| The Alto - The first personal
computer, the Alto embodied such innovations as the world's first WYSIWYG
editor, commercial mouse, graphical user interface (GUI) and bit-mapped
display.
Client/Server Architecture - This approach was a paradigm shift
that moved the computer industry away from the hierarchical world of centralized
mainframes downloading to dumb terminals and toward more distributed access
to information resources.
Ethernet - Ethernet became the global standard for interconnecting
computers on local area networks. The Ethernet standard spawned a series
of increasingly sophisticated networking protocols that not only enabled
distributed computing, but led to a re-architecting of the internal computer-to-computer
communication within Xerox copiers and duplicators. The 10 Series copiers
were the first to use numerous built-in microcomputers with a low-bandwidth
Ethernet as the communications interface.
Network Architecture - The development of Ethernet, Alto
and research prototypes of networking protocols for distributed computing
led to the development of XNS, Xerox' robust, leading-edge networking
protocol. This led to the Corporate Internet, an internal wide area enterprise
network that was well ahead of its time in enabling employees to exchange
formatted documents worldwide with speed and ease. In fact, with Xerox'
STAR system, 1981, users were able to access file servers and printers
around the world through simple point-and-click actions, a functionality
that has yet to be matched by today's computing systems.
Internet Standards - PARC scientists are playing a leading
role in designing the protocols that will govern and define how the Internet
will work in the future. The "M-Bone" multicast backbone, a
collaboration between PARC and several universities from around the world,
was first implemented at PARC and has been delivering realtime video over
the Internet since 1992. Currently, a PARC research team has been chosen
by the World Wide Web Consortium to lead the design for the next generation
of HTTP.
Glyphs - PARC is a world leader developing embedded data
schemes that transform paper into a user interface. Glyphs are used in
many applications, including data verification and finishing applications.
Information Visualization -PARC's unique approach to
the visualization of information uses people's perceptual and cognitive
capacities to help them deal with large amounts of information. The approach
was originally used in 3-D Rooms and was an integral technique used in
the Xerox product Visual Recall. The hyperbolic browser, which could revolutionize
the way people access information on the Internet, and other focus-plus-context
visualization techniques are part of the foundation for Inxight, a Xerox
New Enterprise Company.
Collaborative Tools - Work on collaborative tools, beginning
with Colab, resulted in the development of a product for document-based
group collaboration called LiveBoard. This technology, which spawned a
business unit called LiveWorks, enabled colleagues-both locally and in
remote sites-to work together using real-time, multi-media documents.
More recently, research on how a sense of place can create more meaningful
interaction on the Internet has turned into a spin-out company called
Placeware, in which Xerox holds a partial interest
Flat Panel Display - Work in amorphous silicon led to
the development of thin film transistors. Arrays of these devices now
provide for a new generation of flat, print-quality displays. This technology,
resulted in the formation of dpiX, a Xerox New Enterprise Company. The
panels that are used to make electronic documents as easy to read as paper
documents have also found application in document scanning and digital
X-ray imaging.
Laser Printing - Electronic printing provided a means
of seamlessly transferring digital documents into the paper domain. The
original idea of modulating a laser to create an electronic image on a
copier's drum migrated from Rochester to the newly-formed PARC where it
became the basis for Xerox' multi-billion dollar printing business. The
early Raster Output Scanner optical designs for Xerox laser printers were
also developed at PARC. This invention changed the entire notion of documents
and document processing.
Page Description Languages - Page Description Languages
enable the construction of documents from higher-level sources. They are
the intermediaries between tools for creating documents and devices for
displaying them. Press, the first PDL, was developed by PARC scientists
and greatly influenced the design of Interpress and PostScript.
Device Independent Imaging - A software document architecture
that enables device dependent aspects of imaging to be cleanly separated
from generic imaging operations, Device Independent Imaging has been a
research thrust at PARC for a number of years. This work is enabling Xerox
printing products such as DocuPrint to drive different Xerox printers
from a common software base.
Laser Diodes - PARC's laser research has made Xerox a
world leader in semiconductor laser diodes, resulted in hundreds of patents
and spawned Spectra Diode Laboratories. Laser diodes are used in all new
Xerox printing products.
Multi-beam Lasers - PARC was the first organization in the world to create
a multi-beam laser diode and Xerox is, to date, the only printing company
to have this capability. The dual-beam laser emits two beams rather than
the a standard single beam, making it possible to print twice as fast.
The dual-beam laser is in use in Xerox' flagship product, the DocuTech
180, and is being incorporated in Xerox' new DocuCenter color products.
Blue Lasers - In October of 1997, Xerox PARC was the
first printing company to create a blue laser. The reduced wavelength
of a blue laser will ultimately allow much higher resolution printing
than is possible with today's standard red and infrared lasers.
DocuPrint - The system that drives Xerox high-end, network
based printers brought together two decades of knowledge and a number
of technologies including higher level languages, integrated software
for page description and device independent imaging.
Integrated AI Environments - Interlisp is an ACM award-winning
integrated environment that supports artificial intelligence applications.
It combines ideas for rapid prototyping with explicit knowledge representation.
With the Loops object-oriented extensions, it was used to develop a number
of valuable knowledge-based systems for Xerox.
BITbIt - This small but important invention enables
programmers, without special hardware, to manipulate images very rapidly.
The "bit blasting" computer command enables the quick manipulation
of the pixels of an image and was built into the instruction code of the
Alto.
Mesa/Cedar - Mesa is a system programming language developed
at PARC that incorporated mechanisms for making software more reliable,
while supporting rapid development. Many of the ideas from this language
were used in the development of ADA, the standard DOD language. Mesa was
used to implement much of DocuTech software. Cedar, a successor to Mesa
also developed at PARC, enabled the rapid development of the DocuPrint
system.
Object-Oriented Programming - The notion of objects that are
described and addressed individually and that can be linked together with
other objects without having to rewrite a entire program has revolutionized
the software industry. PARC's early and continuing work in this area makes
it a world leader. SmallTalk, developed at PARC, was one of the first
successful object-oriented languages and led to the spinoff of PARCPIace
Systems. All current software development at Xerox uses an object-oriented
methodology.
Expert Systems - PARC researchers developed the Interlisp-D
environment for Al programming as well as a variety of applications utilized
within Xerox. For example, Trillium enables the quick simulation of new
user interface designs and Pride captures engineers' experience and rules
of thumb for designing paper paths using pinch rollers.
VLSI Design Methodology - A new representation of VLSI
(very large scale integration) integrated circuit designs led to a new
generation of computer-aided design (CAD) tools, reduced design time and
spawned the silicon foundry industry.
Linguistic Compression Technology - Based on an understanding of the deep
structure and mathematical properties of language, this technology is
used for visual recall, intelligent retrieval and linguistic compression.
This work has had a major impact on the automatic processing of language
structures and is one of the key research areas underpinning Xerox' Multilingual
Suite of products.
Constraint-Based Scheduling - This technology uses intelligent
modeling to create real time machine control, providing the planning software
that enables the DocuCenter "plug and play" family of copiers.
It gives Xerox a competitive hardware advantage by enabling very effective
and efficient machine control at the customer site. Reusable models also
improve time to market and performance quality.
Smart Service - Smart Service provides workers with the
tools for generating information systems that enable productivity and
learning through lateral communication. One implementation is the Eureka
knowledge-sharing system which has helped field service technicians in
France, Canada and the U.S. dramatically improve their productivity and
the quality of service delivered to Xerox customers.
Work Practice Studies - Ethnographic studies conducted by PARC
social scientists have revealed how people really work and what they need
from technology. By observing the practices of customers using copiers,
field service technicians doing repairs and people doing office work,
PARC researchers have evolved a community based approach to the design
and use of technology.
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