A sidebar to the article “The Xerox Star: A retrospective,” published in IEEE Computer, September 1989, pp. 28-29.

Jeff Johnson is a user-interface researcher at Hewlett-Packard Labs. While working on this article, he was a member of the Advanced User Interfaces Group of US West Advanced Technologies. Before that, he worked at Xerox designing and implementing enhancements to the Star/ViewPoint system, and at Cromemco as a software engineer and manager. He received BA and PhD degrees in cognitive psychology from Yale and Stanford universities, respectively.

Teresa L. Roberts is a user-interface researcher in the Advanced User Interfaces Group at US West Advanced Technologies. She spent 10 years at Xerox, designing and evaluating parts of the Star user interface. She received a PhD in computer science from Stanford University.

William Verplank is an interaction design consultant with IDT wo and a lecturer in human factors and design at Stanford University. He worked at Xerox from 1978 to 1986, doing user testing and user-interface design for Star and ViewPoint. He received a BS in mechanical engineering from Stanford University and MS and PhD degrees in man-machine systems from MIT.

David C. Smith received a PhD in Computer Science from Stanford University in 1975. He spent seven years at Xerox Office Systems Division as one of the principal designers of Star. After that, he was vice president of user communication at Cognition, Inc., an MCAE firm, and is now an advanced system designer at Apple Computer.

Charles H. Irby is vice president of Metaphor Computer Systems, Software Products Division. Previously, he managed the Advanced Development Group of Xerox Office Systems Division and in that capacity was one of the principal designers of Star. Prior to that, he worked with Douglas Engelbart at SRI developing the NLS system. He received a BA in physics and mathematics and an MS in computer science and electrical engineering from the University of California at Santa Barbara.

Marian Beard is director of release management at Metaphor Computer Systems. Before joining Metaphor, she managed user interface design for Xerox’s 8000 and 6085 products, and was a member of the original Star design team. She received a BA in history from Stanford University and an MEd from the University of Missouri.

Kevin Mackey is a software engineer at Logitech. He worked at Xerox from 1982 to 1989, developing applications software for Star and ViewPoint, and in that capacity helped develop Viewpoint’s PC-emulation facility. He received a BS in computer science from the University of California at Berkeley.

Readers may contact Jeff Johnson at Hewlett-Packard Labs, 1501 Page Mill Rd., 1AU, Palo Alto, CA 94303.