Dealers of Lightning

By: Michael A. Hiltzik

Narrated by: Forrest Sawyer

Dealers of Lightning is the riveting story of the legendary Xerox PARC'a collection of eccentric young inventors brought together by Xerox Corporation at a facility in Palo Alto, California, during the mind-blowing intellectual ferment of the seventies and eighties. Here for the first time is revealed in piercing detail the true story of the extraordinary group that aimed to bring about a technological dawn that would change the world'and succeeded.

Based on extensive interviews with the scientists, engineers, administrators, and corporate executives who lived the story, Dealers of Lightning takes the listener on a journey from PARC's beginnings in a dusty, abandoned building at the edge of the Stanford University campus to its triumph as a hothouse of ideas that spawned not only the first personal computer, but the windows-style graphical user interface, the laser printer, much of the indispensable technology of the Internet, and a great deal more.

It shows how and why Xerox, despite its willingness to grant PARC unlimited funding and the responsibility for developing breakthroughs to keep the corporation on the cutting edge of office technology, remained forever unable to grasp (and, consequently, exploit) the innovations that PARC delivered'and details the increasing frustration of the original PARC scientists, many of whom would go on to build their fortunes upon the very ideas Xerox so rashly discarded.

More than just a fascinating historical narrative, Dealers of Lighting brings to life an unforgettable cast of characters. It is an unprecedented look at the ideas, the inventions and the individuals that propelled Xerox PARC to the frontier of technohistory'and the corporate machinations that almost prevented it from achieving greatness.

Forrest Sawyer reads.

(P) and ©1999 HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., All Rights Reserved, Harper Audio, A Division of HarperCollins Publishers

Ironic that book about computer innovations suffers from terrible audio quality

It’s like I’m listening underwater. Worst audio production quality. Not sure if they were going for the “1960s” sounding theme.

Interesting, could be better

If you're interested in the history of the personal computer, then listening to the history of Xerox PARC will be a pleasure. And this is the only audiobook (at least on Audible, and probably at all) on the topic. The passing mentions to PARC in the histories of Apple don't go nearly deep enough. But I feel like this is a new audiobook waiting to happen. This book isn't bad, but the characters seem a little flat, the book (and probably the recording) are old, the descriptions of the technology a little lifeless, the audio quality poor. But beggars can't be choosers.

barely hear anything

This audio should be fixed.
The content is good but not as technical as I expected.

Audio quality is bad, story is awe inducing

You'll need to power through the terrible audio quality, but I found it well worth it to gain a glimpse into PARC.

Interesting but a bit tedious

This book provides a great history lesson in technology, however, its main focus is on the individuals that developed the technology, not the technology itself. It can be pretty tedious to listen to, but there is some good suff in there if you can hang in there.

It is absolutely amazing how many modern technologies spawned from the developments made by the visionaries at PARC such as the computer mouse, the GUI interface, ethernet, the laser printer, etc. Its even more amazing that Xerox capitalized on virtualy none of these inventions.

In the interest of full disclosure, I had a unique interest in this book due to the fact that have been a Xerox employee for over a decade, and have actualy had the opportunity to visit PARC (long after its inovative heyday of course).