Re:Xerox PARC Special
by liendolucas on Thursday July 27, 2023 @07:34AM
(#36891993)
I never get tired of reading the amazing achievements from Xerox PARC, even if it's something I already know. The book mentioned in the post is super-interesting and goes in lots of details and the dynamics between the different teams and people behind the legendary research division, but as Alan Kay (if I'm correct) itself mentioned is quite disorganized in regards to the sequence of events. Nevertheless you don't get bored a single bit. Highly recommended.
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Re:Xerox PARC Special
by jackofalltrades on Thursday July 27, 2023 @10:31AM
(#36894183)
I second this! The first time I heard about the book was somewhere here on Hacker News and I gave it a chance and it was really good (specially because I too am excited about reading everything about what was done in the Xerox PARC).
Re:Xerox PARC Special
by AlbertCory on Thursday July 27, 2023 @11:35AM
(#36895142)
Shameless self-promotion time here.
Once you've read all the facts, you can go beyond them and plunge yourself into that world, not knowing how it's going to turn out! Like we didn't at the time:
https://www.albertcory.io/inventing-the-future
I had the cooperation of almost everyone who's still alive. The Jobs visit isn't in there "live" since I wasn't there. The truth is, most of us didn't even hear about it until months later.
As for Ethernet, the lightning incident really happened pretty much as I described. Ron Crane's widow loved it and said she hadn't thought so much about him since he passed. You can see him in one of the earlier Ethernet videos (he passed in 2003, IIRC).
A close family member worked there and was a part of all the magic. I love picking his brain and getting the inside story about things that happened there. Very fascinating to hear his take on why it all worked so well.
He influenced me to be into computers as a kid and eventually go into tech.