This is the only talk online by the visionary who conceived and funded the Internet. It's quite amazing, though it needs a bit of patience at first; stick with it. Licklider was everybody's genius absent-minded uncle, and this is your chance to join the family.
He covers a myriad of ideas about interactive computing, many of which are still futuristic. He strongly defends 'open' software and talks about Moore's Law under a different name. You get glimpses into how his mind works. He mentions dozens of different researchers and now-forgotten strands of work. He tells great stories, such as how he was walking in the dark, fell into an open grave, had trouble getting out so sat down to think instead, and came up with the idea of the personal workstation. The bits about analog computers are fascinating. There are cameos by Butler Lampson and others.
Licklider was the sort of prophet whose vision usually remains unexecuted, but he turned out to be a social genius too, with an unmatched eye for talent. Some spacetime wormhole landed him at DARPA with a budget in 1962 and he played his cards brilliantly. It's an if-only story that actually worked out. We all owe this guy.
It's Saturday. Take some time and watch this—it's a rare window into the background of our world. Watch it all the way to the end and you'll get to hear Alan Perlis quip that the historical purpose of AT&T was Bell Labs.
tips hat my pleasure. I'll add that I've recently begun to read about the fascinating early history of computing myself through a series of HN threads which led me to read, "Tools for Thought" by Howard Rheingold. That book is highly cited in another book mentioned here in the comments about Licklider, "The Dream Machine".
I highly recommend Tools for Thought. It is very clear from reading these histories that the early pioneers of the field knew with a very high degree of accuracy how the future of computing would play out over the coming decades. That book is humbling to say the least.
He covers a myriad of ideas about interactive computing, many of which are still futuristic. He strongly defends 'open' software and talks about Moore's Law under a different name. You get glimpses into how his mind works. He mentions dozens of different researchers and now-forgotten strands of work. He tells great stories, such as how he was walking in the dark, fell into an open grave, had trouble getting out so sat down to think instead, and came up with the idea of the personal workstation. The bits about analog computers are fascinating. There are cameos by Butler Lampson and others.
Licklider was the sort of prophet whose vision usually remains unexecuted, but he turned out to be a social genius too, with an unmatched eye for talent. Some spacetime wormhole landed him at DARPA with a budget in 1962 and he played his cards brilliantly. It's an if-only story that actually worked out. We all owe this guy.
It's Saturday. Take some time and watch this—it's a rare window into the background of our world. Watch it all the way to the end and you'll get to hear Alan Perlis quip that the historical purpose of AT&T was Bell Labs.
Edit: Forgot to mention that I found it via https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10989390. Thanks, whistlerbrk!