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Eric Bier Demonstrates Cedar

Computer History Museum · demo · Watch on YouTube

History of computingCompilers, interpreters & program analysisGUI, HCI & interface history

What it is

Eric Bier, a PARC research scientist, demonstrates the Cedar integrated programming environment and language, an evolution of Mesa from Xerox PARC. The demo shows the Tioga editor, garbage collection, and a full graphical workstation environment.

Why Hacker News recommends it

HN keeps citing it as proof of how advanced a GC-based systems language and integrated workstation were decades ago, and as a model for what desktop OSes could be.

  • 3 people recommended it
  • 5 different months
  • 3 strong recommendations
  • first 2020, last 2025

What HN commenters said

  1. “This is what a modern desktop OS should look like”

    Shows what a modern desktop OS should look like

    pjmlp, 2020-10 · Strong recommendation · in “Re-Thinking the Desktop OS”

  2. “This is a great video!”

    Demo of Cedar text selection and copy commands

    DonHopkins, 2022-01 · Strong recommendation · in “Xerox PARC Mesa Programming Language 5.0 (1979) [pdf]”

  3. “There is a great video of Eric Bier showing some of cedars capabilities on youtube[2].”

    Great video showing Cedar capabilities

    Grumbledour, 2021-01 · Recommendation · in “Oberon OS Walkthrough (2009)”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: cedar, mesa, tioga editor, xerox parc, computing history, garbage collection

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