Jacob E. Goldman, a founder of the Palo Alto Research Center that developed breakthrough computing innovations such as the graphical user interface and ethernet networks, died on Tuesday. He was 90.
Goldman was recruited from Ford Motor Company to Xerox, where he pushed for a research center that he warned might not bear fruit for as long as 10 years, according to The New York Times, which reported that he died of congestive heart failure.
But in the decade following PARC's founding in 1970, the laboratory created a string of innovations that still resonate in modern computing today, from laser printing to object-oriented programming to the world's first WYSIWYG (What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get) editor.
In 1975, PARC unveiled the graphical user interface with pop-up menus and windows and point-and-click controls. The GUI represented crucial ground work later built upon by companies such as Microsoft and Apple and eventually launched personal computing in the 1980s.
R.I.P. Jack Goldman, the guy who gave Steve Jobs and Bill Gates their raison d'etres.
Anyone who's using a PC, Mac or tablet can thank the founder of PARC for them. Brushing aside their massive egos, I always wondered why Jobs et al didn't send out mad props to the PARC crew.
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