The Dream Machine: J.C.R. Licklider and the Revolution that Made Computing Personal"The year is 1962. More than a decade will pass before personal computers emerge from the garages of Silicon Valley, and a full thirty years before the Internet explosion of the 1990s. The word computer still has an ominous tone, conjuring up the image of a huge, intimidating device hidden away in an overlit, air-conditioned basement, relentlessly processing punch cards for some large institution: them. Yet, sitting in a nondescript office in Robert McNamara's Pentagon, a quiet forty-seven-year-old civilian is already planning the revolution that will change forever the way computers are perceived. Somehow, the occupant of that office - a former MIT psychologist named J. C. R. Licklider - has seen a future in which computers will empower individuals, instead of forcing them into rigid conformity. He is almost alone in his conviction that computers can become not just superfast calculating machines but joyful machines: tools that will serve as new media of expression, inspirations to creativity, and gateways to a vast world of on line information. And now he is determined to use the Pentagon's money to make that vision a reality."--BOOK JACKET. -- Interview. |
What people are saying - Write a review
Reviews aren't verified, but Google checks for and removes fake content when it's identified
LibraryThing Review
User Review - joeldinda - LibraryThingThe Dream Machine, which is nominally a biography of J.C.R. Licklider, is actually an overview of the history of computing from M.I.T.'s Whirlwind effort through the beginnings of true personal ... Read full review
THE DREAM MACHINE: J.C.R. Licklider and the Revolution That Made Computing Personal
User Review - KirkusMeet J.C.R. Licklider, the man who put "personal" in "personal computers," in this lively, memorable, and wickedly detailed biography from Waldrop (Creativity, not reviewed).In what amounts to a ... Read full review
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
actually already Alto ARPA Arpanet asked become beginning build called Center completely course create didn't director early electronic engineers example experience explains fact Fano finally give going hand happened head human idea interactive interested kind knew known language later learned Lick Lick's Licklider look machine mathematics McCarthy meeting memory Miller mind moreover move needed Neumann never once operating packets PARC planning problem Project proposal reason remembers Roberts says seemed soon started talk Taylor thing thought time-sharing tion told trying turn understand University users von Neumann wanted whole Wiener write wrote Xerox young
References to this book
The Triple Helix: University-industry-government Innovation in Action Henry Etzkowitz No preview available - 2008 |
The Triple Helix: University-industry-government Innovation in Action Henry Etzkowitz No preview available - 2008 |
Bibliographic information
| Title | The Dream Machine: J.C.R. Licklider and the Revolution that Made Computing Personal Sloan technology series |
| Author | M. Mitchell Waldrop |
| Edition | reprint |
| Publisher | Penguin Books, 2002 |
| Original from | the University of Michigan |
| Digitized | Nov 15, 2007 |
| ISBN | 014200135X, 9780142001356 |
| Length | 502 pages |
| Subjects | › Computers / Computer Engineering |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |