-----Original Message-----
From: Sellam Abraham <sellam.ismail(a)gmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, January 24, 2024 2:16 PM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
Subject: [cctalk] Re: The MAC at 40
On Wed, Jan 24, 2024 at 2:04 PM Andrew Diller via cctalk <
<mailto:cctalk@classiccmp.org> cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
<snip> That
story of "stolen from PARC" IMHO is just
weak writing back when the
Internet didn't have the info it has today which
gives full context over what was going on.
<snip>
I read a narrative more recently that more accurately depicted the actual events. I wish
I could remember any details about it, otherwise I would link it up so others could read
it.
But basically, Jobs never stole anything. He was pretty much invited to take a look, and
then entered into some sort of exclusivity deal (I may be wrong about this detail) to use
Xerox tech. Xerox upper execs didn't see a market in this kind of hardware; copiers
were their game, so they didn't get what they had, and didn't care. If anything,
Apple should be thanked for taking what would have been deadend technology at Xerox and
making a product with it. Basically.
Sellam
Xerox was a pre-IPO investor in Apple and Xerox Development Corp (XDC) is reported to have
granted Jobs visits to PARC in December 1979. Jes Raskin claims to have also facilitated
at least one visit after the investment.
What is not well known is Jobs had a visit to PARC prior to the Xerox investment which was
conducted by the President of Shugart Corporation, then a subsidiary of Xerox. Jobs had
offered pre-IPO stock to the Shugart executives, but when they requested advice from XDC
as to whether it was OK, XDC took on the investment. Apple was then Shugart’s largest
customer and needing to kill some time before a meeting Shugart’s President, Don Massaro,
took Jobs thru PARC where Jobs purportedly first viewed the various technologies. It is
lost to history what sort of disclosure agreements existed at that time between Apple and
Shugart Corp.
Tom