Jacob E. Goldman, who Founded Xerox PARC that developed Computing Innovations died

Jacob E. Goldman, a founder of the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) that developed breakthrough computing innovations died on 20 December 2011. The Palo Alto Research Center developed computing innovations such as the graphical user interface and ethernet networks.

Physicist Jacob E. Goldman, as Xerox's chief scientist founded the company's vaunted Palo Alto Research Center, which invented the modern personal computer. In 1970s, the laboratory created a string of innovations 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.

Goldman played an important role both at the Ford Motor Co., during the 1950s, and later at Xerox in the 1960s and 1970s, in financing basic scientific research in an effort to spark corporate innovation.

He became a private investor after retirement, according to the book Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age by Michael Hiltzik.