer world.



Everything that Apple and Netscape did was being developed before, during and after Apple's and Netscape's work. All of that was already happening elsewhere while Apple and Netscape were doing their thing.

"Info.cern.ch was the address of the world's first-ever web site and web server, running on a NeXT computer at CERN."

Hurray!