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by damieng 849 days ago
"The task bar, the Start menu, the system tray, "My Computer", "Network Neighbourhood", all that: all original, patented Microsoft designs. There was nothing like it before. "

Apart from, you know, NextStep which had a dock for system tray/start menu as well as my computer and network neighbourhood.

You can find screenshots of NextStep 3.3 showing this such as https://winworldpc.com/product/nextstep/3x from 1992 and it's possible they're also in earlier versions - NextStep 1.0 was released in 1989.

1 comments

Not the same thing at all, as I deconstructed in some detail nearly a decade before:

https://www.theregister.com/Print/2013/06/03/thank_microsoft...

"NeXTStep had its Dock, but that doesn't have menus or a status icon."

NeXTStep not only had menus but tear-off dockable menus/sub-menus that are superior to any menus we have in apps today. It's clearly present in the screenshot I linked to.

https://youtu.be/rf5o5liZxnA?feature=shared&t=542 has a demonstration of NextStep 3 (released September 1992) that clearly shows a computer icon that Steve refers to as "My Computer" and then moves into hitting the "Network" icon globe that shows other computers on his local network.