Computer history is full of great human drama and not a few myths, none so enduring as the story of Steve Jobs stealing technology from Xeroc PARC. In this absorbing book about the famous research institution, Michael Hiltzik puts his own interpretation on the legacy of the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). He lets Xerox off the hook from the usual charges that they "blew it" when it came to exploiting the amazing inventions that came out of PARC. But Hiltzik's book does not focus on the Jobs incident, rather he gives us portraits of the men and women whose talents and vision produced computers that were way ahead of their time. The first group of engineers working for Jack Goldman and George Pake in a warehouse across form Stanford University actually built a computer that acted much like the DEC PDP-10 that they wanted to buy. They were told they couldn't have one because Xerox had purchased rival computer-maker SDS, whose products were decidedly inferior. So the talented team simply built themselves a clone.

Later, they followed Alan Kay's dream of a small personal computer and created the Alto, a true personal computer that had a mouse and graphical interface and built-in ethernet-- in 1973! Kay also created the first object-oriented language, Smalltalk, which was perfect for writing user-friendly applications for the Alto. The number of innovations that came from PARC is truly astonishing, but none of them ever came to market. This book provides some of the answers as to why Xerox did not turn its research into profits. While pouring money into PARC, they were also having problems with their main business, which was leased copiers. The Japanese were making smaller cheaper copiers that were eating into Xerox's business markets and that was a majopt distraction for the company. Xerox employed salesmen who dealt with office managers; they were a large and competent sales force, but they knew nothing about computers. The products created at PARC were marvelous (everyone wanted an Alto once they saw one in operation), but they were created with no thought to marketing. Each Alto was hand-built and would have to be sold for a hefty price. Xerox did sell some to the Carter administration for the government information office, but never set up a factory to build Altos.

The other problem with marketing the products from PARC was the blindness of the company, including its brilliant researchers, toward the revolution happening right outside their door with small computers. Some of their engineers, like Larry Tesler, Charles Simonyi and Bob Metcalf, did see the potential and left for greener pastures (Tesler to Apple, Simonyi to Microsoft, and Metcalf to found 3Com). But as a company, Xerox had no notion that small cheap computers were about to take the market by storm. When they finally incorporated the Alto technology into the Star, it was too big, too slow, and too expensive. IBM came out with its PC and businesses bought the cheaper product. The author overrates the role of IBM though. The microcomputer revolution was well underway by the time IBM decided to build a small cheap computer. The market for a truly personal computer was building up steam, but there was little interest in the $16,000 Star that was designed to be used in an office setting where a number of them would be networked together. An advanced idea, yes, but priced way beyond what businesses would spend so secretaries could type letters. The PARC engineers were brilliant but blind to the historic technological revolution that was all around them. In fact it was the garage geeks like Steve Wozniak and radical visionaries like Ted Nelson who were the true initiators of the computer revolution.

 As for the visit of Steve Jobs, Hiltzik says there were three visits, with progressively more encompassing demonstrations of the Alto-Smalltalk products. He says all of the participants seem to remember it differently, but Jobs has always felt the emphasis on what he learned at Xerox takes away from the talent and vision that already existed at Apple. The author says it was inevitable that Apple would do a better job of selling the public on a graphical interface than a tradition-bound bureaucratic organization like Xerox. It was simply fate that Apple brought out the Lisa and the Macintosh while Xerox brought out the doomed Star.