<P> In 1980, Intelligent Machines Journal - a hobbyist journal - changed its name to InfoWorld, and, with offices in Palo Alto, began covering the explosive emergence of the microcomputer industry in the valley . </P> <P> Although semiconductors are still a major component of the area's economy, Silicon Valley has been most famous in recent years for innovations in software and Internet services . Silicon Valley has significantly influenced computer operating systems, software, and user interfaces . </P> <P> Using money from NASA, the US Air Force, and ARPA, Doug Engelbart invented the mouse and hypertext - based collaboration tools in the mid-1960s and 1970s while at Stanford Research Institute (now SRI International), first publicly demonstrated in 1968 in what is now known as The Mother of All Demos . Engelbart's Augmentation Research Center at SRI was also involved in launching the ARPANET (precursor to the Internet) and starting the Network Information Center (now InterNIC). Xerox hired some of Engelbart's best researchers beginning in the early 1970s . In turn, in the 1970s and 1980s, Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) played a pivotal role in object - oriented programming, graphical user interfaces (GUIs), Ethernet, PostScript, and laser printers . </P> <P> While Xerox marketed equipment using its technologies, for the most part its technologies flourished elsewhere . The diaspora of Xerox inventions led directly to 3Com and Adobe Systems, and indirectly to Cisco, Apple Computer, and Microsoft . Apple's Macintosh GUI was largely a result of Steve Jobs' visit to PARC and the subsequent hiring of key personnel . Cisco's impetus stemmed from the need to route a variety of protocols over Stanford's campus Ethernet . </P>

Where is silicon valley and how did it get its name