Copies in Seconds: How a Lone Inventor and an Unknown Company Created the Biggest Communication Breakthrough Since Gutenberg--Chester Carlson and the Birth of Xerox

Este é uma história inacreditável.

Forget Steve Jobs or Bill Gates. Chester Carlson was a true engineering genius and a true humanitarian.

I've always enjoyed David Owen's writing in the New Yorker and Golf Digest, and I read Green Metropolis in the hardcover. When I got my Kindle back in 2009, this was one of the first books I bought, but I kept putting off reading it until the last month. It is such an enjoyable book! Mr. Owen has constructed a modern masterpiece of research and style. He perfectly captures the challenges of inventions and the types of people who will pursue them against all odds and in difficult conditions. Each character is expertly and endearingly portrayed. But even the best writer needs a great topic to write a really great book, and this one is timeless. It is hard to imagine what the world would be like without copiers, but I lived it for a few years volunteering in Africa, searching for the few precious pieces of worn carbon paper so I could fill out my psychiatric referrals in triplicate (once while a naked, psychotic man tried to throw his fresh feces at me through the screen of the police van). I find myself wishing I was there with Mr. Owen as he interviewed the people and viewed their demonstrations. He is always good company and seems to bring out the very best in the people and topics he investigates.

Ottimo volume, ricco di spunti e riferimenti bibliografici per conoscere a approfondire la storia della Xerografia e del suo inventore Chester Carlson.

Until the invention of the photocopier the process of copying documents was a huge hassle, involving chemicals, special paper and complicated processes. Then a lone inventor who had experienced extreme poverty as a child and struggled to make ends meet during the great depression, found a new simpler way to do it. With an idea that was rejected by almost everyone for been to difficult, this lone inventor found backing by a lesser-known photographic paper company who was in the shadow of Kodak who then gambled nearly everything to make it work. It nearly never happened, but Chester carlson did it and the company that later became Xerox became one of the richest companies in America.Its an excellent story only Americans can write (and the technical issues they faced are an added bonus. It makes you think how much technology goes into making a dozen copies of someone's backside at a christmas party.).