A Paradigm Shift Was Happening All Around Us

Thankfully, Ridley Scott´s brilliant Super Bowl ad, proclaiming that 1984 won´t be like 1984, heralded a Golden Age of Electronics instead of George Orwell´s dyspeptic scenario. Apple´s Macintosh debuted, Hewlett-Packard and its new LaserJet printer set record sales and profits for Silicon Valley companies, and I met Lynn Conway when we both joined the IEEE Spectrum Advisory Board. Although Conway was a bit shy and had held back from the limelight, I already “knew” her. As HP´s Corporate Engineering Director, my job was to “know” the Valley. Operating a prototype Macintosh six months prior to introduction, I´d sparked Tom Whitney´s Summerhill Partners´ angel round that was the initial funding for Aldus Corporation and Pagemaker. I´d compared views with Xerox PARC´s Warren Teitleman, both a Caltech classmate and a neighbor (with an Alto and then a Dorado by his home swimming pool). Warren and I had both known Carver Mead for 25 years. Mead was my senior advisor, urging me to join HP in 1962. By 1975, Mead and Conway were collaborating at PARC.