The
drop down menu is one of the four fundamental requirements that defines the modern desktop
graphical user interface computing metaphor.
Originally invented at Xerox PARC (the Palo Alto Research Center), the WIMP directives are the original seeds of what we now experience on most GUI based computers.
The drop down menu is the forth innovation of WIMP:
- Windows
- Icons
- Mouse
- Pull down menus
Today's Apple Mac OS & Aqua, Microsoft's Windows, and the UNIX world's CDE, KDE, and GNOME (to name a small spread of modern GUIs) all owe a debt of gratitude to the Xerox WIMP.