Robert William Taylor (February 10, 1932 – April 13, 2017), known as Bob Taylor, was an American
Internet pioneer
Instead of having a single "inventor", the Internet was developed by many people over many years. The following are some Internet pioneers who contributed to its early and ongoing development. These include early theoretical foundations, specifyi ...
, who led teams that made major contributions to the personal computer, and other related technologies. He was director of
ARPA's
Information Processing Techniques Office from 1965 through 1969, founder and later manager of
Xerox PARC's Computer Science Laboratory from 1970 through 1983, and founder and manager of
Digital Equipment Corporation's
Systems Research Center until 1996.
Uniquely, Taylor had no formal academic training or research experience in
computer science;
Severo Ornstein likened Taylor to a "concert pianist without fingers," a perception reaffirmed by historian Leslie Berlin: "Taylor could hear a faint melody in the distance, but he could not play it himself. He knew whether to move up or down the scale to approximate the sound, he could recognize when a note was wrong, but he needed someone else to make the music."
His awards include the
National Medal of Technology and Innovation and the
Draper Prize.
Taylor was known for his high-level vision: "The Internet is not about technology; it's about communication. The Internet connects people who have shared interests, ideas and needs, regardless of geography."
Early life
Robert W. Taylor was born in
Dallas, Texas, in 1932.
His adoptive father, Rev. Raymond Taylor, was a
Methodist minister who held degrees from
Southern Methodist University, the
University of Texas at Austin and
Yale Divinity School. The family (including Taylor's adoptive mother, Audrey) was highly itinerant during Taylor's childhood, moving from parish to parish. Having skipped several grades as a result of his enrollment in an experimental school, he began his higher education at Southern Methodist University at the age of 16 in 1948; while there, he was "not a serious student" but "had a good time."
[http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/Oral_History/Taylor_Robert/102702015.05.01.acc.pdf ]
Taylor then served a stint in the
United States Naval Reserve
The United States Navy Reserve (USNR), known as the United States Naval Reserve from 1915 to 2005, is the Reserve Component (RC) of the United States Navy. Members of the Navy Reserve, called Reservists, are categorized as being in either the Sel ...
during the
Korean War (1952–1954) at
Naval Air Station Dallas before returning to his studies at the University of Texas at Austin under the
GI Bill. At UT he was a "professional student," taking courses for pleasure. In 1957, he earned an undergraduate degree in
experimental psychology from the institution with minors in
mathematics,
philosophy, English and
religion.
He subsequently earned a master's degree in psychology from Texas in 1959
before electing not to pursue a
PhD PHD or PhD may refer to:
* Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification
Entertainment
* '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series
* '' Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic
* Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group
** Ph.D. (Ph.D. al ...
in the field. Reflecting his background in experimental psychology and mathematics, he completed research in
neuroscience,
psychoacoustics and the auditory
nervous system as a graduate student. According to Taylor, "I had a teaching assistantship in the department, and they were urging me to get a PhD, but to get a PhD in psychology in those days, maybe still today, you have to qualify and take courses in
abnormal psychology,
social psychology,
clinical psychology,
child psychology
Developmental psychology is the scientific study of how and why humans grow, change, and adapt across the course of their lives. Originally concerned with infants and children, the field has expanded to include adolescence, adult development ...
, none of which I was interested in. Those are all sort of in the softer regions of psychology. They're not very scientific, they're not very rigorous. I was interested in
physiological psychology, in psychoacoustics or the portion of psychology which deals with science, the nervous system, things that are more like
applied physics
Applied physics is the application of physics to solve scientific or engineering problems. It is usually considered to be a bridge or a connection between physics and engineering.
"Applied" is distinguished from "pure" by a subtle combination ...
and
biology, really, than they are what normally people think of when they think of psychology. So I didn't want to waste time taking courses in those other areas and so I said I'm not going to get a PhD."
After leaving Texas, Taylor taught math and coached basketball for a year at Howey Academy, a co-ed prep school in
Florida. "I had a wonderful time but was very poor, with a second child — who turned out to be twins — on the way," he recalled.
Taylor took engineering jobs with aircraft companies at better salaries. He helped to design the
MGM-31 Pershing
The MGM-31A Pershing was the missile used in the Pershing 1 and Pershing 1a field artillery missile systems. It was a solid-fueled two-stage theater ballistic missile designed and built by Martin Marietta to replace the PGM-11 Redstone missile as ...
as a senior systems engineer for
defense contractor Martin Marietta (1960–1961) in
Orlando, Florida.
In 1962, after submitting a research proposal for a flight control simulation display, he was invited to join
NASA's Office of Advanced Research and Technology as a program manager assigned to the manned flight control and display division.
Computer career
Taylor worked for NASA in
Washington, D.C. while the
Kennedy administration was backing research and development projects such as the
Apollo program for a manned moon landing. In late 1962 Taylor met
J. C. R. Licklider
Joseph Carl Robnett Licklider (; March 11, 1915 – June 26, 1990), known simply as J. C. R. or "Lick", was an American psychologistMiller, G. A. (1991), "J. C. R. Licklider, psychologist", ''Journal of the Acoustical Society of Am ...
, who was heading the new
Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO) of the
Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA) of the
United States Department of Defense. Like Taylor, Licklider had specialized in psychoacoustics during his graduate studies. In March 1960, he published "Man-Computer Symbiosis," an article that envisioned new ways to use computers. This work was an influential roadmap in the history of the internet and the personal computer, and greatly influenced Taylor.
During this period, Taylor also became acquainted with
Douglas Engelbart at the
Stanford Research Institute in
Menlo Park, California. He directed NASA funding to Engelbart's studies of computer-display technology at SRI that led to the
computer mouse. The public demonstration of a mouse-based user interface was later called "
the Mother of All Demos." At the Fall 1968
Joint Computer Conference in
San Francisco, Engelbart,
Bill English,
Jeff Rulifson and the rest of the Human
Augmentation Research Center team at SRI showed on a big screen how he could manipulate a computer remotely located in Menlo Park, while sitting on a San Francisco stage, using his mouse.
ARPA
In 1965, Taylor moved from NASA to IPTO, first as a deputy to
Ivan Sutherland (who returned to academia shortly thereafter) to fund large programs in advanced research in computing at major universities and corporate research centers throughout the United States. Among the computer projects that ARPA supported was
time-sharing, in which many users could work at terminals to share a single large computer. Users could work interactively instead of using
punched cards or
punched tape in a
batch processing style. Taylor's office in
the Pentagon had a terminal connected to time-sharing at
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a terminal connected to the
Berkeley Timesharing System at the
University of California, Berkeley, and a third terminal to the
System Development Corporation in
Santa Monica, California. He noticed each system developed a community of users, but was isolated from the other communities.
Taylor hoped to build a
computer network to connect the ARPA-sponsored projects together, if nothing else, to let him communicate to all of them through one terminal. By June 1966, Taylor had been named director of IPTO; in this capacity, he shepherded the
ARPANET project until 1969.
[Lyon, Matthew; Hafner, Katie (1999-08-19). Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins Of The Internet (p. 12). Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition "1965 to 1969"] Taylor had convinced ARPA director
Charles M. Herzfeld to fund a network project earlier in February 1966, and Herzfeld transferred a million dollars from a ballistic missile defense program to Taylor's budget. Taylor hired
Larry Roberts from
MIT Lincoln Laboratory to be its first program manager. Roberts first resisted moving to Washington DC, until Herzfeld reminded the director of Lincoln Laboratory that ARPA dominated its funding.
Licklider continued to provide guidance, and
Wesley A. Clark
Wesley Allison Clark (April 10, 1927 – February 22, 2016) was an American physicist who is credited for designing the first modern personal computer. He was also a computer designer and the main participant, along with Charles Molnar, in the ...
suggested the use of a dedicated computer, called the
Interface Message Processor at each node of the network instead of centralized control. At the 1967
Symposium on Operating Systems Principles, a member of
Donald Davies' team (
Roger Scantlebury) presented their research on
packet switching and suggested it for use in the ARPANET.
ARPA issued a
request for quotation (RFQ) to build the system, which was awarded to
Bolt, Beranek and Newman (BBN). ATT Bell Labs and
IBM Research were invited to join, but were not interested. At a pivotal meeting in 1967 most participants resisted testing the new network; they thought it would slow down their research.
In 1968, Licklider and Taylor published "The Computer as a Communication Device". The article laid out the future of what the Internet would eventually become.
It began with a prophetic statement: "In a few years, men will be able to communicate more effectively through a machine than face to face."
Beginning in 1967, Taylor was sent by ARPA to investigate inconsistent reports coming from the
Vietnam War. Only 35 years old, he was given an identification card with the military rank equivalent to his civilian position (
brigadier general
Brigadier general or Brigade general is a military rank used in many countries. It is the lowest ranking general officer in some countries. The rank is usually above a colonel, and below a major general or divisional general. When appointe ...
), thus ensuring protection under the
Geneva convention
upright=1.15, Original document in single pages, 1864
The Geneva Conventions are four treaties, and three additional protocols, that establish international legal standards for humanitarian treatment in war. The singular term ''Geneva Conve ...
if he were captured. Over the course of several trips to the area, he established a computer center at the
Military Assistance Command, Vietnam base in
Saigon. In his words: "After that the White House got a single report rather than several. That pleased them; whether the data was any more correct or not, I don't know, but at least it was more consistent."
The Vietnam project took him away from directing research, and "by 1969 I knew ARPANET would work. So I wanted to leave."
The election of
Richard Nixon to the presidency and ongoing tensions with Roberts (who, despite maintaining a putatively cordial relationship with Taylor, resented his lack of research experience and appointment to the IPTO directorship) also factored in his decision to leave ARPA. For about a year, he joined Sutherland and
David C. Evans
David Cannon Evans (February 24, 1924 – October 3, 1998) was the founder of the computer science department at the University of Utah and co-founder (with Ivan Sutherland) of Evans & Sutherland, a pioneering firm in computer graphics hardwar ...
at the
University of Utah in
Salt Lake City, where he had funded a center for research on computer graphics while at ARPA.
Unable to acclimate to the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints-dominated milieu, Taylor moved to
Palo Alto, California in 1970 to become associate manager of the Computer Science Laboratory (CSL) at
Xerox Corporation's new
Palo Alto Research Center
PARC (Palo Alto Research Center; formerly Xerox PARC) is a research and development company in Palo Alto, California. Founded in 1969 by Jacob E. "Jack" Goldman, chief scientist of Xerox Corporation, the company was originally a division of Xero ...
.
Xerox
Although Taylor played an integral role in recruiting scientists for the laboratory from the ARPA network, physicist and Xerox PARC director
George Pake
George E. Pake (April 1, 1924 – March 4, 2004) was a physicist and research executive primarily known for helping founded Xerox PARC.
Early life
Pake was raised in Kent, Ohio. His father was an English instructor at Kent State Univer ...
felt that he was an unsuitable candidate to manage the group because he lacked a relevant doctorate and subsequent experience in academic research. While Taylor eschewed a Pake-proposed research program in computer graphics in favor of largely administering the day-to-day operations of the laboratory from its inception, he acquiesced to the appointment of BBN scientist and ARPA network acquaintance
Jerome I. Elkind as titular CSL manager in 1971.
Technologies developed at PARC under Taylor's aegis focused on reaching beyond ARPANET to develop what has become the Internet, and the systems that support today's personal computers. They included:
*Powerful
personal computers (including the
Xerox Alto and later "D-machines") with windowed displays and graphical user interfaces that inspired the
Apple Lisa and
Macintosh. The Computer Science Laboratory built the Alto, which was conceived by
Butler Lampson and designed mostly by
Charles P. Thacker,
Edward M. McCreight
Edward Meyers McCreight is an American computer scientist. He received his Ph.D. in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University in 1969, advised by Albert R. Meyer. He co-invented the B-tree with Rudolf Bayer while at Boeing,
and improve ...
,
Bob Sproull and
David Boggs. The Learning Research Group of PARC's Systems Science Laboratory (led by
Alan Kay) added the software-based "desktop" metaphor.
*
Ethernet, which networks local computers within a building or campus; and the first
Internet, a network that connected the Ethernet to the ARPANET utilizing PUP (PARC Universal Protocol), forerunner to
TCP/IP. It was primarily designed by
Robert Metcalfe
Robert Melancton Metcalfe (born April 7, 1946) is an engineer and entrepreneur from the United States who helped pioneer the Internet starting in 1970. He co-invented Ethernet, co-founded 3Com and formulated Metcalfe's law, which describes the e ...
, Boggs, Thacker and Lampson.
*The electronics and software that led to the
laser printer (spearheaded by optical engineer
Gary Starkweather
Gary Keith Starkweather (January 9, 1938 – December 26, 2019) was an American engineer and inventor most notable for the invention of the laser printer and color management.
Starkweather received a B.S. in physics from Michigan State Universit ...
, who transferred from Xerox's
Webster, New York
Webster is a town in the northeastern corner of Monroe County, New York, United States. The town is named after orator and statesman Daniel Webster. The population was 42,641 at the 2010 census. The town's motto is "Where Life Is Worth Living." ...
laboratory to work with CSL) and the
Interpress page description language that allowed
John Warnock and
Chuck Geschke
Charles Matthew "Chuck" Geschke (September 11, 1939 – April 16, 2021) was an American businessman and computer scientist best known for founding the graphics and publishing software company Adobe Inc. with John Warnock in 1982, and co-creatin ...
to found
Adobe Systems.
*"What-you-see-is-what-you-get" (
WYSIWYG) word-processing programs, as exemplified by
Bravo, which
Charles Simonyi
Charles Simonyi (; hu, Simonyi Károly, ; born September 10, 1948) is a Hungarian-American software architect. He started and led Microsoft's applications group, where he built the first versions of Microsoft Office.
He co-founded and led I ...
took to
Microsoft to serve as the basis for
Microsoft Word.
*
SuperPaint, a pioneering
graphics program and
framebuffer computer system developed by
Richard Shoup. The software was written in consultation with future
Pixar co-founder
Alvy Ray Smith, who could not secure an appointment at PARC and was retained as an independent contractor. Although Shoup received a special
Emmy Award (shared with Xerox) in 1983 and an
Academy Scientific Engineering Award (shared with Smith and
Thomas Porter) in 1998 for his achievement, program development continued to be marginalized by Taylor and PARC, ultimately precipitating Shoup's departure in 1979.
Belying his lack of programming and engineering experience, Taylor was noted for his strident advocacy of Licklider-inspired distributed personal computing and his ability to maintain collegial and productive relationships between what was widely perceived as the foremost array of the epoch's leading computer scientists. This was exemplified by a weekly staff meeting at PARC (colloquially known as "Dealer" after
Edward O. Thorp's ''Beat the Dealer'') in which staff members would lead a discussion about myriad topics. They would sit in a circle of beanbag chairs and open debate was encouraged. According to Kay, the meeting "was part of the larger ARPA community to learn how to argue to illuminate rather than merely to win. ... The main purposes of Dealer -- as invented and implemented by Bob Taylor -- were to deal with how to make things work and make progress without having a formal manager structure. The presentations and argumentation were a small part of a deal session (they did quite bother visiting Xeroids). It was quite rare for anything like a personal attack to happen (because people for the most part came into PARC having been blessed by everyone there -- another Taylor rule -- and already knowing how 'to argue reasonably')."
Throughout his tenure at PARC, Taylor frequently clashed with Elkind (who held budgetary responsibility for new projects but found his managerial authority undercut by Taylor's intimate relationships with the research staff) and Pake (who did not countenance Taylor's outsized influence in the laboratory and deprecatory attitude toward Xerox's physics research program, then directly overseen by Pake); as a result, he was not officially invited to the company's "Futures Day" demo (marking the public premiere of the Alto) in
Boca Raton, Florida in 1977. However, after one of Elkind's extended absences (stemming from his ongoing involvement in other corporate and government projects), Taylor became the manager of the laboratory in early 1978.
In 1983, physicist and integrated circuit specialist William J. Spencer became director of PARC. Spencer and Taylor disagreed about budget allocations for CSL (exemplified by the ongoing institutional divide between computer science and physics) and CSL's frustration with Xerox's inability to recognize and use what they had developed. By the end of the year, Taylor and most of the researchers at CSL left Xerox. A coterie of leading computer scientists (including Licklider,
Donald Knuth and
Dana Scott) expressed their displeasure with Xerox's decision not to retain Taylor in a letter-writing campaign to CEO
David Kearns.
DEC SRC
Taylor was hired by
Ken Olsen of
Digital Equipment Corporation, and formed the
Systems Research Center in Palo Alto. Many of the former CSL researchers came to work at SRC. Among the projects at SRC were the
Modula-3 programming language; the snoopy cache, used in the Firefly multiprocessor workstation; the first multi-threaded Unix system; the first User Interface editor; the
AltaVista search engine and a networked Window System.
Retirement and death
Taylor retired from DEC in 1996. Following his divorce (coinciding with his departure from Xerox), he lived in a secluded house in
Woodside, California
Woodside is a small incorporated town in San Mateo County, California, United States, on the San Francisco Peninsula. Woodside is among the wealthiest communities in the United States, home to many technology billionaires and investment mana ...
.
In 2000, he voiced two concerns about the future of the Internet: control and access. In his words:
There are many worse ways of endangering a larger number of people on the Internet than on the highway. It's possible for people to generate networks that reproduce themselves and are very difficult or impossible to kill off. I want everyone to have the right to use it, but there's got to be some way to insure responsibility.
Will it be freely available to everyone? If not, it will be a big disappointment.
On April 13, 2017, he died at his home in Woodside, California. His son said he had suffered from
Parkinson's disease and other health problems.
Awards
In 1984, Taylor,
Butler Lampson, and
Charles P. Thacker received the
ACM Software Systems Award
The ACM Software System Award is an annual award that honors people or an organization "for developing a software system that has had a lasting influence, reflected in contributions to concepts, in commercial acceptance, or both". It is awarded b ...
"for conceiving and guiding the development of the Xerox Alto System demonstrating that a distributed personal computer system can provide a desirable and practical alternative to time-sharing." In 1994, all three were named
ACM Fellows in recognition of the same work. In 1999, Taylor received a
National Medal of Technology and Innovation. The citation read "For visionary leadership in the development of modern computing technology, including computer networks, the personal computer and the graphical user interface."
In 2004, the
National Academy of Engineering awarded him along with Lampson, Thacker and
Alan Kay their highest award, the
Draper Prize. The citation reads: "for the vision, conception, and development of the first practical networked personal computers."
In 2013, the
Computer History Museum named him a Museum Fellow, "for his leadership in the development of computer networking, online information and communications systems, and modern personal computing."
See also
*
Internet pioneers
References
Further reading
*
*
* Reprints of early papers with preface by Taylor
External links
The New Old Boys From the ARPAnetExtract from 'Tools for Thought' by
Howard Rheingold
Howard Rheingold (born 1947) is an American critic, writer, and teacher, known for his specialties on the cultural, social and political implications of modern communication media such as the Internet, mobile telephony and virtual communities ( ...
1984 ACM Software Systems Award citation1994 ACM Fellow citation2004 Draper Prize citation*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Taylor, Robert
1932 births
2017 deaths
American computer scientists
Digital Equipment Corporation people
Xerox people
Internet pioneers
Scientists at PARC (company)
National Medal of Technology recipients
Fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery
Draper Prize winners
University of Texas at Austin alumni
United States Navy personnel of the Korean War
People from Dallas
People from Woodside, California
Neurological disease deaths in California
Deaths from Parkinson's disease