Cut, copy, and paste
Cortar, copiar y pegar
- Date
- 1974 · confidence high
- Place
- Xerox PARC, Palo Alto, California, United States
- Credited to
- Larry Tesler and colleagues, at Xerox PARC
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
What it is
Tesler proposed the names 'cut' and 'copy' for extracting text and 'paste' for inserting it, and from 1974, with colleagues at Xerox PARC, implemented several text editors using these commands, separating selection from operation. Apple popularised the model with the Lisa (1983) and Macintosh (1984).
Wikidata also lists Ivan Sutherland: his Sketchpad (1963) already allowed instancing copies of a master figure, a conceptual forerunner, but the select-then-operate model and the terms 'cut/copy/paste' were set by Tesler at Xerox PARC in 1974.
What it led to
- A universal editing standard across graphical interfaces
- Consolidation of the 'desktop metaphor'
- Command/Control+X, C, V keyboard shortcuts