

How PARC Saved Xerox - ranit
http://www.forbes.com/sites/gregsatell/2015/03/21/how-parc-saved-xerox/

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msane
If you're a computer person who grew up in the 80's or 90's, you probably
understand a lot about the history of the industry, especially on Apple,
Microsoft and the internet. But if you happen to know only a little about PARC
and SRI International you would do yourself a huge service to spend some time
on youtube around those subjects. Most of what happened over those decades was
started in those circles.

~~~
jmspring
A lot of us living in the Bay Area at the time saw a lot of dynamic research
some of which through apple, etc was commercialized, some through the
companies them selves. Ibm almaden and HP research had a lot going on at the
time as well.

~~~
fit2rule
I remember the advances being made by companies like Wang and MIPS in the 80's
and early 90's - things which seem so foreign and distant today, yet still
we're working towards them. Wang, for example, had some amazing
document/image-management features which are still yet to be realized in the
modern era. When I think about all the tech that Wang put into making a decent
system, how it was all taken for granted - and subsequently lost as new
markets emerged to ruin the company - its astonishing!

It makes me wonder what sort of things we're taking for granted today which
will be re-invented in the decades to come, spiced up with a bit of marketing-
boy fairy dust, and rolled out to the masses for consumption.

------
zem
i highly recommend michael hiltzik's "dealers of lightning"
[[http://www.amazon.com/Dealers-Lightning-Xerox-PARC-
Computer/...](http://www.amazon.com/Dealers-Lightning-Xerox-PARC-
Computer/dp/0887309895)]. it's one of the two best history of computing books
i've read (tied with katie hafner's "where wizards stay up late")

