Dealers of Lightning: Xerox Parc and the Dawn of the Computer Age

Rating:
Summary: Being There at the Dawn of the Computer Age
Review: What I really appreciate about Dealers of Lightning is that, for the first time in a single volume, there is a comprehensive analysis of the legendary Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center). Its brilliant young inventors produced a number of breakthroughs in office technology. Hiltzik examines each of the key scientists, led by Bob Taylor, as well as Steve Jobs and others who visited to observe and to learn... and departed with information without which they probably could not have succeeded. This is a riveting account of collaborative genius. It has the colorful characters and multiple of plots (and sub-plots) one encounters in a novel written by Dickens or Balzac. Bennis and Biederman devote one chapter in Organizing Genius to the PARC operations. For those who desire a complete account of those memorable years, here it is...well-told.

Rating:
Summary: More about personalities and company politics than computers
Review: You have to get past the first 70 pages or so where the author tediously describes how the PARC people were hired, in order to get to the good stuff. Then the author never quite leaves alone the personality clashes and company politics. Not that that stuff's not interesting; it is! And the PARC story seems to indicate that such interpersonal dynamics make or break some companies. But it was tiresome. I had a very hard time starting this book because of the people crap, and then I thought the technology stuff was weak and thinly covered. There were glimmers of interesting comments about software and hardware, such as Smalltalk's role and the birth of the laser printer. But the book could have lost 100 pages and been a better read. I think the author had a point to prove about how people often can't work together. Surprise, surprise! I've known this for years. To make this more palatable, the author should have included some photos. I had to look in "Nerds 2.0.1" for good photos of Bob Taylor. Somehow, just seeing his face made the whole drama a bit more real and a bit more human... I don't know why. Maybe it was because I had this really weird (and totally untrue) image of who and what he was from Hiltzik's description. After seeing his picture, I felt more sympathetic. On another matter, I thought Hiltzik's depiction of the Steve Job's "raid" on PARC was fascinating and I applaud his scrupulous efforts to finding out the real truth, but in the end saying most of this seems to be lost in myth.