You Use Copy and Paste Every Day — But Who Invented It?

Who invented copy and paste? The story starts with a magazine editor's scissors and a pot of glue — and ends with four keys chosen in 1983 partly because of where they happened to sit on a keyboard. In 1973, Larry Tesler joined Xerox PARC and built Gypsy with Tim Mott: the first modeless graphical word processor, running on the Xerox Alto. Cut, copy and paste were lifted straight from paste-up publishing. Mott's finger-tapping at a table gave us the double-click. After Steve Jobs visited PARC in 1979, Tesler joined Apple — and the 1983 Lisa locked in Z, X, C, V and the "Clipboard." IBM answered with a more careful standard, and lost anyway. Command or Control — which one did your hand reach for? Tell us in the comments. 🔔 Subscribe to American Uncredited Tech for the inventors history left out.