-----Original Message-----
From: Sellam Abraham <sellam.ism...@gmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, January 24, 2024 2:16 PM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk@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@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
