“The future is already here – it’s just not evenly distributed.” In the 1970s and early 80s, the Future was stuck at Xerox. Most of us think of Xerox (and xeroxing) as the distant past, but Xerox and their Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) invented and then gloriously failed to distribute much of the Future we talk about here, leaving that part to Apple and others.
Xerox invented the personal computer, or at least many of its major elements. The Alto had a mouse, a graphic user interface with windows, a desktop with icons and much more that we have long taken for granted in PCs. When Steve Jobs visited PARC in 1979, he literally saw the Future.
Xerox also invented a computer network to go with the Alto: Ethernet. It then used the Future of networking it invented to connect the Future of personal computing it invented to yet another of its inventions: the laser printer.
Xerox fumbled the personal computer. It fumbled computer networking. It fumbled the laser printer. And that’s not all it fumbled (stay tuned).
Xerox’s loss, though, was Apple’s gain. As we’ll see, the LaserWriter would take this fumbled Future, tie the fumbled pieces together (literally), and distribute it to the Rest of Us.
