[ih] J.C.R. Licklider

[Jack Haverty]

While I was in Lick's group at MIT, I don't recall that anyone ever 
wrote a single paper or journal article.  We even only wrote a very few 
RFCs.  Lick was not into publicity at all, preferring that we write code 
and build hardware rather than learned papers.   There was a stream of 
theses from students who passed through the group, but not much else.

Also, the "internet historians" (at least on this list) seem to focus on 
the technical history of the Internet - the protocols, algorithms, 
committees, RFCs, et al that got it to work.  But there's a lot more to 
the history, which is why I recommended Waldrop's book.  It contains a 
lot of the non-technical details of the people, politics, and 
interactions that were also crucial to making the Internet happen.

By the way, here's another historical account with lots of the 
non-technical details -- a 1988 interview with Lick himself:
https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/2016/03/102717159-05-01-acc.pdf

When anybody asks me "Who invented the Internet?" my answer is "Lick".  
He had the vision of the "intergalactic network" or "Multinet", among 
other notions (like timesharing), and spent time at ARPA getting the 
ball rolling and getting lots of other people to join his mission to 
create that vision.

When I think about my 1970s indoctrination into Lick's vision of a vast 
array of "computers helping people do everything people do" it sure 
looks like we're there.   It's unfortunate that we can't ask Lick's 
opinion any more, since I'm sure he would have ideas about what needs to 
be fixed.   His background in psychology and skills in politics would be 
especially useful for current issues as the Internet (AI, social media, 
etc.) affects society.

/Jack Haverty

On 11/1/26 15:44, Miles Fidelman wrote:
> How can "Internet Historians" not be acquainted with Lick?!!!
>
> I met him when he had retired from ARPA and was running the Dynamic 
> Modeling group at MIT.  We had some great chats in the break room at 
> 545 Tech Square - though I never learned about his role in the 
> Internet until much later.
>
> Ironically, it was his son Tracy, as President of the old Boston 
> Computer Society, who materialized the initial funding for our Center 
> for Civic Networking.
>
> Sent from Samsung Galaxy smartphone.
> Get Outlook for Android <https://aka.ms/AAb9ysg>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* Internet-history <internet-history-bounces at elists.isoc.org> on 
> behalf of Jack Haverty via Internet-history 
> <internet-history at elists.isoc.org>
> *Sent:* Saturday, 31 October 2026 22:50:01
> *To:* Internet-history at elists.isoc.org <Internet-history at elists.isoc.org>
> *Subject:* [ih] J.C.R. Licklider
> Speaking of Internet History, the ARPANET et al --- There's another
> player from the early days of The Internet that may not be well known to
> Internet historians - J.C.R. Licklider
>
>  From 1970 through 1977, I was in Licklider's group at MIT, first as a
> student and then as a member of his research staff.  Sometime in the
> early 1960s, Lick (as everyone called him then) wrote several papers
> describing his vision of a "intergalactic network" of computers, all
> somehow able to communicate with each other, and working together to
> help humans "do everything humans do."   His vision included the notion
> that everyone would have some kind of "personal" computer that would
> interact with other computers even when the human was doing something 
> else.
>
> Of course, in 1975 a "personal computer" was an account on some large
> timeshared machine, and the human interacted with it only when s/he was
> "logged in" at some kind of terminal.  Today, humans have computers in
> their pockets much more powerful than the 1970s machines, and able to
> interact with huge numbers of other computers using this thing we call
> The Internet.   As AI and its "agents" emerge, we may be getting very
> close to Lick's vision of vast numbers of interacting computers helping
> humans do everything humans do.
>
> During the 1970s, I was thoroughly indoctrinated into Lick's
> "intergalactic network" vision of how computers would be integrated into
> society.   In retrospect, I've realized that I spent my entire career
> somehow involved in building Lick's vision, as part of the huge
> community that made it happen.  It's been a wild ride and there's still
> a question of whether we'll see a utopian future or one where AI kills
> us all.
>
> For anyone interested in the history of the Internet, I highly recommend
> a book by Mitchell Waldrop, called "The Dream Machine". It is
> essentially a biography of Lick, but also describes much of the
> 1960-1990 history of computing.  Among the details you may not know:
>
> - Lick's training was in psychology and psychoacoustics, not computer
> science.
> - The Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO) of ARPA was formed
> to explore use of computers.  Lick was the first Director of IPTO, and
> the ARPANET was a means of starting work on his vision;
> - Prior to joining ARPA, Lick worked at BBN, and lobbied for the
> company's first computer purchase.  It was necessary to process data
> associated with the study of acoustics; later, ARPA awarded the ARPANET
> contract to BBN;  Connection?
> - Lick was very much a "do it" person, preferring functioning systems
> over theory;  he described what we now call "agents", but he called them
> Olivers
> - Lick's vision was continued after he retired by his "chief of staff"
> at MIT, Al Vezza, who convinced Tim Berners-Lee to come to MIT and lead
> the W3C from there.  This happened too late to be covered in Waldrop's
> book.  The Web was an important component of Lick's vision and W3C was a
> means to drive its evolution.  Al used to be my boss and he contacted me
> to get Oracle to join W3C as a Founding Member and I served as the
> corporate representative.
>
> There were a lot of people involved in the early years of what is now
> The Internet, and this book describes a lot of the interactions and
> behind the scenes activity that was involved.  Again, I highly recommend
> it.  I found that the parts of the book that describe things that
> happened while I was "in the room" are quite accurate and often explain
> the "why" of things I remember happening but never knew the full story.
>
> /Jack Haverty
>
>
>
>
>

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