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Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) to join SRI International

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Re: Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) to join SRI International

#51

Post by gumby »

usr1106 wrote: post #3

As a software engineer since the 1980s, of course I know (Xerox) PARC. But am I the only one for whom SRI does not ring any bells? I'm confident Wikipedia can tell me more, but if they don't tell in their press release I would claim they might overestimate their "brand".

SRI is where Doug Engelbart worked developed the mouse and windowing interface (among other things) and put together the "Mother of all Demos".

SRI where the original ARPANET NIC was, and had various important roles in the development of the net.

I really don't think they overestimated their brand, they just talk to their likely customers.

(I worked at PARC, never at SRI, but I had many friends from SRI, and there was a flow of personnel in both directions).

Re: Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) to join SRI International

#52

Post by ricktdotorg »

eichin wrote: post #33
ricktdotorg wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"SRI" [1] [1] https://static.scientificamerican.com/sciam/cache/file/63774...

The one people will remember, though, is SRI-NIC because that's where you FTP'ed the offical HOSTS.TXT file from (mid-to-late 1980s before DNS.)

oh man your comment just made me remember that i registered a domain by also FTPing a txt file to some NIC FTP site, i'm guessing it was 1991?.

IIRC that's when i registered rmt.org (my initials) using that method (for free!). used it for a couple of years but then moved to USA and at some point in the mid 90s i guess i had to start paying for it, i forgot -- and lost the domain to the UK union for Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers. a worthy successor!

well i guess they sold it because now the domain is owned by a trust that helps autistic children in the UK. another worthy successor!

anyway, thanks for the memory!!!

Re: Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) to join SRI International

#53

Post by AlbertCory »

fatneckbeard wrote: post #46
rchiang wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's important to note that much (all?) of PARCs research has been oriented around the "office of the future". In the broadest sense of that vision, they had a huge hand in originating a lot of computing technologies. And while SRI has had their impact in the computing industry, they also have other research labs that have very little to do with computing such as biomedical, education, and policy.

sri was never gonna allow a bunch of hippies and bearded longhairs tour their facility in the spirit of academic comradeship. (IE no microsoft, no apple being allowed to walk around and talk to people in the 80s to get the ideas for Macintosh and Windows) Ironically, Apple and Microsoft would never allow some stranger company to walk into their offices and see everything they were developing either. lol

Xerox had two meetings with Apple, in December 1979. Neither they nor Microsoft was ever able to "walk into their offices and see everything they were developing ."

Re: Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) to join SRI International

#54

Post by AlbertCory »

robert-graham wrote: post #45

Remember that SRI is a patent troll. They are non-practicing entity. They don't build the things they "invent". They instead write patents then extort the people who do build things. I say this from personal experience. I created many inventions in "intrusion detection", spent years in data centers making theory work in practice. SRI sued me using vaguely worded patents. It's a harsh accusation, but objectively true.…

"patent troll" -- I hate those as much as you do, but I wouldn't call SRI one. All patents have the broadest language the lawyers could get through the PTO.

Wow, do the lawyers over on Reddit hate this! In the Appendix, you can follow the progress of a recent Facebook patent:

https://albertcory50.substack.com/p/lets-vote-on-it

I do tend to be inflammatory at times /s

Re: Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) to join SRI International

#55

Post by nickt »

rchiang wrote: post #25
strangeloops85 wrote: post #17

I think Xerox has been trying to unload PARC for a while, and this just seems like a way for them to do it and get a tax write-off since it's a 'donation'. PARC has already been doing a lot of government contract work, and I've seen teams from PARC and SRI compete for certain programs, so there's definitely synergy there. But I think PARC was historically more commercially oriented than SRI, so there will be some cul…

Xerox went through the process of making PARC a wholly-owned subsidiary in 2002 (which is around the time the parc.com domain was created to replace the parc.xerox.com subdomain). This was presumably as part of trying to sell of PARC, in part or as a whole. Xerox's revenue has been slowly declining over that time (~$15B from 2002-2009, ~$20B 2010-2013, ~$10B 2014-2019, ~$7B 2020-2023). There's likely a few business-r…

Talking of registering domains, xerox.com was the 7th registered .com, and SRI was the 8th - less than a week apart in January 1986.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_oldest_currently_r...

Re: Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) to join SRI International

#57

Post by smilespray »

AlbertCory wrote: post #53
fatneckbeard wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sri was never gonna allow a bunch of hippies and bearded longhairs tour their facility in the spirit of academic comradeship. (IE no microsoft, no apple being allowed to walk around and talk to people in the 80s to get the ideas for Macintosh and Windows) Ironically, Apple and Microsoft would never allow some stranger company to walk into their offices and see everything they were developing either. lol

Xerox had two meetings with Apple, in December 1979. Neither they nor Microsoft was ever able to "walk into their offices and see everything they were developing ."

Come on. Xerox gave away the crown jewels in those meetings.

Re: Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) to join SRI International

#58

Post by lovecg »

VagueMag wrote: post #23

For something of its size and influence very few people have heard of SRI, but it comes up frequently in 'noided online discussions about the overlap between Silicon Valley and military/intelligence. A lot of the things that PARC was credited with creating in the first place were really dreamed up at SRI, so it makes a certain sense for them to be merging: https://squamuglia.wordpress.com/2017/04/16/67/#more-67 https…

Most people have heard of Siri though that was named after SRI!

Re: Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) to join SRI International

#59

Post by technothrasher »

VagueMag wrote: post #23

For something of its size and influence very few people have heard of SRI, but it comes up frequently in 'noided online discussions about the overlap between Silicon Valley and military/intelligence. A lot of the things that PARC was credited with creating in the first place were really dreamed up at SRI, so it makes a certain sense for them to be merging: https://squamuglia.wordpress.com/2017/04/16/67/#more-67 https…

When I hear SRI, I always think of the parapsychology research they did for 20 or so years from ~1970-1990 and their huge clash with the newly founded skeptical organization CSICOP (now CSI) in the late 70's.
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