Inventing the Future

A compelling novel based on the first-hand experience of the author, a Xerox engineer in California in the 1970s, as they created the first modern personal computer and laid the groundwork for our modern technological society.

Imagine a time before everyone stared at a screen, before fonts, icons, mice, and laser printers, before Apple and Microsoft. But tucked away in El Segundo and Palo Alto, Xerox engineers were dreaming and secretly building the modern personal computer.

Who were these people who changed the world, and why did corporate management just want to sell copiers and printers? 

The author was one of the engineers charged with making that dream a reality and unknowingly starting a revolution. Inventing the Future is based on the true story of the Xerox Star, the computer that changed everything. 

The book follows three main characters, one of them the author and the other two fictional in their trip through the Xerox Star adventure. They have lives outside of work as well, and the book is also a trip back in time to California in the late 70s and early 80s. The reader is invited to put themselves into the shoes of a 20-something engineer entrusted with world-changing innovations. 

About the Author 

Albert Cory is the pen-name of Bob Purvy, who grew up on the far South Side of Chicago, where he was the first of his family to attend college. After graduating with a Master’s Degree in Computer Science at the University of Illinois, his first job was at Burroughs in Irvine, California. After three years there, he was hired at Xerox to work on the Star (the subject of Inventing the Future).

After the Star, he worked at 3Com, Oracle, Packeteer, and Google, among others. At Oracle he led a Working Group in the Internet Engineering Task Force, which produced RFC 1697. At Google, as a patent expert, he published an article on Software Obviousness which was cited in an amicus brief to the US Supreme Court in the pivotal CLS Bank v. Alice case. He also single-handedly prevented Google Maps from being shut down in Germany, which was about to happen when Microsoft won a temporary injunction in a patent suit.