Michael A. Hiltzik - Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age

DEALERS

OF

LIGHTNING

the Dawn of the Computer Age

To Deborah, Andrew, and David

v

ix

The Time Machine xv

Prodigies

The Impresario

McColoughs Folly

The House on Porter Drive

Utopia

Berkeleys Second System

Not Your Normal Person

The Clone

The Future Invented

Inventors

The Refugee

Beating the Dealer

Spacewar

Thackers Bet

The Bobbsey Twins Build a Network

What You See Is What You Get

On the Lunatic Fringe

The Pariahs

The Big Machine

Messengers

Futures Day

Future Plus One

The Worm That Ate the Ethernet

The Silicon Revolution

The Crisis of Biggerism

Steve Jobs Gets His Show and Tell

Supernova

Blindsided

Exit the Impresario

Did Xerox Blow It?

Xerox Corporation

Joseph C. Wilson, chief executive officer (19611967); chairman (19661971)

C. Peter McColough, chief executive officer (19681982); chairman (19711985)

David T. Kearns, chief executive officer (19821990); chairman (19851991)

Jacob E. Goldman, chief scientist; founder of PARC

George White, assistant to Goldman Paul Strassmann, information technology supervisor Shelby Carter, national sales director Don Massaro, head of Office Products Division after 1979

The Palo Alto Research Center

George E. Pake, director (19701978); head of Xerox research (19781985)

Robert Spinrad, director (19781982)

William J. Spencer, director (19821985); head of Xerox research (1985)

Richard E. Jones, chief administrative officerM. Frank Squires, chief personnel officer Gloria Warner, secretary to Pake

Jerome I. Elkind, laboratory manager (19711978) Robert W. Taylor, associate manager Butler W. Lampson, key contributor to the Alto personal computer, Ethernet networking system, laser printer, Mesa programming language, Dorado computer, Dandelion processor Charles P. Thacker, designer of MAXC time-sharing system and Alto and co-inventor of Ethernet

Bob Metcalfe, principal inventor of Ethernet David Boggs, co-inventor of Ethernet Dick Shoup, inventor of Superpaint, pioneering video graphic device Charles Simonyi, developer of Bravo word processing program with what you see is what you get (WYSIWYG) capability Peter Deutsch, expert programmer

Ed McCreight, hardware designer of MAXC time-sharing system and the Alto

Ed Fiala, co-designer of MAXC

Ron Rider, designer of the research character generator, adjunct to the laser printer

John Ellenby, head planner of Futures Day presentation (1977), at which PARC technology was introduced to Xerox senior management

Charles Geschke, co-developer of Mesa programming language and Interpress page description language

John Warnock, co-developer of Interpress and other printing and page description systems

Severo Ornstein, supervisor of the Dorado computer project

William F. Gunning, manager (19701973) Harold H. Hall, manager (19731975), later the first manager of System Development Division, established to commercialize PARC technology

William R. (Bert) Sutherland, manager (19751981) Alan C. Kay, head of the Learning Research Group (LRG), conceptualizer of the Dynabook personal computer and Smalltalk programming language

Daniel H. Ingalls, LRG member, developer of BitBlt graphic program and principal developer of Smalltalk Adele Goldberg, LRG member, learning specialist and co-developer of Smalltalk

Ted Kaehler, LRG member, co-developer of Smalltalk and Twang music program

Diana Merry, LRG member and co-developer of Smalltalk Larry Tesler, LRG member, co-designer of Gypsy user-friendly word processing program and first PARC principal scientist to be hired by Apple

John Shoch, LRG member, inventor of the Worm Tim Mott, co-designer of Gypsy

Chris Jeffers, childhood friend of Kays and chief of staff of LRG

Gary Starkweather, inventor of the laser printer Lynn Conway, co-developer (with Carver Mead) of VLSI tools and technology allowing the design of highly complex integrated circuits on silicon chips

Douglas Fairbairn, hardware implementer of POLOS and co-designer (with Tesler) of the Notetaker portable computer Bill English, head of POLOS (PARC On-Line Office System) group, early but unsuccessful multimedia office network Bill Duvall, chief designer of POLOS

David Liddle, head of System Development Division after 1978, supervisor of the development of the Xerox Star, first fully realized commercial version of a PARC computer

Gerald Lucovsky, associate manager (reporting to Pake) David Thornburg, scientist

David Biegelsen, scientist

OPTICAL SCIENCE LABORATORY (AFTER 1973):John C. Urbach, manager

OTHERS:

Max Palevsky, founder of Scientific Data Systems (SDS), sold to Xerox in 1969

Rigdon Currie, chief of sales at SDS

Stewart Brand, founder of the Whole Earth Catalog and author of Spacewar, 1972 article in Rolling Stone that introduced PARC to the general public

Carver Mead, California Institute of Technology professor and co-developer of VLSI tools and technology at PARC

James Clark, principal inventor of the Geometry Engine graphics chip at PARC, founder of Silicon Graphics Inc. and Netscape Communications Corp.

Wesley Clark, pioneering designer of digital computers and consultant to PARC

Steven Jobs, cofounder and chief executive of Apple Computer

May: Xerox purchases Scientific Data Systems for $920million in stock; and its chief scientist, Jack Goldman, submits his proposal for an Advanced Scientific & Systems Laboratory to pursue research in computing and solid-state physics.

July: Alan C. Kays doctoral dissertation, The Reactive Engine, is accepted at the University of Utah; within it are found the seeds of his Dynabook personal computer.

October-December: The ARPANET, precursor to the Internet, becomes formally operational, with four nodes up and running.

January: George Pake accepts the job of director of Xeroxs new lab and persuades Goldman to locate it in Palo Alto, California, near Stanford University.

April: IBM brings out its first office copier, marking the end of Xeroxs historic monopoly and introducing a period of painful retrenchment at Xerox.

July 1: Xerox Palo Alto Research Center officially opens its doors at 3180 Porter Drive. Pake hires Bob Taylor to help him staff the Computer Science Lab.

November 13: Berkeley Computer Company holds its last employee party and shuts its doors. Seven of its most influential engineers, including Butler Lampson, Chuck Thacker, and Peter Deutsch, will sign on to work at PARC.

January: Gary Starkweather is transferred from Rochester to PARC, bringing with him the concept of the laser printer.