回憶錄 代理 SRI 報告.....Can Xerox’s PARC, a Silicon Valley Icon, Find New Life with SRI?

 

Can Xerox’s PARC, a Silicon Valley Icon, Find New Life with SRI?

By John Markoff. Photographs by Balazs Gardi. March 26, 2024

Two research labs known for some of the tech industry’s most important innovations have merged in hopes of recapturing their glory days.

In 1979, a 24-year old Steve Jobs was permitted to visit Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) to view a demonstration of an experimental personal computer called the Alto. Mr. Jobs took away a handful of ideas that would transform the computing world when they became the heart of Apple’s Lisa and Macintosh computers.

Jobs was shown the Alto’s graphical user interface, later saying of the experience, “it was obvious to me that all computers would work like this some day.” SRI

Some of PARC’s computing innovations have their roots in prior research work done in the SRI lab of Douglas Engelbart, the computer scientist who invented the computer mouse and hypertext, the forerunner to the World Wide Web.

Across its 78-year history, SRI’s inventions 

Johan De Kleer, a scientist who spent almost four decades at PARC before leaving recently to found an A.I. software company, said that PARC could be revived only if Mr. Parekh could find a way to build some “slack” into the system by finding money to support open-ended research projects.

Mr. Parekh is now planning to build a modern research campus and residential community with new SRI buildings and space to attract other high-tech companies. The developer will share revenue from the project with SRI.

“This is our annuity for the future for investing in research,” Mr. Parekh said.