Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) and the Computing Innovators

In 1984, Apple Computers released the Macintosh. It was one of the first modern personal computers, and featured a graphic user interface (GUI)-a more friendly way of computer input that, when paired with the mouse, made the Macintosh one of the first consumer-friendly machines. Sales of the computer started off strong, with more than 70,000 sold within six months of release (1). More importantly, it established Apple as a dominant figure in the computer industry, a title it has only recently reclaimed.

What many do not realize, however, is that many of the advances and new ground broken by the Mac weren't exactly new. Many were based on technologies developed by Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center, or PARC. PARC was created as a division of Xerox Corporation in 1970; Chief Scientist at Xerox Jack Goldman had approached physicist Dr. George Pake of Washington University about founding a second research center the previous year. PARC's location on Palo Alto was geographically removed from the main corporate headquarters, establishing a level of autonomy for those employed at the labs.

Thus established, PARC grew throughout the 1970s, but some of its most significant inventions and developments were in the area of computing and computer science. One development was the laser printer, which even today are fast and higher-quality than inkjet or consumer printers available now. In tandem, they produced InterPress, a resolution-independent page description language that would inspire the now-common PostScript language used for high-end printing and desktop publishing. PARC also developed prototypes for Ethernet between 1972 and 1975; this networking scheme was standardized in 1985 and even today is used for low latency local area networks and transmission of internet and information (2).

Three innovations, however, stand out in how much they changed everything. The first was the development of bitmap (raster) two-dimensional graphics. The second was an implementation of those graphics in a graphic user interface, the first GUI. It's hard to overstate the impact this had. Before GUIs, people communicated with computers and input data either by old methods such as punch cards and stacks, or via a command line. Either way, it required arcane knowledge of commands in a non-user friendly manner. It made computers the sole realm of geeks and technology fans.

A GUI, meanwhile, opened the computer world to consumers and the "average joe", in the process creating the language we still use in our chosen operating systems-folders, files, saving, deleting, and renaming files. The final big feature was a pointing device to navigate the new GUI-no more keyboard commands necessary. That pointing device was a mouse, created by Bill English in 1972. Many mice had used balls for scrolling beforehand, but English perfected the first iteration of the trackball mice people used for decades before optical mice replaced them (3).

All these features combined in the Alto, essentially the prototypical PC. It used raster graphics for its GUI, and came with a "what you see is what you get" (WYSIWYG) text editor. It had a three button mouse and a black-and-white monitor that looks strange to us today because it was oriented in portrait style, rather than landscape. It even featured an email client, decades before the standard and the world wide web brought it to the masses.

Despite its advanced technology and design, Xerox did not capitalize on the technologies of the Alto. One of the reasons was that the same distance that gave PARC its engineers great freedom also meant corporate was wary of their inventions (4). In fact, in exchange for a pre-IPO chance at Apple stock, Apple staff came in and saw elements of the Alto. Apple cofounder Steve Jobs was impressed by the WYSIWYG, mouse-driven interface of the Alto and promptly adapted them to the ill-fated Lisa and more successful Macintosh computers (5).

Eventually, Xerox realized it had essentially handed the keys to success to another company, and began producing its own workstations, the most successful of which was the Xerox Star line. The problem, however, was simply that they had waited too long. The Macintosh retailed for the then-unheard of price of $2,000-2,500-amazingly affordable for the hardware limitations of the time. In the Macintosh's wake came a flood of cheaper, consumer-oriented PCs. Xerox could not compete with its more expensive stations and eventually left the business altogether.

Today, PARC is a wholly owned subsidiary of Xerox. It continues research into computing, user interfaces, as well as biomedical technologies and intelligent systems. Its contributions to the world of computing are well-recognized, but it is interesting to wonder how much different the world might be if PARC's research was put into use by Xerox-perhaps we might be living in a world dominated not by Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, but Xerox.

References
* (1) Polsson, Ken (2010). "Chronology of Apple Personal Computers". IslandNet. Accessed April 30, 2010.
* (2) "Ethernet Prototype Circuit Board". National Museum of American History. Accessed April 30, 2010.
* (3) Byte, [Issue no. 9] (1981), pp. 58-68
* (4) Smith, Douglass; Robert C. Alexander (1988). Fumbling the Future: How Xerox Invented, Then Ignored, the First Personal Computer (New York: William Morrow).
* (5) "Triumph of the Nerds (Transcript)". PBS. Accessed April 29, 2010.

Further Reading
*Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age-Michael A. Hiltzik
*Art and Innovation: The Xerox PARC Artist-in-Residence Program-Craig Harris