Research and Development
Research and Development
Design surely had a role in shaping the computer, but far more important was the role of the computer in shaping design. This chapter studies the involvement of designers at two labs that formed the research core of the Silicon Valley environment: the Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park, and the Xerox Corporation’s Palo Alto Research Center. At SRI Douglas Engelbart established the Augmentation Research Center where, in a hitherto undisclosed collaboration with Robert Propst of the Herman Miller furniture company, he developed a set of tools intended to enable geographically dispersed teams to collaborate across time and space. It follows the fledgling design community to Xerox PARC, where it contributed to the development of the first computer workstation, and concludes by studying its role in the first of the market-oriented Silicon Valley technology startups.
Keywords: Stanford Research Institute, Douglas Engelbart, Xerox PARC, Herman Miller Corporation
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