Reddit reviews Fumbling the Future: How Xerox Invented, then Ignored, the First Personal Computer

You may also want to mention the book "Fumbling The Future" as it accurately documents how and why Xerox failed to grasp the technological advances that were upending their business model. Support of SOPA is a strong indicator of corporate cluelessness.

Actually, Steve and Bill had a rich and stupid neighbor, who was selling $100 bills for $1.

Steve handed the guy a wad of $1s and walked away with a wad of $100s. The people who worked for the guy, who actually made his money, were furious, but it wasn't their $$ any more.

Bill asked to borrow one of Steve's $100s, ran to a Xerox(sic) machine, and made a bundle off his copies.

Seriously, read any history of those events. My personal favorite is Fumbling the Future.

Page 209 sums up the whole problem (search for the word "demonstration"). PARC had a big coming-out party for networked workstations, in 1977(!) at a big Xerox internal expo. All of Xerox's top execs were shown the future, and were not impressed. Their wives, who given the era had probably worked as secretaries, got it.

I strongly agree that the history of mathematics and computing should be taught as an integral part of any CS / Math degree.

Two books you might want to read by way of a 'history assignment'.

1. Fumbling the Future -- How Xerox Invented, then Ignored, the First Personal Computer. I was there for part of it (late 70's) and this book pretty much gets it right.
   
   
2. The Man Who Loved Only Numbers. It's about the mathematician Paul Erdos and is one of the more amazing true stories I've ever read.
   
   
3. For extra credit, try the book The Man Who Knew Infinity. There's a recent movie based on the book (I haven't seen it yet); it's gotten a mix of very-good-to-meh reviews.

I've read a number of books about the subject so I'm summing up what I've read; but I'd recommend in particular the books Dealers Of Lightning, Fumbling The Future and Apple Confidential if you're interested to read more. Here's also an interesting article from the New Yorker about it.

Also Fumbling the Future:
How Xerox Invented, then Ignored, the First Personal Computer

It's such cringe material.

There's a fascinating book called "Fumbling the Future" I read recently that explores some of the internal struggles Xerox had when they arguably invented the home computer.

If anyone's interested, it's pretty cheap!

You may wish to invest a few minutes reading about the former copier king. You'll probably use a mouse to navigate to the article via a graphic interface across a network. Each originated at Xerox PARC.

When it comes to "Fumbling the Future", an excellent case can be made Xerox remains the epitome of myopia.

http://www.amazon.com/Fumbling-Future-Invented-Personal-Computer/dp/1583482660