— Xerox (@Xerox) February 19, 2020 In 1973, Tesler joined the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), where he worked with Tim Mott to create the Gypsy text editor. It was within Gypsy that he created the modeless method for copying and moving parts of text, which we now know as cutting, copying, pasting. You can still view his modest-looking CV on his website here, in which he talks about the work he did while at the company. He describes his invention of the copy-paste thus: Again, it sounds almost casual, as if this isn’t something all of us have used every day of our lives on a computer. I’ve used copy-pasting several times just while writing this very article. He also says on his website: “I have been mistakenly identified as ‘the father of the graphical user interface for the Macintosh’. I was not. However, a paternity test might expose me as one of its many grandparents.” Even if that were the extent of Tesler’s involvement in computer science, we’d still owe him a debt of gratitude, but it’s not. Tesler was the person who was assigned to show Steve Jobs around PARC in 1979, a presentation which included Xerox’s Alto computer and its user interface. According to CNET, Jobs called the work “a goldmine,” and later persuaded Tesler to join Apple. Tesler worked there for almost 20 years, being promoted to the position of Chief Scientist in 1993. He worked on various projects, including Lisa, Newton, and Macintosh. He’s also credited with convincing Apple to invest in Advanced RISC Machines (ARM). Modern iPhones still benefit from this investment, as iOS devices run on ARM-based processors. We’ve reached out to Apple for comment.
