M. Mitchell Waldrop

Writing with the same novelistic flair that made "Complexity" "the most exciting intellectual adventure story of the year" ("The Washington Post"), Waldrop presents the first full-scale portrait of the man whose dream of a "human-computer symbiosis" changed the course of science and culture. Photos.

J.C.R. Licklider and the Revolution that Made Computing Personal

The Dream Machine

At a time when computers were a short step removed from mechanical data processors, Licklider was writing treatises on "human-computer symbiosis," "computers as communication devices," and a now not-so-unfamiliar "Intergalactic Network." His ideas became so influential, his passion so contagious, that Waldrop coined him "computing's Johnny Appleseed." In a simultaneously compelling personal narrative and comprehensive historical exposition, Waldrop tells the story of the man who not only instigated the work that led to the internet, but also shifted our understanding of what computers were and could be.

Andrew Louis

Less a biography of a single person and more the story of an idealistic thread in computing history.

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.

Felix Jamestin

This is the most deeply insightful book I've read on the history & vision of computing. 

It's special since it covers an amazingly broad scope – all the way from the mechanical machines employed in WW2 (cybernetics) to modern-day personal computing & the internet. It's even more special since it also covers the people & the culture that made all this happen.

It ties *so* many threads together:
– The origins of Claude Shannon's information theory & Von Neumann's architecture that laid the groundwork for much of later computing.
– The push to move computing from a privileged service to a public good (via timesharing)
– The original vision of personal computing and the inventions that enabled it: Interactivity, GUIs, Control devices like the mouse & light pens, Networking, and Object-oriented programming to name a few.
– The culture at ARPA & Xerox PARC that enabled all this, and the role that so many people played: Vannevar Bush, Norbert Wiener, Von Neumann, Claude Shannon, Alan Turing, JC Licklider, Doug Engelbart, Ivan Sutherland, Alan Kay, Vin Cerf & so many more

I wish I'd read this book a decade earlier.

Udit Desai

Really interesting and thorough read on the history of personal computing and the people who influenced the vision along the way. Some great learnings:

- Throwing money at smart people working on important things works (obviously nuanced though)
- Technology does depend on how it's used to create the next wave of it similar to fashion and culture. Personal computing may never have arrived here if not for people's vision
- Working on stuff with other people is awesome

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