It is 1980-something and you see someone typing on a keyboard. The display is graphical, and they use a mouse to finish a document, send it over the network to another similar computer, where another user edits it a bit and prints it on a laser printer. Given the time-frame you might think the computer is a Mac, but you’d be wrong. The Xerox Star had all the features Apple “invented” about three years before the Macintosh arrived. If you never heard of the Star, that’s not surprising. At $16,500 each, there were only about 25,000 sold. Your chances of finding a working one now are slim, but thanks to emulation created by [Josh Dersch] you can try the Star out on your hardware today. If you want a preview, have a look at the 1982 video, below.
The machine had a surprisingly complex architecture. The main CPU was a microcoded computer with multiple registers that would run a sort of microcode program to execute different instruction sets depending on what was running. In addition, there was an intel 8085 that loaded the right microcode and serviced the keyboard, the mouse, the floppy, and the serial ports.
