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Xerox PARC



 
 
PARC (Palo Alto Research Center, Inc.), formerly Xerox PARC, is a research and development
Research and development

The phrase research and development , according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, refers to "creative work undertaken on a systematic basis in order to increase the stock of knowledge, including knowledge of man, culture and society, and the use of this stock of knowledge to devise new applications [sic]" ...
 company in Palo Alto, California
Palo Alto, California

Palo Alto is a California charter city located in the northwest corner of Santa Clara County, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, United States....
 with a distinguished reputation for its contributions to information technology.

Founded in 1970 as a division of Xerox Corporation, PARC has been responsible for such well known and important developments as laser printing, the Ethernet
Ethernet

Ethernet is a family of Data frame-based computer networking technologies for local area networks . The name comes from the physical concept of the Luminiferous aether....
, the modern personal computer
Personal computer

A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose original sales price, size, and capabilities make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end user, with no intervening computer operator....
 graphical user interface
Graphical user interface

A graphical user interface is a type of user interface which allows people to human-computer interaction such as computers; hand-held devices such as MP3 Players, Portable Media Players or Gaming devices; household appliances and office equipment....
 (GUI), ubiquitous computing
Ubiquitous computing

Ubiquitous computing is a post-desktop model of human-computer interaction in which information processing has been thoroughly integrated into everyday objects and activities....
, and advancing very-large-scale-integration
Very-large-scale integration

Very-large-scale integration is the process of creating integrated circuits by combining thousands of transistor-based circuits into a single chip....
 (VLSI).

Incorporated as a wholly owned subsidiary of Xerox in 2002, PARC currently conducts research into biomedical technologies
Health science

Health science is the applied science dealing with health, and it includes many subdisciplines. See also List of academic disciplines#Health sciences....
, "clean technology", user interface
User interface

The user interface is the aggregate of means by which people—the User s—Interaction with the system—a particular machine, device, computer program or other complex tools....
 design, sensemaking
Sensemaking

Sensemaking is the ability or attempt to make sense of an ambiguous situation. More exactly, sensemaking is the process of creating situational awareness and understanding in situations of high complexity or uncertainty in order to make decisions....
, ubiquitous computing
Ubiquitous computing

Ubiquitous computing is a post-desktop model of human-computer interaction in which information processing has been thoroughly integrated into everyday objects and activities....
, large area electronics, and embedded and intelligent systems.

969, Chief Scientist at Xerox Jack Goldman
Jack Goldman

Jack Goldman is an United States physicist and former Chief Scientist of Xerox Corporation. He is especially notable for hiring physicist Dr. George Pake to create the Xerox PARC....
 approached Dr. George Pake
George Pake

George Pake was a physicist and research executive primarily known for helping found Xerox PARC. Pake earned his bachelors and masters degrees from the Carnegie Institute of Technology and his doctorate in physics at Harvard University in 1948....
, a physicist
Physicist

A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many Physics#Major fields of physics spanning all length scales: from atom particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole ....
 specializing in nuclear magnetic resonance
Nuclear magnetic resonance

Nuclear magnetic resonance is the name given to a physical resonance phenomenon involving the observation of specific quantum mechanics magnetism properties of an atomic atomic nucleus in the presence of an applied, external magnetic field....
 and provost
Provost (education)

Provost is the title of a senior academic administrator at many institutions of higher education in the United States and Canada. It is the equivalent of Deputy Vice Chancellor or Pro-Vice-Chancellor at certain institutions in United Kingdom and Ireland such as Trinity College Dublin, and the head of certain ancient colleges ....
 of Washington University, about founding and generously funding a second research center for the company.

Dr. Pake selected Palo Alto, California, as the site of what was to become known as PARC.






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Parcentrance
PARC (Palo Alto Research Center, Inc.), formerly Xerox PARC, is a research and development
Research and development

The phrase research and development , according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, refers to "creative work undertaken on a systematic basis in order to increase the stock of knowledge, including knowledge of man, culture and society, and the use of this stock of knowledge to devise new applications [sic]" ...
 company in Palo Alto, California
Palo Alto, California

Palo Alto is a California charter city located in the northwest corner of Santa Clara County, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, United States....
 with a distinguished reputation for its contributions to information technology.

Founded in 1970 as a division of Xerox Corporation, PARC has been responsible for such well known and important developments as laser printing, the Ethernet
Ethernet

Ethernet is a family of Data frame-based computer networking technologies for local area networks . The name comes from the physical concept of the Luminiferous aether....
, the modern personal computer
Personal computer

A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose original sales price, size, and capabilities make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end user, with no intervening computer operator....
 graphical user interface
Graphical user interface

A graphical user interface is a type of user interface which allows people to human-computer interaction such as computers; hand-held devices such as MP3 Players, Portable Media Players or Gaming devices; household appliances and office equipment....
 (GUI), ubiquitous computing
Ubiquitous computing

Ubiquitous computing is a post-desktop model of human-computer interaction in which information processing has been thoroughly integrated into everyday objects and activities....
, and advancing very-large-scale-integration
Very-large-scale integration

Very-large-scale integration is the process of creating integrated circuits by combining thousands of transistor-based circuits into a single chip....
 (VLSI).

Incorporated as a wholly owned subsidiary of Xerox in 2002, PARC currently conducts research into biomedical technologies
Health science

Health science is the applied science dealing with health, and it includes many subdisciplines. See also List of academic disciplines#Health sciences....
, "clean technology", user interface
User interface

The user interface is the aggregate of means by which people—the User s—Interaction with the system—a particular machine, device, computer program or other complex tools....
 design, sensemaking
Sensemaking

Sensemaking is the ability or attempt to make sense of an ambiguous situation. More exactly, sensemaking is the process of creating situational awareness and understanding in situations of high complexity or uncertainty in order to make decisions....
, ubiquitous computing
Ubiquitous computing

Ubiquitous computing is a post-desktop model of human-computer interaction in which information processing has been thoroughly integrated into everyday objects and activities....
, large area electronics, and embedded and intelligent systems.

History

In 1969, Chief Scientist at Xerox Jack Goldman
Jack Goldman

Jack Goldman is an United States physicist and former Chief Scientist of Xerox Corporation. He is especially notable for hiring physicist Dr. George Pake to create the Xerox PARC....
 approached Dr. George Pake
George Pake

George Pake was a physicist and research executive primarily known for helping found Xerox PARC. Pake earned his bachelors and masters degrees from the Carnegie Institute of Technology and his doctorate in physics at Harvard University in 1948....
, a physicist
Physicist

A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many Physics#Major fields of physics spanning all length scales: from atom particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole ....
 specializing in nuclear magnetic resonance
Nuclear magnetic resonance

Nuclear magnetic resonance is the name given to a physical resonance phenomenon involving the observation of specific quantum mechanics magnetism properties of an atomic atomic nucleus in the presence of an applied, external magnetic field....
 and provost
Provost (education)

Provost is the title of a senior academic administrator at many institutions of higher education in the United States and Canada. It is the equivalent of Deputy Vice Chancellor or Pro-Vice-Chancellor at certain institutions in United Kingdom and Ireland such as Trinity College Dublin, and the head of certain ancient colleges ....
 of Washington University, about founding and generously funding a second research center for the company.

Dr. Pake selected Palo Alto, California, as the site of what was to become known as PARC. While the 3,000 mile buffer between it and Xerox headquarters in New York afforded scientists at the new lab great freedom to undertake their work, time was to prove the distance also served as something of an impediment to the researchers' ability to persuade management of the promise of some of their greatest achievements.

PARC's West Coast location proved to be proptitous in the mid-'70s when the lab was able to hire many employees of the nearby SRI
Sri

Sri, Shri, Shree, Siri or Seri is a Sanskrit title of veneration. It is an honorific stemming from the Puranic conception of prosperity and frequently used in Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism....
 Augmentation Research Center
Augmentation Research Center

Stanford Research Institute's Augmentation Research Center was founded by electrical engineer Douglas Engelbart to develop and experiment with new tools and techniques for collaboration and information processing....
 when that facility's funding from DARPA, NASA
NASA

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an agency of the Federal government of the United States, responsible for the nation's public list of space agencies....
, and the U.S. Air Force began to diminish.

Much of PARC's early success in the computer field followed from the inspired leadership of its Computer Science Laboratory manager Bob Taylor
Robert Taylor (computer scientist)

Robert W. Taylor was director of Advanced Research Projects Agency's Information Processing Techniques Office , founder and later manager of Xerox PARC's Computer Science Laboratory , and founder and manager of Digital Equipment Corporation's DEC Systems Research Center ....
, who guided the lab as associate manager from 1970–77 and as manager 1977–83.

PARC today

After two decades as a division of Xerox, PARC was transformed in 2002 into a wholly owned subsidiary company dedicated to developing and maturing advances in science and business concepts with the support of commercial sponsors and clients.

As of 2004, Xerox remained the company's largest customer, but PARC had also announced a multi-year relationship with Fujitsu
Fujitsu

is a Japanese company specializing in semiconductors, air conditioners, computers , telecommunications, and Service , and is headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Tokyo....
 and an entrance into biomedical sciences in partnership with the Scripps Research Institute of La Jolla, CA.

Among the fields PARC currently conducts research into are: biomedical technologies
Health science

Health science is the applied science dealing with health, and it includes many subdisciplines. See also List of academic disciplines#Health sciences....
, "clean technology", user interface
User interface

The user interface is the aggregate of means by which people—the User s—Interaction with the system—a particular machine, device, computer program or other complex tools....
 design, sensemaking
Sensemaking

Sensemaking is the ability or attempt to make sense of an ambiguous situation. More exactly, sensemaking is the process of creating situational awareness and understanding in situations of high complexity or uncertainty in order to make decisions....
, ubiquitous computing
Ubiquitous computing

Ubiquitous computing is a post-desktop model of human-computer interaction in which information processing has been thoroughly integrated into everyday objects and activities....
, large area electronics, and embedded and intelligent systems.

Accomplishments

In addition to developing the laser printer
Laser printer

A laser printer is a common type of computer printer that rapidly produces high quality text and graphics on plain paper. As with digital photocopiers and multifunction printers , laser printers employ a Xerography printing process but differ from analog photocopiers in that the image is produced by the direct scanning of a laser beam acros...
, PARC has been the incubator of many elements of modern personal computing including:
  • Computer generated bitmap
    Bitmap

    In computer graphics, a bitmap or pixmap is a type of computer storage organization or used to store digital images. The term bitmap comes from the computer programming terminology, meaning just a map of bits, a spatially mapped bit array....
     graphics
  • Graphical user interface
    Graphical user interface

    A graphical user interface is a type of user interface which allows people to human-computer interaction such as computers; hand-held devices such as MP3 Players, Portable Media Players or Gaming devices; household appliances and office equipment....
     featuring windows and icons
  • WYSIWYG
    WYSIWYG

    WYSIWYG , is an acronym for What You See Is What You Get, used in computing to describe a system in which content displayed during editing appears very similar to the final output, which might be a printed document, web page, slide presentation or even the lighting for a theatrical event....
     text editor
  • InterPress
    InterPress

    InterPress is a page description language developed at Xerox PARC, based on the Forth and an earlier graphics language called JaM. As with many PARC projects, Interpress was not commercialized at its time of creation, and its primary effect on the world was to cause some of its creators to get fed up, form their own company, and publish the...
     (a resolution-independent graphical page description language and the precursor to PostScript
    PostScript

    PostScript is a dynamically typed concatenative programming language programming language created by John Warnock and Charles Geschke in 1982. PostScript is best known for its use as a page description language in the electronic and desktop publishing areas....
    )
  • Ethernet
    Ethernet

    Ethernet is a family of Data frame-based computer networking technologies for local area networks . The name comes from the physical concept of the Luminiferous aether....
  • Fully formed object-oriented programming
    Object-oriented programming

    Object-oriented programming is a programming paradigm that uses "Object_" and their interactions to design applications and computer programs....
     in the Smalltalk programming language and integrated development environment.


The Alto

Most of these developments were included in the Alto
Xerox Alto

The Xerox Alto was an early personal computer developed at Xerox PARC in 1973. It was the first computer to use the desktop metaphor and graphical user interface ....
, which added the now familiar SRI-developed mouse unifying into a single model most aspects of now-standard personal computer use.

The GUI

Xerox has been heavily criticized (particularly by business historians) for failing to properly commercialize and profitably exploit PARC's innovations. A favorite example is the GUI, initially developed at PARC for the Alto and then commercialized as the Xerox Star
Xerox Star

The Star workstation, officially known as the Xerox 8010 Information System, was introduced by Xerox Corporation in 1981. It was the first commercial system to incorporate various technologies that today have become commonplace in personal computers, including a raster graphics display, a window-based graphical user interface, icon , f...
 by the Xerox Systems Development Department. Although very significant in terms of its influence on future system design, it is deemed a failure because it only sold approximately 25,000 units. A small group from PARC led by David Liddle and Charles Irby formed Metaphor Computer Systems
Metaphor Computer Systems

Metaphor Computer Systems 1982-1994A Xerox PARC spin-off that created an advanced workstation, database gateway, a unique graphical office interface, and software applications that communicate....
. They extended the Star desktop concept into an animated graphic and communicating office automation model and sold the company to IBM.

Adoption by Apple
The first successful commercial GUI product was the Apple Macintosh, which was heavily inspired by PARC's work; Xerox was given Apple stock in exchange for engineer visits and an understanding that Apple would create a GUI product. Much later, in the midst of the Apple v. Microsoft lawsuit in which Apple accused Microsoft of violating its copyright by appropriating the use of the "look and feel" of the Macintosh GUI, Xerox also sued Apple on the same grounds. The lawsuit was dismissed because Xerox had waited too long to file suit, and the statute of limitations had expired.

Distinguished Researchers

Among PARC's distinguished researchers were two Turing Award
Turing Award

The A. M. Turing Award is given annually by the Association for Computing Machinery to "an individual selected for contributions of a technical nature made to the computing community....
 winners: Butler W. Lampson (1992) and Alan Kay
Alan Kay

Alan Curtis Kay is an United States computer scientist, known for his early pioneering work on object-oriented programming and Window graphical user interface design....
 (2003). The ACM
Association for Computing Machinery

The Association for Computing Machinery, or ACM, was founded in 1947 as the world's first scientific and educational computing society. Its membership was approximately 83,000 as of 2007....
 Software System Award recognized the Alto system in 1984, Smalltalk
Smalltalk

Smalltalk is an Object-oriented programming, Type system, reflection computer programming programming language. Smalltalk was created as the language to underpin the "new world" of computing exemplified by "human?computer symbiosis." It was designed and created in part for educational use, more so for constructionist learning, at PARC by Al...
 in 1987, InterLisp
Interlisp

Interlisp was a programming environment built around a version of the Lisp programming language. Interlisp development began in 1967 at Bolt, Beranek and Newman in Cambridge, Massachusetts as BBN LISP, which ran on PDP-10 machines running the TENEX operating system....
 in 1992, and Remote Procedure Call
Remote procedure call

Remote procedure call is an Inter-process communication technology that allows a computer program to cause a subroutine or procedure to execute in another address space without the programmer explicitly coding the details for this remote interaction....
 in 1994. Lampson, Kay, Bob Taylor, and Charles P. Thacker
Charles P. Thacker

Charles P. Thacker is a technical fellow and computer pioneer.Thacker worked in the 1970s and 1980s at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center , where he served as project leader of the Xerox Alto personal computer system, was co-inventor of the Ethernet LAN, and contributed to many other projects, including the first laser printer....
 received the National Academy of Engineering
National Academy of Engineering

The United States National Academy of Engineering is a private, non-profit institution which was founded in 1964, under the same congressional act that led to the founding of the United States National Academy of Sciences, signed by Abraham Lincoln, in 1863....
's prestigious Charles Stark Draper Prize
Charles Stark Draper Prize

The National Academy of Engineering awards annually the Charles Stark Draper Prize, which is given for the advancement of engineering and the education of the public about engineering....
 in 2004 for their work on the Alto.

Other influential PARC figures

  • Stuart Card
    Stuart Card

    Stuart K. Card is an American researcher. He is a Senior Research Fellow at Xerox PARC and one of the pioneers of applying human factors in human-computer interaction....
  • Lynn Conway
    Lynn Conway

    Lynn Conway is an United States computer science, electrical engineering, inventor, transwoman, and activist for the transsexual community.Conway is notable for several technical achievements, including the Mead & Conway revolution in VLSI design, which incubated an emerging electronic design automation industry....
  • Charles Geschke
    Charles Geschke

    Charles M. "Chuck" Geschke is best known as the co-founder with John Warnock of Adobe Systems Inc., the graphics and publishing software company, in 1982....
  • Bruce Horn
    Bruce Horn

    Bruce Lawrence Horn, a programmer with Apple Computer, was the creator of the Macintosh Finder and the Resource fork. His signature is amongst those molded to the case of the Macintosh 128K....
  • Robert Metcalfe
    Robert Metcalfe

    Robert Melancton Metcalfe is an electrical engineer from the United States who co-invented Ethernet, founded 3Com and formulated Metcalfe's law....
  • Thomas P. Moran
    Thomas P. Moran

    Thomas P. Moran is a Distinguished Engineer at the IBM Almaden Research Center near San Jose, California. He has been active in the field of human computer interaction for a long time....
  • Randy Pausch
    Randy Pausch

    Randolph Frederick Pausch was an American professor of computer science and human-computer interaction and design at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania....
  • George G. Robertson
    George G. Robertson

    George G. Robertson is an American information visualization expert and Senior Researcher, Visualization and Interaction Research Group, Microsoft Research....
  • Charles Simonyi
    Charles Simonyi

    Charles Simonyi is a Hungary computer software executive who, as head of Microsoft's application software group, oversaw the creation of Microsoft Office....
  • John Warnock
    John Warnock

    John Warnock is an American computer scientist best known as the co-founder with Charles Geschke of Adobe Systems Inc., the graphics and publishing software company....


PARC Legacy

PARC's developments in information technology have had great long-term impact. Once the merits of interfaces and technology pioneered by PARC became widely known they evolved into standards for much of the computing industry. Many advances were not equalled or surpassed for two decades, enormous timespans in the fast-paced high tech world.

While there is some truth that Xerox management failed to see the potential of many of PARC's inventions, it is an over-simplification to generalize. The larger reality is that computing research was a relatively small part of PARC's operation. Its materials scientists
Materials science

Materials science or materials engineering is an interdisciplinary field involving the properties of matter and its applications to various areas of science and engineering....
 pioneered LCD
Liquid crystal display

A liquid crystal display is an Electro-optic modulator shaped into a thin, flat panel made up of any number of color or monochrome pixels filled with liquid crystals and arrayed in front of a Light#Light sources or reflector....
 and optical disc
Optical disc

In computing, sound reproduction, and video, an optical disc is a flat, circular disc wherein Data is stored in the pits in its flat surface ? sequentially on the continuous, spiral track extending from the innermost track to the outermost track, covering the entire disc surface....
 technologies, others invented laser printing, each of which proved great successes when introduced to the business and consumer marketplaces.

While not of the same order, the oft-overlooked work at PARC since the early 1980s includes some noteworthy advances in ubiquitous computing
Ubiquitous computing

Ubiquitous computing is a post-desktop model of human-computer interaction in which information processing has been thoroughly integrated into everyday objects and activities....
, aspect-oriented programming
Aspect-oriented programming

Aspect-oriented programming is a programming paradigm that increases Modularity by allowing the separation of concerns cross-cutting concerns, forming a basis for Aspect-oriented software development....
, and IPv6
IPv6

Internet Protocol version 6 is the next-generation Internet layer protocol for packet -switched internetworking and the Internet. IPv4 is the dominant Internet Protocol version, and was the first to receive widespread use....
.

Further reading

  • Michael A. Hiltzik, Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age (HarperCollins, New York, 1999) ISBN 0-88730-989-5
  • Douglas K. Smith, Robert C. Alexander, Fumbling the Future: How Xerox Invented, Then Ignored, the First Personal Computer (William Morrow, New York, 1988) ISBN 1-58348-266-0
  • M. Mitchell Waldrop, The Dream Machine: J.C.R. Licklider and the Revolution That Made Computing Personal (Viking Penguin, New York, 2001) ISBN 0-670-89976-3
  • Howard Rheingold
    Howard Rheingold

    Howard Rheingold is a critic and writer; his specialties are on the cultural, social and political implications of modern communication media such as the Internet, mobile telephony and virtual community ....
    , Tools for Thought
    Tools for Thought

    Tools for Thought: The History and Future of Mind-Expanding Technology is a work of "retrospective futurism" in which Smart Mobs author Howard Rheingold looked at the history of computing and then attempted to predict what the networked world might look like in the mid-1990s....
     (MIT Press
    MIT Press

    The MIT Press is a university press affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts ....
    , 2000) ISBN 0-262-68115-3


External links

  • Charles Babbage Institute
    Charles Babbage Institute

    The Charles Babbage Institute is a research center at the University of Minnesota specializing in the history of information technology, particularly the history since 1935 of digital computing, programming/software, and computer networking....
    , University of Minnesota, Minneapolis
  • Charles Babbage Institute
    Charles Babbage Institute

    The Charles Babbage Institute is a research center at the University of Minnesota specializing in the history of information technology, particularly the history since 1935 of digital computing, programming/software, and computer networking....
    , University of Minnesota, Minneapolis
  • Charles Babbage Institute
    Charles Babbage Institute

    The Charles Babbage Institute is a research center at the University of Minnesota specializing in the history of information technology, particularly the history since 1935 of digital computing, programming/software, and computer networking....
    , University of Minnesota, Minneapolis