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Role in Early Computer Science Research Much like Vannevar Bush, J.C.R. Licklider's contribution to the development of the Internet consists of ideas, not inventions. He foresaw the need for networked computers with easy user interfaces. His ideas foretold of graphical computing, point-and-click interfaces, digital libraries, e-commerce, online banking, and software that would exist on a network and migrate wherever it was needed. He has been called, "Computing's Johnny Appleseed," a well-deserved nickname for a man who planted the seeds of computing in the digital age. In 1950 Licklider moved from the Psycho-Acoustic Laboratory at Harvard University to MIT where he served on a committee that established MIT Lincoln Laboratory. He worked on a Cold War project known as SAGE designed to create computer-based air defense systems. In 1957 he became a Vice President at BBN, where he bought the first production PDP-1 computer and conducted the first public demonstration of time-sharing. In 1960 Licklider wrote his famous paper Man-Computer Symbiosis, which outlined the need for simpler interaction between computers and computer users. Licklider has been credited as an early pioneer of cybernetics and AI *. Unlike many AI practitioners, Licklider never felt that men would be replaced by computer-based beings. As he wrote in that article: "Men will set the goals, formulate the hypotheses, determine the criteria, and perform the evaluations. Computing machines will do the routinizable work that must be done to prepare the way for insights and decisions in technical and scientific thinking." Licklider formulated the earliest ideas of a global computer network in August 1962 at BBN, in a series of memos discussing the "Galactic Network" concept. These ideas contained almost everything that the Internet is today. His paper The Computer as a Communication Device, Science and Technology, April 1968, illustrates his vision of network applications. In October 1962 Licklider was appointed head of the DARPA information processing office, part of the United States Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. He would then convince Ivan Sutherland, Bob Taylor, and Lawrence G. Roberts that an all-encompassing computer network was a very important concept. In 1968, J.C.R. Licklider became director of Project MAC at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which he had provided the initial funding for while at DARPA. Project MAC had produced the first computer time-sharing system, CTSS, and one of the first online setups with the development of Multics (work on which commenced in 1964). Multics was the direct ancestor of the Unix operating system developed at Bell Labs by Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie in 1970. So many of Licklider's visions are still with us today that the effect of his ideas can scarcely be quantified, especially with the explosion of the World Wide Web and the general Internet. External resources J.C.R. Licklider and the Revolution That Made Computing PersonalISBN 0-67-089976-3 is an extensive biography of J.C.R. Licklider. See also | ||||||||||
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