Re: AI agency

Dewey Dykstra, Jr. (dykstrad who-is-at bsumail.idbsu.edu)
Mon, 3 Nov 1997 12:13:29 -0600

>HISTORY TRIVIA: In the 1950s, Xerox Corp. hired a little group of hot-shot
>computer whiz-kids to hole up in a tech-lab in Colorado, and... well,
>design the damned future!!
>
>So, these Xerox kids (*the only computer-research team working in the
>corporation sector at that time who employed women as active researchers*)
>
>came up with object-oriented
>language, and the beginnings of the Intel chip.
>
>Xerox said, "not what we wanted" (translated: we don't understand what
>you've done)
>
>Steve Jobs trots down, sees what they've done, "gets it" and, voila:
>Macintosh.
>
>diane

Actually, the lab was in Palo Alto, CA. They came up with the mouse,
object oriented programming, and what is now called a GUI (the desktop in
Mac parlance), but I'm not so sure about the Intel chip. Jobs apparently
did 'get it' because Xerox head office didn't.

I uderstand the person in charge of SmallTalk (the object oriented
language) was a woman.

Dewey

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dewey I. Dykstra, Jr. Phone: (208)385-3105
Professor of Physics Dept: (208)385-3775
Department of Physics/MCF421/418 Fax: (208)385-4330
Boise State University dykstrad who-is-at bsumail.idbsu.edu
1910 University Drive Boise Highlanders
Boise, ID 83725-1570 novice piper

"Physical concepts are the free creations of the human mind and
are not, however it may seem, uniquely determined by the external
world."--A. Einstein in The Evolution of Physics with L. Infeld,
1938
"Don't mistake your watermelon for the universe." --K. Amdahl in
There Are No Electrons, 1991.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++