Palo Alto The man who had one of the most important ideas for operating computers is dead: Larry Tesler is considered the inventor of the “copy and paste” clipboard. Tesler wrote the corresponding software code in the 1970s at the innovation laboratory Xerox Parc in Palo Alto, California. The function first came into the hands of consumers several years later in Apple computers. During a visit to Xerox Parc, Apple’s founder Steve Jobs recognized the importance of many of the ideas developed there, such as operating the computer using a mouse and graphic interface.
From 1980 to 1997, Tesler worked at Apple, among other things, on the “Newton” – an assistant device with handwriting recognition that was visionary, but flopped because of its weaknesses. He then went to Amazon and Yahoo, among others, before becoming a freelance consultant a good ten years ago. Tesler died on Monday at the age of 74, as Xerox confirmed on Thursday night.
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