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Xerox ives f ina BY BRIAN BOTHUN PAL0 ALTO DAILY NEWS STAFF It was the Equiva- lent of Henry Ford showing up at a 1998 auto show to demonstrate the Model T. Yesterday, hundreds turned out in Palo Alto to see the legendary Star in action. The Star - a beige box which weighs 170 Ibs and is about the size of a large microwave oven turned on its side - isn't just any 17-year-old computer. years before the and a decade before Microsoft Windows, the Star had a mouse so users could point and click on icons to give the computer commands. Developed at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center - known through- out the world as Xerox PARC - its alumni gathered yesterday for what was billed as thi final live demon- RNAL DEMONSTaATsQN - Robert Garner, codesigner of the legendary Xerox stration of the Star. Star, holds up one of the computer's memory boards at last night's reunion. Hundreds of invited guests filled a Daily News photo by Susan Bradley. Xerox auditorium at the event, which was co-sponsored by Bay Area Com- and a trash can -just like computers ing them learn commands to talk to a puter History Perspectives and the today. computer, Liddle said. Computer Museum Hi story Center. "This was a breakthrough prod- "We very deliberately called it a The Star's builders don't know uct," Smith said of the Star, which hit desktop and the icons were chosen to how much longer the computer's the market in 1981 sold for $16,000. be familiar to office users - papers, hardware will work, so any demon- folders and a trash can," Smith said. stration could be the last, said David Holy grail Smith, one of the machine's principal More than 100 million computers Applauded wildly designers. worldwide today can trace their The outcome was the Star, which point-and-click operating environ- an auditorium full of software devel- Sticky mouse ment - or graphical as opers and other computer industry Xerox even had two Stars set up it's known - to the Xerox Star and types applauded wildly yesterday yesterday in case one crashed during its predecessor, the Xerox Alto, when it performed the simplest of the demonstration, but the backup Smith said. tasks. wasn't needed. The only problem "We were trying to make the first When Smith made a bar graph Smith encountered was a sometimes- product professioilals would use," showing the height and weight of sticky mouse. said David Liddle, the CEO of Inter- two people and then changed the "It's hard to give a talk on Star val Research who spent 10 years at graph's color from gray to black, because more and more people say, Xerox during the Star's formative hundreds clapped in exci tment. 'What's the big deal,"' Smith said. years. "The Star's interface is still sim- As he began the demonstration it The team at Xerox PARC in the pler than systems we see today. was easy to see why it might be seen was charged with developing as That's the most pleasant thing for as ho-hum. On the screen were icons computer for office professionals me. It doesn't seem like an antiquat- such as file folders, sheets of paper that adapted to them rather than mak- ed system," Smith said.