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Free Download Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age, by Michael A. Hiltzik

Written By Iklocterru on Wednesday, November 14, 2012 | November 14, 2012

Free Download Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age, by Michael A. Hiltzik

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Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age, by Michael A. Hiltzik

Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age, by Michael A. Hiltzik


Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age, by Michael A. Hiltzik


Free Download Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age, by Michael A. Hiltzik

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Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age, by Michael A. Hiltzik

Review

"Read this book. A treat for anyone with even a passing interest in the origins of today's siliconized culture."--"Business Week

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About the Author

Michael A. Hiltzik is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the Los Angeles Times. In 2004 he won a Gerald Loeb Award, the highest honor in American financial journalism. Hiltzik is the author of Dealers of Lightning: Xerox Parc and the Dawn of the Computer Age and A Death in Kenya. He lives in Southern California with his wife and two sons.

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Product details

Paperback: 480 pages

Publisher: HarperBusiness (April 5, 2000)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 9780887309892

ISBN-13: 978-0887309892

ASIN: 0887309895

Product Dimensions:

5.3 x 1.1 x 8 inches

Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review:

4.3 out of 5 stars

75 customer reviews

Amazon Best Sellers Rank:

#142,979 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

One of the finest books ever written about this fruitful period in computer history. Don't miss the play-by-play description of how Steve Jobs reacted to what he discovered at Xerox Parc. If you can, read this book together with "Fumbling the Future" (about how Xerox management totally dropped the ball that Jobs picked up and ran away with), and "The Dream Machine", a superb, panoramic description of how computing moved from the original "big iron" of mainframe IBM computing to the interactive, Internet-centered personal computing today, guided by J.C.R. Licklider, who saw the future and took us there.

This is a wonderful account of what it was like to be at and around Xerox Parc back in its heyday. If you liked Soul of a New Machine or Dreaming in Code, you'll appreciate this.This book is as much about the people as the technology and it does a great job of balancing the ideas, politics and excitement of the times. There is also a lot if insight into how large corporations operated at the time (and likely still do) and how infuriating bureaucracy can be, especially to technical and creative people such as engineers.I spent a long time after completing the book researching various technologies, people and things that were brought up and covered.The only downside with books like this is that they make me wish I was just a little older and was there in the early days of computing to share the passion and excitement.

i would give it a slightly higher rating but after getting about half way through i cant seem to pick it up again. Its an interesting topic especially now that things have kind of gone full circle with the cloud computing/main frame. As seems to be the case with many of these books of tech glory even the smallest event needs to be preceded by an mini biography or reminder bio of each person in the room....also common is painting in one color of `gee wizz! thats groundbreaking! he was brilliant!' after a while it just gets kind of dull...I would say that Revolution in the Valley is by far my favorite of these types of tales so far. I would strongly recommend reading that one first as it also covers characters that went from xerox parc to work on the mac project at apple.

If you read only one book about research management, researchers, or computing research this year, this is the one to read.Dealers of Lightning is the story of the seminal first 13 years of Xerox's famed Palo Alto Research Center, a period in which PARC developed laser printers, the ethernet, internets, networked personal computers, the client-server model, bitmap displays, icons and graphical user interfaces, the desktop metaphor and overlapping windows, and various other foundations of the computing world as we know it today. But this is not primarily a book about technology -- it is about the people who generated it: How they were brought together, how they interacted, and finally, how they dispersed.Michael Hiltzik is a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, and he has clearly done his homework. He seems to have talked to all the major (and many of the minor) figures involved, read everything that has been written on the subject, and understood most of it. There are ample footnotes, source citations, glossary, and acknowledgements. Some of his accounts are as close to definitive as we are ever likely to see. For example, his story of the famous demos for Steve Jobs that had such an influence on the Lisa and the Macintosh (while recognizing that participants recollections conflict) has more information about them than I was able to gather while at PARC.As an "unindicted co-conspirator," neither interviewed by Hiltzik, nor mentioned by name (although I was close to the epicenter for the last half of the book's time span), I have both inside information and personal biases. I spotted a few small factual errors, and in some cases my interpretation of events is different than Hiltzik's. Nevertheless, he has done an amazingly good job of capturing the gist. This book is more complete, more accurate, and more nuanced than Smith and Alexander's Fumbling the Future: How Xerox Invented, then Ignored, the First Personal Computer.Hiltzik is an excellent writer, and the book is a page-turner (even when you know how it ends). The plot is gripping; the cast of characters large and interesting. Parts of the book are too incredible to be published as fiction. I stayed up well past my bedtime three different nights, repeatedly promising myself I'd read "just one more chapter."My main complaint is that the book is so crowded with people and events that almost all the characters come out one-dimensional, often associated with a single recurring tag phrase. Bob Taylor at least gets a two-dimensional treatment, but it is too often through the eyes of his (numerous) enemies; the admiration and loyalty he inspired in many others is frequently remarked on, but never explained.The book is littered with insights about research and technology transfer -- both from the characters in the book and from Hiltzik. There are stimulating comments on what worked, and what did not, and why. Of course, I don't agree with all of them, but formulating convincing counter-arguments can be quite challenging and instructive.I particularly recommend the Epilogue, "Did Xerox Blow It?" Unfortunately, it really needs to be read in the context of the entire book. I first tried reading it out of order, and it didn't have the same force.Hiltzik discusses fairly even-handedly Steve Jobs's claim that "Xerox could have owned the entire computer industry today. Could have been, you know, a company ten times its size. Could have been IBM--could have been the IBM of the nineties. Could have been the Microsoft of the nineties." After weighing the pros and cons, Hiltzik concludes that it's not clear that Xerox could have ridden the tiger to that kind of success -- even if it had avoided all its known blunders.Hiltzik also points out that laser printing alone repaid the cost of PARC many times over, and that no company can expect to exploit every worthwhile thing that comes out of a research laboratory.

I've read almost all of the so-called business books about the hi-tech phenomenon, and this one sets a new standard for comprehensiveness and readability. The amount of detail is incredible, while the flow of the writing style is easy and smooth, making it an extremely entertaining and educational read.Most books in this genre either insult the technical reader by explaining every little element, or they are so saturated with technology that they fail to convey the business lessons. This book treats both subjects equally well, as it should; this is one of the best examples of how business and technology tried to come together and failed. Xerox didn't just fumble the ball: politics and good-intentioned business acumen prevented the technologies from being allowed to flourish, and this behavior can still be seen today with many other companies who are married to one line and then fail to make the changes necessary to react to new conditions.Much of the book is also filled with amusing anecdotes, some of which are technical (PARC building a PDP clone because Xerox wouldn't pay for a real one) and others of which are personal (alligators in the bathtub has an almost urban legend quality). It is a truly enjoyable read.There are also some very minor problems, such as the author's dependancy on the subjects for information about their own technologies (I can tell that Metcalfe inserted the "inferior" adjective with regards to Token Ring), and there were also some very minor editorial problems like missing words and so forth, but these do not diminish the overall quality of the work.

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