Formerly known as XeroxPARC, PARC is a research laboratory, located in Menlo Park, California, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Xerox Corporation. Beginning in the early 1970s and spanning approximately one decade, PARC hosted one of the most impressive stretches of technological creativity that has ever occurred. During this period, PARC scientists invented many of the technologies now used in everyday computing, including the mouse, the graphical user interface (including pull-down menus, checkboxes, radio buttons, dialog boxes, and windows with sizing and zooming controls), laser printers, onscreen fonts, and Ethernet networking. In spite of these innovations, Xerox was unable to market this technology successfully. After a visit to PARC in the early 1980s, Steve Jobs of Apple Computer developed the Lisa, an ill-fated business computer system that implemented PARC technology; subsequently, Apple’s successful 1984 release of the Macintosh brought PARC technology to the public’s attention. See Macintosh.
Palo Alto Research Center (PARC)
