Tag Archives: Xerox

Review: The Innovator’s

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Written by Steve Jobs Biographer Walter Isaacson this book takes a look at how we got to now in the computing world. Starting with Ada Lovelace and ending with the pair of Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Isaacson covers dozens of the people that have enabled our world to be what it is today. He came to an non-intuitive result throughout his research, the lone inventor didn’t exist. He found that the most successful company or organization actually had a mixture of personalities and passions leading to success. His history is full of the men and women that made computing happen. Interestingly, it wasn’t until the 70’s and 80’s that women were no longer prominent in the history of computing. This is unfortunate as many of their contributions are still crucial to software development today. COBOL, subroutines, and most of the rules around software development were developed by women working either in the Navy or at some of the institutions that partnered with the military.

Much of this book was not new to me as I had read the history of Bell Labs and the history of Xerox PARC however a great deal of the book was news to me. He didn’t completely focus on the US even though a great deal of the history of computing took place here. He also explored the impact of the Germans, the British, and a bit of the Chinese.

If you’re a fan of computers and like the history of technology this book is definitely for you. Isaacson discusses the culture of the organizations that allowed technology to flourish (Intel) and the types of environments where it did not (Shockley Semiconductor). How no company created anything in a vacuum and that many ideas are, in fact, independently co-created.

Technology is a messy collaborative thing that could have been very different depending how just a few changes. Without collaboration, risk taking, and some big personalities we wouldn’t have the computers we have today.

Technology obsessive culture leads to product worshiping

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Apparently, today is the 30th year since the Macintosh computer was introduced. All over the internet was a big masturbatory fest over this great achievement. Honestly, I don’t really give two shits. Quite frankly, I don’t think that it really changed everything and anything – similarly I don’t think that the iPhone did. In both of these cases the technology had been in the market, it just required the right type of interface or marketing. It’s well known that there were a lot of similarities between the work that was being done at Xerox PARC and at Apple. In fact, Steve Jobs went to visit and learned a lot about what the computer gods of Xerox were doing. Did he steal ideas from there? No, but I’m sure that his ideas were enhanced and improved because of his visit. Similarly to the way that his ideas were enhanced and improved by all the competition to the iPod including the Palm Pilots, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile and so on.

Apple was the first to market for really easy to use printing interfaces as well as type faces. However, at the same time that Apple came out with their product, Adobe was developing their similar product which was a spin off from Xerox. Similar, Microsoft Office was developed by an ex-Xerox employee.

Did the Macintosh change things? It’s likely from a design perspective more than anything as both Windows and Apple’s operating system were similar to the Xerox operating system. What happened, why did Apple succeed and change things and not Xerox? Because Xerox didn’t know what to do with what they had. Apple, coming from a different perspective, different cost structure and different corporate culture, was able to move into the market with only competition from IBM. IBM was a business first company and didn’t really understand the market they were helping to develop. This is why IBM wasn’t able to dominate the market the way they did in the minicomputer and mainframe days – in fact, IBM has completely exited the x86 market. Because of IBM’s business decisions we now have Microsoft and Intel (and others of course).

We idolize the great personalities and the beginning of a new technology. But the movement and technology wasn’t created by Apple even though they get the credit. Apple did do great work, they helped to shape an early portion of the computer age, but the introduction of a specific product only notes a specific point in the total arc of that technology. Computers went racing on by, new ways to interface with computers have emerged and were even invented before the Macintosh was released.

The Macintosh was certainly was a high mark at the time and was a great introduction to many people to the greater opportunity of computing. It allowed more people to access computers. I know that I used a version of Macintosh while I was growing up in elementary school, however at home we never owned a Mac, we only ever owned PCs while I was growing up. The Mac was already on the way out by the early 90s, which at the time was fairly fast, considering the quick ramp of computer since then.

Should we honor the Mac? No more than we should honor the first Palm, Blackberry or Android phone. I fully expect the iPhone will be honored as much or more in 3 years when the iPhone hits ten.

Review: Dealers of Lightning Story of Xerox PARC

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This is the Third historical book written about a business. The first was the history of Bell Labs and compared to that book, this was a wild ride in terms of organization. It would bounce back and forth over the span of ten years, while Idea Factory (Bell Labs book) was a stately possession moving forward with time. I believe that the major difference was that while a lot was happening at Bell Labs, it wasn’t crammed into 10 years. It occurred over 40 years or more, which allowed the author to pick and choose the people to follow. In Dealers of Lightning so much was happening at the same time with the same people and unique people that it forced the author to jump backwards and forwards through time.

Despite that, it really made me realize how much we owe to PARC researchers in the 70’s for technology we have today. If you’re using a tablet, one of the very first visionaries that created that concept was Alan Kay, he first envisioned it in the 60’s and from what was described in the book, the iPad is pretty much true to his vision. Amazing to be honest.

Here’s a list of things they made:
Object Oriented Programming
Ethernet
The First mass produced PC
The predecessor to Word
The original Desktop
VLSI, what has enabled the development of basically every semiconductor chip
The first Graphics Chip
Copy, Cut, and Paste
The right click
First Laser Printer
The predecessor to Postscript (Adobe)
A piece of software where you could edit text and pictures at the same time
A computer in 1982 that had 6000 Japanese characters and could type in 100+ languages and it’s capabilities wouldn’t be match again until the 90’s

Dramatically influenced Apple, Microsoft, 3Com (Metcalfe founded this after leaving PARC), Adobe (2 PARC researchers founded this), and many other companies.

Xerox was a visionary company to fund a research agency like PARC. PARC was likely one of the last of its kind as well. There are very few companies that have a similar branch of research facilities that push basic and applied scientific research. I suggest reading this book, just so it helps you understand where the technology we all use and love came from.

I give this book 4/5. Well researched, great topic, difficult to write because of the concurrent activities.