xerox parc

XEROX PARC
 /zee'roks park'/, n.

   The famed Palo Alto Research Center. For more than a decade, from the
   early 1970s into the mid-1980s, PARC yielded an astonishing volume of
   groundbreaking hardware and software innovations. The modern mice,
   windows, and icons style of software interface was invented there. So
   was the laser printer and the local-area network; and PARC's series of
   D machines anticipated the powerful personal computers of the 1980s by
   a decade. Sadly, the prophets at PARC were without honor in their own
   company, so much so that it became a standard joke to describe PARC as
   a place that specialized in developing brilliant ideas for everyone
   else.

   The stunning shortsightedness and obtusity of XEROX's top-level
   {suit}s has been well anatomized in Fumbling The Future: How XEROX
   Invented, Then Ignored, the First Personal Computer by Douglas K.
   Smith and Robert C. Alexander (William Morrow & Co., 1988, ISBN
   0-688-09511-9).
    

XEROX PARC
Palo Alto Research Center
Palo Alto Research Centre
PARC

   /zee'roks park'/ {Xerox Corporation}'s Palo Alto Research
   Center.

   For more than a decade, from the early 1970s into the
   mid-1980s, PARC yielded an astonishing volume of
   ground-breaking hardware and software innovations.  The modern
   mice, windows, and icons ({WIMP}) style of software interface
   was invented there.  So was the {laser printer} and the
   {local-area network}; {Smalltalk}; and PARC's series of D
   machines anticipated the powerful {personal computers} of the
   1980s by a decade.  Sadly, the prophets at PARC were without
   honour in their own company, so much so that it became a
   standard joke to describe PARC as a place that specialised in
   developing brilliant ideas for everyone else.

   The stunning shortsightedness and obtusity of XEROX's
   top-level {suits} has been well described in the reference
   below.

   ["Fumbling The Future: How XEROX Invented, Then Ignored, the
   First Personal Computer" by Douglas K. Smith and Robert
   C. Alexander (William Morrow & Co., 1988, ISBN
   0-688-09511-9)].

   [{Jargon File}]

   (1995-01-26)