Dealers of Lightning

Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age

By: Michael Hiltzik

Narrated by: Forrest Sawyer

Length: 5 hrs and 52 mins

Publisher's summary

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 '70s and '80s. 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 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.

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

Critic reviews

"...for any student of business or technology, Dealers of Lightning offers a gem of a story that has never before been so well told." (The New York Times Book Review)

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.

Horrible production quality

Lots of good history marred by horrible production quality. The sound is as if it was done through a pillow.

Interesting history, very poor audio quality

I would still recommend it, but be ready to play games with your volume controls.

Great read

Great story. Ironically the audio quality is atrocious, but the narator is good. This needs to be talked about in every business class the story is that good. Author makes great points at the end about the situation being somewhat unique in scale and scope. Even more interesting is the final analysis which is from the perspective of 1999. Things are so different now. I can imagine he would take back his final analysis of Apple.

A much-needed spotlight on innovative research

Most books on the history of the PC give Xerox PARC just a passing mention. It was PARC's work the inspired the Apple Lisa, and later Macintosh and Microsoft's Windows operating system. But, PARC recruited the top talents in computer science, and gave them the freedom to reinvent the computer.

So much of the modern personal computer sprang directly from the work done at PARC. The graphical user interface, ethernet, and the laser printer were all developed there. Doug Engelbart refined his "mouse" device while at PARC.

This book covers PARC's history from its founding through the 1980s. It describes the politics and, yes, the budgets behind the research conducted there. Key players, like Alan Kay, are profiled. And there's even a tiny bit of technobabble for people who are into that sort of thing.

Which brings me to Forrest Sawyer's reading. It was a pleasure listening to him for six hours. As an experienced newsman, his delivery was polished and precise. At one point, the book breaks into a description of how Ethernet works, and what differs it from other networking schemes, and Sawyer sails through it like it was a story about two old friends.

Fascinating look back

This book dispels, the myths surrounding Xerox PARC research, it’s accomplishments, and missteps by its corporate leadership.

Great story

I enjoyed listening to this story. It talks a lot about the history of computers and the good and bad decisions made by Xerox. The audio quality fluctuated a little, but overall good.

Good story, poor audio quality.

Ther story is enlightening and compels the reader to continue, but the audio quality is quite poor.