Alto OS
The Xerox Alto OS, was the first GUI system. It was way ahead of its time. We can run it on ContrAlto emulator and Salto emulator. The recommended emulator is ContrAlto.
📄️ Alto OS on ContrAlto emulator
We can run Alto OS on ContrAlto emulator. First we need to download a disk image of Alto OS. You can download the Alto OS Non-programmer's disk image bitsavers:
📄️ Alto OS on Salto emulator
We can run Alto OS on Salto emulator, but it is recommended to use ContrAlto emulator instead.
📄️ Preinstalled apps in Alto OS
There are quite a few preinstalled apps in Alto OS. It includes things from file manager to Word processing software. Let's start with the simplest, the file manager.
Manuals
The manuals refer to the mouse buttons by their color. On a modern 3-button mouse, the colors map as the following:
- Red = Left mouse button
- Yellow = Middle mouse button
- Blue = Right mouse button
On most mouses, pressing the scroll-wheel simulates pressing the middle mouse button.
You can download the Alto OS manuals from bitsavers. These are the most useful ones:
- Alto User's Handbook
- Alto Subsystems Manual
- Alto Operating System Reference Manual (Part 1)
- Alto Operating System Reference Manual (Part 2)
- BCPL Reference Manual
- Bravo Course Outline
You may also be interested in the Alto hardware manual:
Apps
Related Pages
- VirtualHub Screenshots
- Run Alto OS in your browser: ContrAltoJS (Instructions given on page)
- Run Alto OS in your browser: RetroWeb Vintage Computer Museum (Instructions given on page)
- Wikipedia
- Computer History Wiki Alto page
- Toasty Tech Xerox Alto page
- Toasty Tech page on running Alto OS on the older
saltoemulator - Computer History Museum: Xerox Alto Source Code Release
Credits
- The manuals were taken from Bitsavers.
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