After buying SDS, Peter McCollough, Chairman of Xerox determined that Xerox need a research organization which focused on digital and related technologies. He established the Palo Alto Research Center which quickly became known as PARC, not just in Xerox but in the broader technology world as well.
George Pake was hired as director of PARC, reporting to Jack Goldman, Sr. VP of R & D at Xerox. Pake then hired many well-known researchers from UC Berkley, including ones i knew from getting the 940 computer launched: Jerry Elkind, Peter Deutsch, Butler Lamson. Park developed many innovations, including the laser printer, powerful personal workstations, lots of software.
Unfortunately, there was little effort between XDS and PARC. Though the laser printer was a very successful product for Xerox, Apple was the main beneficiary. This was the result of a visit boy Steve Jobs, during which he “borrowed” and licensed many of the PARC ideas: McIntosh computer was the first intelligent workstation in the market, inexpensive laser printers, PostScript
As one of the few XDS people interested in what was going on at PARC, I met quite a few of their researchers: both Sutherland brothers, Ivan and Bert; Alan Kay, Chuck Thacker, Bob
Metcalf, Geoge Warnock, Chuck Geschke. Steve jobs was smart enough to hire several PARC people at Apple and particularly Alan Kay who gets a lot of credit for the MacIntosh.
Several these PARC people went on to found very successful companies: Warnock and Geschke at Adobe (Postscript), Metcalf at 3Com, and others.
Heady days indeed!
Guy who started other company to
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