Editing PARC (company)

{{Short description|American company}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=December 2023}}
{{Use American English|date=November 2023}}
{{Infobox company
| name = PARC
| logo = PARC logo 2023.png
| logo_size = 
| image = Xerox PARC 02.jpg
| image_caption = Aerial view of Xerox PARC in 2020
| type = {{plainlist|
* [[Division (business)|Division]] (1970–2002, 2024–present)
* [[Subsidiary]] (2002–2024)
}}
| genre = 
| foundation = {{start date and age|1970|07|01}}
| founder = Jacob E. Goldman<ref name=JG.Obit/>
| location_city = [[Palo Alto, California]]
| location_country = U.S.
| location = 
| locations = 
| area_served = 
| key_people = 
| industry = [[R&D]]
| products = 
| services = 
| revenue = 
| operating_income = 
| net_income = 
| owner = 
| num_employees = 
| parent = {{Unbulleted list|[[Xerox]] (1970–2023)|[[SRI International]] (2023–present)}}
| divisions = 
| subsid = 
| caption = 
| homepage = {{URL|https://parc.com/}} (redirects to {{URL|https://www.sri.com/research/future-concepts-division/}})
| footnotes = 
| intl = 
}}
[[File:Parcentrance.jpg|thumb|PARC entrance]]'''Future Concepts division''' (formerly '''Palo Alto Research Center''', '''PARC''' and '''Xerox PARC''') is a [[research and development]] company in [[Palo Alto, California]].<ref>"[http://www.parc.com/util/contact.html Contact] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140823005123/http://www.parc.com/util/contact.html |date=2014-08-23 }}." PARC. Retrieved on November 11, 2010. "PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) 3333 Coyote Hill Road Palo Alto, CA 94304 USA"</ref><ref>"[http://www.parc.com/util/directions.html driving & public transportation directions] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140829170028/http://www.parc.com/util/directions.html |date=2014-08-29 }}." PARC. Retrieved on November 11, 2010.</ref><ref>"[http://www.parc.com/util/map.html map] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140808223714/http://www.parc.com/util/map.html |date=2014-08-08 }}." PARC. Retrieved on November 11, 2010.</ref> It was founded in 1969 by [[Jack Goldman|Jacob E. "Jack" Goldman]], chief scientist of [[Xerox Corporation]], as a division of [[Xerox]], tasked with creating computer technology-related products and hardware systems.<ref name="JG.Obit">{{cite news|newspaper=The New York Times|date=December 21, 2011|author=John Markoff|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/22/business/jacob-e-goldman-founder-of-xerox-lab-dies-at-90.html|title=Jacob Goldman, Founder of Xerox Lab, Dies at 90}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/tendayiviki/2017/07/01/as-xerox-parc-turns-forty-seven-the-lesson-learned-is-that-business-models-matter/|title=As Xerox PARC Turns 47, The Lesson Learned Is That Business Models Matter|last=Viki|first=Tendayi|website=Forbes|language=en|access-date=August 13, 2019}}</ref>
Xerox PARC has been foundational to numerous revolutionary computer developments, including [[laser printing]], [[Ethernet]], the modern [[personal computer]], [[graphical user interface]] (GUI) and [[desktop metaphor]]–paradigm, [[object-oriented programming]], [[ubiquitous computing]], [[electronic paper]], [[amorphous silicon]] (a-Si) applications, the [[computer mouse]], and [[very-large-scale integration]] (VLSI) for [[semiconductor]]s.<ref name="EncycB">{{cite web|url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Xerox-PARC|title=Xerox PARC|quote=PARC, Palo Alto Research Center ... and Ethernet}}</ref><ref name=":0"/>

Unlike Xerox's existing research laboratory in Rochester, New York, which focused on refining and expanding the company's copier business, Goldman's "Advanced Scientific & Systems Laboratory" aimed to pioneer new technologies in advanced physics, materials science, and computer science applications.

In 2002, Xerox spun off Palo Alto Research Center Incorporated as a wholly owned subsidiary.<ref name="X2002">{{cite news |newspaper=[[Computerworld]]
|url=https://www.computerworld.com/article/2515846/computer-hardware/xerox-parc-turns-40--marking-four-decades-of-tech-innovations.html
|title=Xerox PARC turns 40: Marking four decades of tech innovations
|quote=spun off by Xerox in January 2002 |date=September 20, 2010}}</ref> In late April of 2023, Xerox announced the donation of the lab to [[SRI International]].<ref name=donation>{{cite news |last=Savitz |first=Eric J. |date=April 24, 2023 |title=Xerox Gives Legendary PARC Lab to SRI International |url=https://www.barrons.com/articles/xerox-parc-lab-sri-international-e1d46fe |newspaper=[[Barron's (newspaper)|Barron's]] |archive-url=https://archive.today/20230425002458/https://www.barrons.com/amp/articles/xerox-parc-lab-sri-international-e1d46fe |archive-date=April 25, 2023 |url-status=live}}</ref>

==History==
[[File:Xerox PARC in 1977.jpg|thumb|Xerox PARC in 1977]]
[[File:XeroxPARC.png|thumb|Xerox PARC old logo]]
In 1969, Goldman talked with [[George Pake]], a [[physicist]] specializing in [[nuclear magnetic resonance]] and [[Provost (education)|provost]] of [[Washington University in St. Louis]], about starting a second research center for Xerox.<ref>{{Cite magazine |last=McMillan |first=Robert |title=Jack Goldman, Founder of Xerox PARC, Dies |language=en-US |magazine=Wired |url=https://www.wired.com/2011/12/goldma/ |access-date=March 30, 2023 |issn=1059-1028}}</ref>

On July 1, 1970, the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center opened.<ref name=":1"/> Its 3,000-mile distance from Xerox headquarters in [[Rochester, New York]], afforded scientists at the new lab great freedom in their work, but it increased the difficulty of persuading management of the promise of some of their greatest achievements.

In its early years, PARC's West Coast location helped it hire many employees of the nearby [[SRI International|SRI]] [[Augmentation Research Center]] (ARC) as that facility's funding from [[DARPA]], [[NASA]], and the [[U.S. Air Force]] began to be reduced. By leasing land at [[Stanford Research Park]], it encouraged [[Stanford University]] graduate students to be involved in PARC research projects and PARC scientists to collaborate with academic seminars and projects.

Much of PARC's early success in the computer field was under the leadership of its Computer Science Laboratory manager [[Robert Taylor (computer scientist)|Bob Taylor]], who guided the lab as associate manager from 1970 to 1977, and as manager from 1977 to 1983.

Work at PARC since the early 1980s includes advances in [[ubiquitous computing]], [[aspect-oriented programming]], and [[IPv6]].{{Ref RFC|1883}}

After three decades as a division of Xerox, PARC was transformed in 2002<ref name="X2002" /> into an independent, wholly owned subsidiary company dedicated to developing and maturing advances in science and business concepts.

Xerox announced that it would donate the lab and its related assets to [[SRI International]] in April 2023. As part of the deal, Xerox would keep most of the patent rights inside PARC, and benefit from a preferred research agreement with SRI/PARC.<ref name=donation /> On January 18, 2024, SRI announced the research group from the PARC will become its Future Concepts division.<ref>{{Cite web |title=SRI announces its new Future Concepts division — and a renewed focus for the PARC campus that draws on its heritage |url=https://www.sri.com/future-concepts-division/sri-announces-its-newest-division-the-future-concepts-division-and-a-renewed-focus-for-the-parc-campus-that-draws-on-its-heritage/ |work=SRI International |date=January 18, 2024 |access-date=February 2, 2024}}</ref>

==Developments==
[[File:Xerox Alto mit Rechner.JPG|thumb|Xerox Alto]]
[[File:PARC Tab.png|thumb|PARC Tab]]
PARC's developments in information technology served for a long time as standards for much of the computing industry. Many advancements made at the center were not equaled or surpassed for two decades. Xerox PARC has been the inventor and incubator of many elements of modern computing, including:

*[[Laser printer]]s<ref name=":1">{{Cite web|url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/tendayiviki/2017/07/01/as-xerox-parc-turns-forty-seven-the-lesson-learned-is-that-business-models-matter/|title=As Xerox PARC Turns 47, The Lesson Learned Is That Business Models Matter|last=Viki|first=Tendayi|website=Forbes|language=en|access-date=October 4, 2019}}</ref>
*Computer-generated [[bitmap]] graphics
*The [[graphical user interface]],<ref name=":1"/> featuring [[skeuomorph]]ic windows and icons, operated with a [[computer mouse|mouse]]
*[[Bravo (editor)|Bravo]], the [[WYSIWYG]] modal text editor<ref>{{cite web
 |url=https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-xerox-alto-struts-its-stuff-on-its-40th-birthday
 |title=The Xerox Alto Struts Its Stuff on Its 40th Birthday 
 |website=[[IEEE]].org (IEEE Spectrum)|date=November 15, 2017}}</ref>
*[[Interpress]], a resolution-independent graphical page-description language and the precursor to [[PostScript]]
*[[Ethernet]] as a local-area computer network<ref name=":1" />
*Fully formed [[object-oriented programming]] (OOP) (with [[Class-based programming|class-based]] inheritance, the most popular OOP model) in the [[Smalltalk]] [[programming language]] and [[integrated development environment]]
*[[Prototype-based programming]] (the second most popular inheritance model in OOP) in the [[Self (programming language)|Self]] language
*[[Model–view–controller]] software architecture
*[[AspectJ]], an aspect-oriented programming (AOP) extension for the [[Java (programming language)|Java]] language

===Alto===
{{Main|Xerox Alto}}
Most of these developments were included in the Alto, which added the [[computer mouse]].<ref name="fn_1"> Xerox PARC became the first research group to widely adopt the mouse invented by [[Douglas Engelbart]]'s [[Augmentation Research Center]] at the [[Stanford Research Institute]] (now [[SRI International]]) in [[Menlo Park, California]].</ref> These developments unified into a single model most aspects of now-standard personal computers use. The integration of Ethernet<ref name=EncycB/> into the computer prompted the development of the [[PARC Universal Packet]] architecture, which is structured much like the modern Internet's architecture.

===PARCTab===
The PARCTab is an experimental [[mobile computing]] device as an early experiment in [[ubiquitous computing]] (UbiComp).<ref>{{Cite web |title=PARCtab |work=Buxton Collection |url=https://www.microsoft.com/buxtoncollection/detail.aspx?id=51 |access-date=December 17, 2023 |publisher=Microsoft |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231217180913/https://www.microsoft.com/buxtoncollection/detail.aspx?id=51 |archive-date=December 17, 2023}}</ref> Its appearance resembles a [[personal digital assistant]] (PDA). Its functionality depends on the user's location, by receiving location-specific information via infrared sensors from gateway nodes installed in a particular location.<ref name=computerhistory>{{Cite web |title=Xerox PARCTab Prototype - PDA |url=https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/36785/Xerox-PARCTab-Prototype/ |access-date=December 17, 2023 |website=Computing History}}</ref>

It has a touch screen, stylus, and [[handwriting recognition]]. Xerox designed the similar and larger PARCPad. Both devices were developed around the same time as the [[Apple Newton]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=History of HCI |url=https://rauterberg.employee.id.tue.nl/presentations/HCI-history/ |access-date=December 17, 2023 |website=Homepage of Matthias Rauterberg }}</ref>

==Distinguished researchers==
{{Main|List of people associated with PARC}}
PARC's distinguished researchers include four [[Turing Award]] winners: [[Butler Lampson]] (1992), [[Alan Kay]] (2003), [[Charles P. Thacker]] (2009), and [[Robert Metcalfe]] (2022). The [[Association for Computing Machinery]] (ACM) Software System Award recognized the Alto system in 1984, [[Smalltalk]] in 1987, [[InterLisp]] in 1992, and the [[remote procedure call]] in 1994. Lampson, Kay, [[Robert Taylor (computer scientist)|Bob Taylor]], and Thacker received the [[National Academy of Engineering]]'s prestigious [[Charles Stark Draper Prize]] in 2004 for their work on the Alto. [[Lynn Conway]] was recognized by the [[National Inventors Hall of Fame]] for her work on [[very-large-scale integration]] (VLSI) in 2023.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2024-06-17 |title=Lynn Conway |url=https://www.invent.org/inductees/lynn-conway |access-date=2024-06-17 |website=[[National Inventors Hall of Fame]] |language=en}}</ref>

==Legacy==
Xerox has been heavily criticized, particularly by business historians, for failing to properly commercialize and profitably exploit PARC's innovations.<ref>{{cite book
 |author1=Douglas K. Smith |author2=Robert C. Alexander 
 |title=Fumbling the Future: How Xerox Invented, then Ignored, the First Personal Computer
 |date=1988|publisher=William Morrow & Co|isbn=978-0688069599}}</ref> Xerox management failed to see the global potential of many of PARC's inventions, but this was mostly a problem with its computing research, a relatively small part of PARC's operations.

One notable example of this is the [[graphical user interface]] (GUI), initially developed at PARC for the Alto and then sold as the [[Xerox Star|Xerox 8010 Information System]] workstation (with office software called Star) by the Xerox Systems Development Department. It heavily influenced future system design, but was deemed a failure because Xerox only sold about 25,000 units of the computer. A small group from PARC led by [[David Liddle]] and [[Charles Irby]] formed [[Metaphor Computer Systems]]. Metaphor Computer Systems extended the Star desktop concept into an animated graphic and communicating office-automation model and sold the company to [[IBM]].

Several GUI engineers left to join [[Apple Computer]] to work on [[Apple Lisa|Lisa]] and [[Macintosh]]. Technologies pioneered by its [[materials science|materials scientists]] such as the [[liquid-crystal display]] (LCD), some major innovations in [[optical disc]] technology, and laser printing were actively and successfully introduced by Xerox to the business and consumer markets.<ref>{{cite web |title=Milestones, PARC, a Xerox company |url=http://www.parc.com/about/milestones.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130702222006/http://www.parc.com/about/ |archive-date=July 2, 2013 |access-date=June 14, 2010}}</ref>

[[Microsoft]] co-founder [[Bill Gates]] has said that the Xerox graphical interface has notably influenced Microsoft and Apple. [[Apple Inc.]] co-founder [[Steve Jobs]] said that "Xerox could have owned the entire computer industry, could have been the IBM of the nineties, could have been the Microsoft of the nineties."<ref>{{cite news |last1=Robson |first1=David |title=How to avoid the 'competency trap' |url=https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200608-what-is-the-competency-trap |website=BBC |date=June 9, 2020}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Fried |first1=Ina |title=Bill Gates credits Xerox, not Apple, for Windows |url=https://www.axios.com/bill-gates-credits-xerox-not-apple-for-windows-1513300647-aa8e162f-23a8-47f8-b514-f9d6377ddc51.html |website=Axios |date=February 27, 2017}}</ref>

==See also==
{{Portal|Companies|San Francisco Bay Area}}
*[[GlobalView]]
*[[List of people associated with PARC]]
*[[List of R&D laboratories]]
*[[PowerCloud Systems]]
*[[Xerox Daybreak]] (a.k.a. Xerox Windows 6085)

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
*Michael A. Hiltzik, ''Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age'' ([[HarperCollins]], New York, 1999) {{ISBN|0-88730-989-5}}
*Douglas K. Smith, Robert C. Alexander, ''Fumbling the Future: How Xerox Invented, Then Ignored, the First Personal Computer'' ([[William Morrow and Company]], New York, 1988) {{ISBN|1-58348-266-0}}
*M. Mitchell Waldrop, ''The Dream Machine: J.C.R. Licklider and the Revolution That Made Computing Personal'' ([[Viking Press|Viking Penguin]], New York, 2001) {{ISBN|0-670-89976-3}}
*[[Howard Rheingold]], ''[[Tools for Thought]]'' ([[MIT Press]], 2000) {{ISBN|0-262-68115-3}}
*Todd R. Weiss, "[http://www.computerworld.com/article/2515846/computer-hardware/xerox-parc-turns-40--marking-four-decades-of-tech-innovations.html Xerox PARC turns 40: Making four decades of tech innovation] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181121121615/http://www.computerworld.com/article/2515846/computer-hardware/xerox-parc-turns-40--marking-four-decades-of-tech-innovations.html |date=November 21, 2018 }}" Computerworld, 2010

==External links==
{{Commons category|Xerox PARC}}
*{{official website|https://www.parc.com/}}
*[http://www.digibarn.com/friends/curbow/star/index.html Xerox Star Historical Documents]
*[http://www.mackido.com/Interface/ui_history.html MacKiDo article]
*[https://hdl.handle.net/11299/107717 Oral history interview with Terry Allen Winograd] [[Charles Babbage Institute]], [[University of Minnesota]], Minneapolis
*[https://hdl.handle.net/11299/107640 Oral history interview with Paul A. Strassmann] [[Charles Babbage Institute]], [[University of Minnesota]], Minneapolis
*[https://hdl.handle.net/11299/107235 Oral history interview with William Crowther] [[Charles Babbage Institute]], [[University of Minnesota]], Minneapolis

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{{Smalltalk programming language}}
{{Authority control}}

{{Xerox}}

[[Category:Xerox]]
[[Category:History of human–computer interaction]]
[[Category:Software companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area]]
[[Category:Technology transfer]]
[[Category:Flexible displays]]
[[Category:Computer science institutes in the United States]]
[[Category:Computer science research organizations]]
[[Category:Printing technology]]
[[Category:Research organizations in the United States]]
[[Category:Companies based in Palo Alto, California]]
[[Category:Technology companies established in 1970]]
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