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Product Description
During a period of mind-blowing frenzy in the 1970s and '80s, a group of computer eccentrics thrown together by Xerox at a facility in Palo Alto, California, nicknamed PARC, created such monumental innovations as the first personal computer, the graphical user interface, and one of the main precursors to the Internet -- yet were resented by their Xerox bosses for "fooling around". Told that none of their inventions would ever amount to anything, many of the original PARC members went on to make millions on the very same ideas Xerox renounced. Focusing on this mythologized group whose genius propelled it to the cutting edge of technohistory, as well as the corporate machinations that kept it from achieving greatness, Dealers of Lightning offers an exclusive, inside glimpse of business history that marks the dawn of the computer age and provides a prism through which to view the 21st century.
Amazon.com Review
Throughout the '70s and '80s, Xerox Corporation provided unlimited funding to a renegade think tank called the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). Occupying a ramshackle building adjacent to Stanford University, PARC's occupants would prove to be the greatest gathering of computer talent ever assembled: it conceptualized the very notion of the desktop computer, long before IBM launched its PC, and it laid the foundation for Microsoft Windows with a prototype graphical user interface of icons and layered screens. Even the technology that makes it possible for these words to appear on the screen can trace its roots to Xerox's eccentric band of innovators. But despite PARC's many industry-altering breakthroughs, Xerox failed ever to grasp the financial potential of such achievements. And while Xerox's inability to capitalize upon some of the world's most important technological advancements makes for an interesting enough story, Los Angeles Times correspondent Michael Hiltzik focuses instead on the inventions and the inventors themselves. We meet fiery ringleader Bob Taylor, a preacher's son from Texas known as much for his ego as for his uncanny leadership; we trace the term "personal computer" back to Alan Kay, a visionary who dreamed of a machine small enough to tuck under the arm; and we learn how PARC's farsighted principles led to collaborative brilliance. Hiltzik's consummate account of this burgeoning era won't improve Xerox's stake in the computer industry by much, but it should at least give credit where credit is due. Recommended. --Rob McDonald
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