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

Waldrop, M. Mitchell

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0670899763 ISBN 13: 9780670899760

Publisher: Viking Adult, 2001

Synopsis

A study of the evolution of the modern computer profiles the work of MIT psychologist J. C. R. Licklider, whose visionary dream of a "human-computer symbiosis" transformed the course of modern science and led to the development of the personal computer. 35,000 first printing.

About this title

About the Author

M. Mitchell Waldrop, formerly a senior writer at Science magazine, is the author of Complexity and Man-Made Minds.

Reviews

Licklider was a brilliant scientist whose essential contributions to cognitive psychology and cybernetics included critical early developments in the field of man-machine interaction. However, his original work is often overshadowed by his accomplishments as a teacher, administrator and project leader and this ably written and well-researched biography isn't likely to propel him into the limelight. Waldrop (Man-Made Minds) devotes about 20% of the book to Licklider himself; the rest covers his teachers, colleagues and students at MIT and the Pentagon including computing pioneers Douglas Engelbart, Wes Clark and Larry Roberts and Licklider's indirect influence on the development of personal computers and the Internet (via "the world's first large-scale experiment in personal computing" at MIT). To his credit, Waldrop avoids common stereotypes of computer nerds or saints, delivering a vivid account of Licklider and his contemporaries. But he was not able to interview Licklider (who died in 1990), nor does he include material from personal papers or memoirs. Instead, Waldrop bases most of the book on secondary accounts, including biographies and histories of technology. The result is an informative and engaging history of computers from the 1930s to the 1970s, with an emphasis on Licklider and his period of greatest influence, 1957 to 1968. (Aug. 27)Forecast: A six-city author tour will raise some interest, but there isn't much demand for another history of computing and the Internet, especially when Katie Hafner and Matthew Lyon's Where Wizards Stay Up Late and Martin Campbell-Kelly's Computer cover the same material.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Because what we now know as the Internet evolved from the contributions of many, it is difficult to credit any one person with its creation. If there is a single individual to be recognized, though, Waldrop makes a strong case that it should be J. C. R. Licklider, who both envisioned and enabled the Internet. When computing still relied on punched cards and batch processing, Licklider foresaw interactive computing in a paper entitled "Man-Computer Symbiosis." As head of the Pentagon's Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), he oversaw funding for experiments in computer timesharing, artificial intelligence, and "freehand communication" with computers. Waldrop, a former senior writer for Science magazine, is the author of Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos (1992). There Waldrop put a human face on bold new theories being developed at the Santa Fe Institute and its quirky coterie of scientists. Now Waldrop performs the same feat as he tracks Licklider's career and shows how he influenced the work of those he worked with and those who followed him. David Rouse
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Licklider, known to many simply as "Lick," was a revolutionary thinker for his time. During the early 1960s, he viewed the computer as a tool of communication and focused his attention on networking them for accessing information and resource sharing. Waldrop, a former writer for Science magazine and author of Complexity, paints a comprehensive portrait of his subject, describing how his dream of a "human-computer symbiosis" would change the course of history and culture. Lick's work as the director of the Advance Research Projects Agency (ARPA) for the Department of Defense led him to envision "a user at a remote terminal, having access to a variety of resources at several interconnected computer centers." While heading ARPA, he developed time-sharing the interactive use of computers by several people at the same time and paved the way for the creation of the Internet. This fascinating account is recommended for an informed audience. Joe Accardi, William Rainey Harper Coll., Palatine, IL
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Viking Adult
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0670899763
• ISBN 13: 9780670899760
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 528