The Dream Machine
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4.5 • 11 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
The story of the man who instigated the work that led to the internet—and shifted our understanding of what computers could be.
Behind every great revolution is a vision, and behind perhaps the greatest revolution of our time is the vision of J.C.R. Licklider. He did not design the first personal computers or write the software that ran on them, nor was he involved in the legendary early companies that brought them to the forefront of our everyday experience. He was instead a relentless visionary who saw the potential in the way that individuals could interact with computers and software.
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 author M. Mitchell Waldrop calls 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.
This Stripe Press edition also includes the original texts of Licklider’s three most influential writings: “Man-Computer Symbiosis” (1960), which outlines the vision that led to the personal computer revolution of the 1970s; his “Intergalactic Network” memo (1963), which outlines the vision that inspired the internet; and “The Computer as a Communication Device” (1968, coauthored with Robert Taylor), which amplifies his vision for what the network could become.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Licklider was a brilliant scientist whose essential contributions to cognitive psychology and cybernetics included critical early developments in the field of man-machine interaction. However, his original work is often overshadowed by his accomplishments as a teacher, administrator and project leader and this ably written and well-researched biography isn't likely to propel him into the limelight. Waldrop (Man-Made Minds) devotes about 20% of the book to Licklider himself; the rest covers his teachers, colleagues and students at MIT and the Pentagon including computing pioneers Douglas Engelbart, Wes Clark and Larry Roberts and Licklider's indirect influence on the development of personal computers and the Internet (via "the world's first large-scale experiment in personal computing" at MIT). To his credit, Waldrop avoids common stereotypes of computer nerds or saints, delivering a vivid account of Licklider and his contemporaries. But he was not able to interview Licklider (who died in 1990), nor does he include material from personal papers or memoirs. Instead, Waldrop bases most of the book on secondary accounts, including biographies and histories of technology. The result is an informative and engaging history of computers from the 1930s to the 1970s, with an emphasis on Licklider and his period of greatest influence, 1957 to 1968.
Customer Reviews
Great, but corrupted on mac
I’ve been enjoying the book on my phone a lot. It would be great if I can read it on the Mac. Currently it says “This book is corrupted” everytime i try to open the book.
Encyclopedia Technologica
I looked forward to this read for a long time. It marks my first time engaging with anything from Stripe Press and a recommendation from a fellow philosophical traveller. The experience itself was woefully disappointing. M. Mitchel Waldrop did a fantastic job to research and deliver an exhaustively detailed discovery guide through the birth of the Information Age. The key take away from this tome is that the Information Age as we know it today is the product of sheer will and happenstance. As sure an indicator that the universe is governed by the chaotic nature of entropy.
The problem is that the style, pacing, and length can feel more like listening to a rambling delivery that could be more succinct and to the point. In some rare moments it resembles a Ken Burns-ish documentary in all of its slow panning glory. Still, it could have been halved and would still have garnered the same awe from the reader. I can make this assertion because I tested it. About a third of the way through I started using different speed reading techniques and then going back to test if I got the points correctly by re-reading the same sections at regular pace. I did garner the points in my first pass and can assert that there is a lot of superfluous content in this book.
Additionally, I wish Waldrop had given some attention to the members of marginalized communities who missed out on contributing to this movement because of racial and gender divides. Along with what compound effects that absence of diversity from the beginning has had on the wealth gap. He briefly mentioned how early access influenced a young Bill Gates but failed to address how privilege played a part in that. That early access is huge, as I can attest. I have had a successful technology career mostly due to access to computers from a young age which demystified them for me.