Who Is This “Licklider” Guy? (2008) | Hacker News Reader

Who Is This “Licklider” Guy? (2008)

moserware.com

82 pointsindigodaddy11 comments

“Where Wizards Stay Up Late” is a fantastic book that has some good insight on Lick’s imagination and contributions to technology. And LOADS more!

https://www.amazon.com/Where-Wizards-Stay-Up-Late/dp/0684832...

I read that one too and if you liked it you'll probably like the one mentioned in the article more: https://press.stripe.com/#the-dream-machine

The Dream Machine goes a lot more in depth and covers more of the story.

Loved this book. If you like tech bio/history books, this one is a must read.

actually, i like "Michael A. Hiltzik’s Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age" (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0887309895/) much better than the wizards book.

it is quite a long read, but is very good.

I've read both. They're about different topics. Wizards is about the development of the internet. I found it slightly more fun reading, but both books are highly worthwhile, if you're interested in the history of technology.

hmm, me too :o)

but from reading the 'dealers of lightning' it was kind of apparent, that parc had a huge influence on development of internetworking-protocols than is widely known f.e. we must surely remeber about the 'parc universal packet' aka PUP (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PARC_Universal_Packet) as a precursor to the much beloved tcp/ip protocol suite etc etc.

unfortunately, i didn't really enjoy the 'wizards' book as much as i would have really liked...i had the distinct impression that it was kind of 'jumping all over the place'

While on the subject of books and Licklider. Here [1] is a great Licklider quote about paper (books) in a book [2], that I always loved.

[1] https://j11g.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Licklider.png

[2] http://worrydream.com/refs/Licklider%20-%20Libraries%20of%20...

The Dream Machine: J.C.R. Licklider and the Revolution That Made Computing Personal

https://www.amazon.com/Dream-Machine-Licklider-Revolution-Co...

"One such example of how he did this was his famous 1963 memo which began: "[to the] Members and Affiliates of the Intergalactic Computer Network." In his mind, Lick was referring to a human network. He continued: "It is evident that we have among us a collection of individual (personal and/or organizational) aspirations, efforts, activities, and projects." The challenge now was to exploit "the possibilities for mutual advantage". He went on to describe a connected system that would keep all the research projects together, a network focused on human thoughts but connected by wires. In essence, the early signs of the Internet."

Not to take anything away from Licklider, but in 1909 E. M. Forster was already envisioning something like the internet in his short story The Machine Stops.[1][2]

[1] - https://web.archive.org/web/20190102114403/http://archive.nc...

[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Machine_Stops

I first encountered his name when digging into ION, the interplanetary overlay network becuase of the LTP protocol.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Licklider_Transmission_Proto...

Really stellar work.

Jeff's blog is really great btw., especially the Towards Moore's Law series.

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