| BUSINESSWEEK ONLINE : MAY 17, 1999 ISSUE | ||||||||
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| BOOKS
The Unsung Heroes of the PC Age DEALERS OF LIGHTNING Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age By Michael Hiltzik HarperBusiness 448pp $26 Try to remember a world without notebook computers, desktop monitors with colorful screens, or mice. A time when there's no E-mail because the Internet has only four connections--three in California and one in Utah. When the epitome of office automation is Xerox Corp.'s 914 copier, the cash-cow capstone to the company's 15-year monopoly on xerography. We're not talking ancient history here. That was how it was just 30 years ago. Then, Xerox founded its Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in 1970. Almost overnight, its few dozen scientists, engineers, and Young Turks breathed life into many of the computer and networking technologies that we now take for granted. PARC's sudden emergence as the lodestone for computer science is engagingly chronicled by Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Hiltzik in Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age. Hiltzik writes about technology for the Los Angeles Times and obviously knows his bits and bytes. But his book isn't just a tale of silicon and software. It's more a series of portraits of the remarkable people who made it happen--and the political intrigues that almost shut PARC down in the mid-1970s. (The bickering at Xerox was why it capitalized on so few of PARC's breakthroughs, as detailed by Douglas K. Smith and Robert C. Alexander in their 1988 book, Fumbling the Future.) One by one, Hiltzik introduces the cast of 40-odd movers and shakers who shaped PARC into the soul of a new dream--starting with Robert W. Taylor, PARC's cowboy ''impresario of computer science.'' In the 1960s, Taylor had worked for the Pentagon's Advanced Research Projects Agency (the word Defense was put on the front of ARPA's name in 1969). Taylor dispensed the ARPA largesse that created the graduate programs in computer science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and other schools. In 1966, he also launched development of the ARPAnet, the forerunner of the Internet. As a result, he became a patron saint to many of the researchers who were plotting the future of digital technology. That made Taylor Xerox' top pick to recruit staffers at PARC, and he signed on in 1970. Among those he quickly hired was Alan C. Kay, who would be the visionary philosopher at PARC and later at Apple Computer Inc. In a day when computers were huge, expensive machines that only companies and governments could afford, Kay imagined booksize units for Jane and Joe Smith and their kids. Another renowned alumnus is Robert M. Metcalf, who invented Ethernet--a way of linking computers into networks--and used it to co-found 3Com Corp. in 1979. It was at PARC that James H. Clark designed his Geometry Engine chip, which led to his founding Silicon Graphics Inc. in 1982. Then there's Lynn A. Conway, now a professor at the University of Michigan. Her software breakthrough for designing chips powered the semiconductor explosion in the wake of Intel Corp.'s unveiling of the first dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) in 1970, the year before it marketed the microprocessor. In addition, Dealers of Lightning traces the contributions of many less-famous pioneers who blazed high-tech trails in the 1970s--such as Charles P. Thacker, head designer of the Alto, the first graphics-oriented computer, and Ron Rider, whose work laid the foundation for laser printers. Along the way, Hiltzik delights his readers with many fresh insights. Examples: For a while, when PARC was building its PCs, it was Intel's biggest DRAM customer. The first computer virus was written by John F. Shoch, not in order to create havoc but as a way of testing PARC's Ethernet network. And PARC's networking gurus were the Deep Throat sources who guided the incubation of the TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol), which hatched in 1974 and is still the basis for exchanging data over the Internet. Capping PARC's first decade was the legendary 1979 visit by Steven P. Jobs. That's when he saw the Alto and promptly appropriated many of its innovations for the Macintosh. Hiltzik throws new light on that as well. But no hints about that here. It'll be a treat for anyone with even a passing interest in the origins of today's siliconized culture, since Hiltzik goes easy on geekspeak. PARC's amazing spurt of inventiveness in the 1970s might be a harbinger of more good news coming in the 2000s. Microsoft Corp. has been gearing up to pull off a repeat of PARC's example. Just as Bob Taylor did in the 1970s, Microsoft Research has been raiding campuses and corporate labs for the best and brightest minds in the 1990s--including PARC alumni Gary K. Starkweather, who engineered the first laser printer, and Chuck Thacker. So, will Microsoft tame the software monster and create a new generation of PCs--machines with enough smarts to interact with people in human terms, by talking and listening? Keep your fingers crossed. Meanwhile, read this book. My only real complaint was that at several points I wished I knew what had become of some key players. But Hiltzik was ahead of me. Had I just looked in the back, I would have found what I wanted in a short appendix called Afterlives. BY OTIS PORT _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ BACK TO TOP |
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