4 ms·
Somewhat off topic, but If you're interested in the history of modern computing and not already familiar with the Xerox PARC [0] story, you should know that Xer
by psetq 8y ago
Somewhat off topic, but If you're interested in the history of modern computing and not already familiar with the Xerox PARC [0] story, you should know that Xerox has a fascinating history of computer research innovation, and is often regarded as one of the real major driving forces behind the P.C. as we know it.
An interesting account (as well as a great deal more about the rest of the history of modern computers) is documented in the book "The Dream Machine" [1], which I highly recommend if you find this sort of stuff interesting.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PARC_(company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PARC_(company)
[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/722412.The_Dream_Machine https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/722412.The_Dream_Machine
- vvanders 8y agoDealers of Lightning[0] is also pretty fantastic and covers PARC in good detail. [0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1101290.Dealers_of_Lightning https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1101290.Dealers_of_Light...
- ghostcluster 8y agoDealers of Lighting is great, and is good as an audiobook as well.
- dxf 8y agoI enjoyed reading "Fumbling the Future: How Xerox Invented, then Ignored, the First Personal Computer"[0]. At the end of the first half of the book, you wonder how anything can stop Xerox. In the second half, you learn how Xerox can stop Xerox. [0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/638812.Fumbling_the_Future https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/638812.Fumbling_the_Futu...
- pjmlp 8y agoBitsavers is stuffed with all their research documents around Lisp, Smalltalk, Mesa and Mesa/Cedar. https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_xerox https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_xerox Graphical workstations, REPL, IDE like features with edit-and-continue capabilities, memory safe systems programming with GC, interactions between GUI components on the UI,... Many of the ideas that inspired research at ETHZ and DEC as well.
- psetq 8y agoThat archive/bitsavers link looks really interesting, thanks!