references to primary sources . please improve this by adding secondary or tertiary sources . august 2013 learn how and when to remove this template message parc industry r & d founded 1970 ; 46 years ago 1970 headquarters palo alto california u.s. parent xerox website www.parc.com parc entrance xerox parc old logo parc palo alto research center incorporated formerly xerox parc is a research and development company in palo alto california 1 2 3 with a distinguished reputation for its contributions to information technology and hardware systems . citation needed founded in 1970 as a division of xerox corporation parc has been in large part responsible for such developments as laser printing ethernet the modern personal computer graphical user interface gui and desktop paradigm object oriented programming ubiquitous computing amorphous silicon a si applications and advancing very large scale integration vlsi for semiconductors . xerox formed palo alto research center incorporated as a wholly owned subsidiary in 2002 . contents 1 history 2 parc today 3 accomplishments 3.1 the alto 3.2 the gui 4 distinguished researchers 5 legacy 6 see also 7 references 8 further reading 9 external links history edit in 1969 chief scientist at xerox jack goldman approached george pake a physicist specializing in nuclear magnetic resonance and provost of washington university in st. louis about starting a second research center for the company . pake selected palo alto california as the site of what was to become known as parc . while the 3 000 mile buffer between it and xerox headquarters in rochester new york afforded scientists at the new lab great freedom to undertake their work the distance also served as an impediment in persuading management of the promise of some of their greatest achievements . parc s west coast location proved to be advantageous in the mid 1970s when the lab was able to hire many employees of the nearby sri augmentation research center arc as that facility s funding began falling from the defense advanced research projects agency darpa national aeronautics and space administration nasa and u.s. air force usaf . being situated on stanford research park land leased from stanford university 4 allowed stanford 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 bob taylor who guided the lab as associate manager from 1970 to 1977 and as manager from 1977 to 1983 . parc today edit after three decades as a division of xerox parc was transformed in 2002 into an independent wholly owned subsidiary company dedicated to developing and maturing advances in science and business concepts with the support of commercial partners and clients . xerox remains the company s largest customer 50 % but parc has many other corporate and venture clients in different fields of use than xerox including vmware fujitsu dai nippon printing dnp samsung nec solfocus powerset thin film electronics asa and many more . parc currently conducts research into clean technology metamaterials user interface design sensemaking ubiquitous computing and context aware systems large area electronics digital manufacturing and model based control and optimization in embedded intelligent systems . accomplishments edit xerox parc has been the inventor and incubator of many elements of modern computing in the contemporary office work place laser printers computer generated bitmap graphics the graphical user interface featuring windows and icons operated with a mouse the wysiwyg text editor interpress a resolution independent graphical page description language and the precursor to postscript ethernet as a local area computer network fully formed object oriented programming in the smalltalk programming language and integrated development environment . model view controller software architecture the alto edit main article xerox alto xerox alto most of these developments were included in the alto which added the now familiar stanford research institute sri developed mouse 5 unifying into a single model most aspects of now standard personal computer use . the integration of ethernet prompted the development of the parc universal packet architecture much like today s internet . the gui edit xerox has been heavily criticized particularly by business historians for failing to properly commercialize and profitably exploit parc s innovations . a favorite example is the graphical user interface gui initially developed at parc for the alto and then commercialized as the xerox star by the xerox systems development department . although very significant in terms of its influence on future system design it is deemed a failure because it only sold approximately 25 000 units . a small group from parc led by david liddle and charles irby formed metaphor computer systems . they extended the star desktop concept into an animated graphic and communicating office automation model and sold the company to ibm . distinguished researchers edit main article list of people associated with parc among parc s distinguished researchers were three turing award winners butler w. lampson 1992 alan kay 2003 and charles p. thacker 2009 . 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 bob taylor and charles p. thacker received the national academy of engineering s prestigious charles stark draper prize in 2004 for their work on the alto . legacy edit parc s developments in information technology served for a long time as standards for much of the computing industry . many advances were not equalled or surpassed for two decades citation needed enormous timespans in the fast paced high tech world . while there is some truth that xerox management failed to see the potential of many of parc s inventions this was mostly a problem with its computing research a relatively small part of parc s operations . a number of gui engineers left to join apple computer . technologies pioneered by its materials scientists such as liquid crystal display lcd optical disc innovations and laser printing were actively and successfully introduced by xerox to the business and consumer markets . 6 work at parc since the early 1980s includes advances in ubiquitous computing aspect oriented programming and ipv6 . see also edit computing portal companies portal san francisco bay area portal xerox daybreak a.k.a. xerox windows 6085 globalview references edit contact . parc . retrieved on november 11 2010 . parc palo alto research center 3333 coyote hill road palo alto ca 94304 usa driving & public transportation directions . parc . retrieved on november 11 2010 . map . parc . retrieved on november 11 2010 . map of stanford research park on stanford university real estate web site xerox parc was 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 . milestones parc a xerox company . further reading edit 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 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 xerox parc turns 40 making four decades of tech innovation computerworld 2010 . external links edit wikimedia commons has media related to xerox parc . parc official website xerox parc innovation xerox star historical documents mackido article oral history interview with terry allen winograd charles babbage institute university of minnesota minneapolis oral history interview with paul a. strassmann charles babbage institute university of minnesota minneapolis oral history interview with william crowther charles babbage institute university of minnesota minneapolis coordinates 37 24 11 n 122 08 56 w 37.403 n 122.149 w 37.403 ; 122.149 retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title parc company & oldid 721704034 categories xeroxhistory of human computer interactionsoftware companies based in the san francisco bay areatechnology transferresearch and development organizationscompanies based in palo alto californiacompanies established in 1970science and technology in the san francisco bay arearesearch and development in the united statescompany spin offshidden categories articles lacking reliable references from august 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