What Does GUI Stand For in Computer Terms?

In computer lingo, the letters “GUI” stand for graphical user interface. Basically this means that when you point your mouse or cursor to a particular icon and click on it, a hidden list of commands is automatically created for your computer to follow. GUI has replaced the need to enter DOS commands.

Now if you are not a tech head then you are probably sitting there wondering, “what in the world is a graphical user interface?” If you think back to the days of Commodore 64 or Texas Instruments in the 1980s, you will recall having to interact with the computer directly by typing in commands for it to follow. Those were the days of DOS which was a text-based user interface. GUI is what we work with today.

Pronounced “goo-ee”, this is unlike the dog days of DOS. Working with GUI is definitely a point and click sort of process. You no longer have to type in commands in order to tell the computer what to do, because when you point your mouse or cursor to a particular icon and click on it, this automatically generates a hidden list of commands for your computer to follow. Back in the days of DOS you would have more than likely had to type in a series of commands just to copy information and paste it into a separate file. Now with the advent of GUI you simply point and click or do a quick keyboard shortcut to achieve the goal in mere moments.

GUI was created by a man named Douglas Engelbart back in 1968. During a demonstration he was giving he had a mouse and a cursor which he used to give commands to when illustrating his charts. As a result it was not long before the Xerox company made a GUI computer available in 1973. But it was not until the early 1990s that all computers that were commercially available to the public had GUI components to them. That marked the end of DOS as the public knew it, however DOS is still around and used daily by computer techs and if you ever need to access it you can do so from your desktop.

Some of the first memories of GUI can be traced back to the Apple Lisa computer that was introduced to the public in 1983. It was this product that became the basis for the highly successful Macintosh GUI style which was launched back in 1984. As a result of the success garnered by Apple, companies such as the Microsoft Corporation quickly followed up with GUI for PCs and PC software. By 1985 the Microsoft Corporation launched Windows, which at the time was a MS-DOS system that soon evolved into a GUI.

GUI Today

People today use GUI and do not really notice that they are using it.   Nowadays, GUIs are in just about any computer based technology there is. From desktops, laptops and MACs to cellular phones, satellite television and ATM machines, GUI is just about everywhere.

Take a look at your web browser the next time you log on to the Internet. What you will be seeing is a GUI of your web browser. Additionally, whenever you sign on to your computer, the desktop is a prime example of GUI. Nowadays, you may hear the term “class widget” when people are referencing GUI elements.