>> Acorn's OS had a task bar almost a decade before Windows came along with 
>> it.
>
> Heh, why does that not surprise me?

Here's a screenshot I found from 1987!

http://www.mjpye.org.uk/images/screens/arthur2.gif

And 1989:

http://www.mjpye.org.uk/images/screens/riscos2.gif

And 1991:

http://toastytech.com/guis/riscosnewlook.gif

And 1994, Windows still didn't have a task bar:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/73/Windows_3.11_workspace.png

I still remember my IT teacher at school telling me in 1995 that he heard 
the new Windows OS was going to have a "task bar", and how they had copied 
the Acorn design.  In fairness I doubt that whoever decided on the task bar 
had even seen an Acorn machine before.  Although there is a classic anecdote 
going around the Acorn world that apparently Bill Gates was once watching a 
demo from Acorn of how to network machines together, and he asked "what's a 
network?".

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