Comments on Moserware: Who Is This "Licklider" Guy?

A truly excellent book. There was a very good PBS ...

2010-07-27T10:29:00.812-04:00

A truly excellent book. There was a very good PBS special many years ago "The Machine That Changed the World" that referenced the book, that is how I came to hear about it.

It is interesting to read about the history that brought us here, and how far we still have to go - which makes where we are that much more exciting!

great blog, this Galatic Network of yours.

2010-01-16T15:06:09.722-05:00

great blog, this Galatic Network of yours.

Anonymous: Interesting, I hadn't specif...

2009-10-10T14:58:59.352-04:00

Anonymous: Interesting, I hadn't specifically heard of the pre-IPO stock deal. It's on Wikipedia, but do you have a more authoritative reference of this?

Characterizing Apple's "borrowing" f...

2009-10-02T01:28:28.700-04:00

Characterizing Apple's "borrowing" from Xerox is an apt way of putting it. Apple's engineers were introduced to the GUI technology that made its way into the Macintosh in exchange for $1 million of stock, pre-IPO. Hence the technology doesn't appear to have explicitly been sold in the deal (though I suppose it could have been in the fine print).

Wulfcry: Hope this helped give an overview of Lick...

2009-01-19T20:23:00.000-05:00

Wulfcry: Hope this helped give an overview of Lick. Thanks for stopping by!

I heard the name by coincidence but never put much...

2009-01-19T14:10:00.000-05:00

I heard the name by coincidence but never put much attention to the person and filtered it away. But now reading your post caught my interest.
Better late then never I guess .
A history about computing and the people changing that makes sense in the recent developments build on the idea's from those who made them.

anonymous: After this post I checked out "N...

2008-05-31T08:42:00.000-04:00

anonymous: After this post I checked out "Nerds 2.0.1" from the library and watched that. The names and faces made a lot more sense after reading the book. It's interesting that they highlighted Excite. It's probably because Cringely was there at the founding.

I also skimmed the book's index. You're right, it does seem to cover similar topics. However, the book has a more commercial focus rather than the ARPA/research side. They're both interesting.

patrick:

Interesting comparison :). You're right, interfaces have a long way to go before the computer "disappears" and the focus is on the task rather than the means to achieve it. The interface gets in the way too much. Google's search looks easy because of the deep work by greats like Manber and Norvig. It's hard to dedicate that kind of talent to each project.

I too look forward to human-machine symbiosis. I s...

2008-05-28T18:15:00.000-04:00

I too look forward to human-machine symbiosis. I see opportunities for it in my workplace.

But the interface is the critical point.

It is difficult to train humans to efficiently use a cruddy machine user interface. At the same time, it is difficult to implement a completely intuitive user interface to a machine application.

There has been some progress. Google search and I work together very well.

But majority of software, particularly the enterprise business systems of this world... well, the bug couldn't live in the fig tree is the fig tree kept randomly ejecting him and screaming "SESSION TIMEOUT".

I learned about JCR Licklider and his intergalacti...

2008-05-27T15:48:00.000-04:00

I learned about JCR Licklider and his intergalactic network from the book Nerds 2.0.1 by Stephen Segaller(not the PBS miniseries of the same name). It not only covers ARPA/DARPA, but goes on to show the genesis of such companies and technologies as ethernet, Cisco systems, and Qualcomm from those early ARPA-net pioneers.

bahadir: Thanks for the comment. Glad that ...

2008-05-26T23:01:00.000-04:00

bahadir: Thanks for the comment. Glad that it was of interest.

I'm not sure if I follow your association with agile. Maybe you can elaborate some more?

I think agile methods focus on putting people as more important (especially with fast interations and stories).

However, it seems that at least with Lick, it was more about finding the best people and setting them loose to focus on a long-term vision.

I suppose you could contend this is what agile would like to do as well, but with its focus on short term so much, I'm not sure if you could get the same long-term benefits Lick was looking to achieve.

Hi Jeff ,

The article was quite EASY to re...

2008-05-25T16:33:00.000-04:00

Hi Jeff ,

The article was quite EASY to read , not to long and full of excitement about the computer world.

I didn't heard about "Lick" before your article.

In my opinion , what Lick did at those times kinda Agility(agile philosophy) in today's world. Collaboration and competition made the difference in his "network".

The success is HCI (Human Computer Interaction)

@Moser:

I had not heard of that video, thou...

2008-05-22T19:42:00.000-04:00

@Moser:

I had not heard of that video, though I have read Kay's NSF proposal. I didn't understand it completely, particularly the implementation part, but maybe his presentation will help.

I have seen a video of a presentation given by Ian Piumarta at Stanford. He is working with Kay on his NSF project. It gets into the foundational implementation of what they're working on. Basically it's a programmable system where the programmer can reprogram the language parser while they're programming. Kay's early work on Smalltalk embodied a similar idea. He had objects parsing the messages they received.

Re #1: The video I referred to in my last comment was a BIG one for me. It was a cathartic experience. I've been a software developer by trade. Once I watched this video I couldn't look at what I do for a living the same way again. Since then I've been taking every chance I can to study this historical context, because I realized that I had a very different context based on my experience in the "pop culture" of computing, as Kay calls it, and that it wasn't serving me well. I feel much more at home with the POV of symbiosis, but I think my computing "habits of the mind" are still kind of in the "pop culture". That's what I'm trying to change. One of the things Kay really emphasized in that video I referred to earlier is that technologists need to read more. We need to have a sense of history. There were some great innovations in thought and technology that were developed in the 1960s which have been ignored. Keeping in mind the need to read about these good ideas helps in changing your POV. I think it helps me see things in the realm of technology more clearly.

Re #3: I forgot to mention, one of my first blog posts, called "Great moments in modern computer history" covered the progression from Engelbart, to Kay at PARC, to the computers that adopted GUIs in the 1980s. I was inspired to do it because I was finding all these videos for these great moments. I put them, or links to them, in chronological order so you can get a feel for the progression of where these ideas went. It's formatted roughly. I put in significant edits a couple times, because I kept finding out more information. It's been one of my most popular posts.

Mark Miller: Thanks for the very detailed c...

2008-05-22T13:15:00.000-04:00

Mark Miller: Thanks for the very detailed comment!

1. I hadn't heard of that talk/video before you mentioned it. I'll watch it. I assume you've seen other videos by him such as his NSF proposal talk?

Interesting that you mentioned Alan Kay. He was the one in the room that suggested I read this book.

3. You're right on about Engelbart. I didn't mention it, but the book goes into depth about him and especially his early demo where he connected remotely to his machine back at SRI.

I think that if computers are going to really get closer to the symbiosis, they almost need to disappear. Imagine a Dynabook/Squeak machine that is only the size of a sheet of paper and has the same flexibility.

As Kay mentioned in his "The Computer Revolution Hasn't Happened Yet" paper and talk, we're really at the start of the technology. We haven't really gotten to the new level of thinking that several generations of people using the technology get to.

4. Very insightful. I'll also check out your blog. It seems you have similar interests in historical context. Thanks for these links.

5. It's very hard to pick a side without using hindsight. However, I think that the Mansfield Amendment is a good metaphor for stopping many good ideas before they have enough room to grow and have direct "relevancy." I think that Google's 20% time (if anyone actually gets that anymore) is perhaps an acknowledgement by Google's management that insistence on "direct and apparent" can prevent you from getting the best ideas. Unfortunately, it requires really good people and really brave management. However, it has historically paid off.

fbloeink: Waldrop referenced this book. Anything in particular stick out from what you read in it?

anonymous: Ouch. A bit harsh? I wanted to get started on it right away and saw the library had it on the shelf. I think that libraries are a tremendous resource, especially for reading up on history. Had it not been in our library, I would have gotten it from Amazon or Half.com's auctions.

Since this one appears to be out of print, it doesn't seem like the author would benefit from me getting it second hand.

I might get it anyways just to refresh my memory. However, I think that your stance is a bit strong and discounts the intrinsic value of libraries.

Perhaps I'm missing something?

bonsaigiant: Thanks! I was a bit worried that I went long as I cut out a lot of things to make it reasonable in size.

I usually read through posts really quickly in the...

2008-05-22T07:55:00.000-04:00

I usually read through posts really quickly in the morning, but this one was so fun, I took my time with it. Nice job, thank you.

What are you Asian?
If you liked the book why n...

2008-05-22T07:09:00.000-04:00

What are you Asian?
If you liked the book why not just buy a copy??? You are so cheap and low class.

Another interesting book on this topic is "Where W...

2008-05-22T03:52:00.000-04:00

Another interesting book on this topic is "Where Wizards Stay Up Late" by Hafner/Lyon, which is where i first heard about Licklider.

Hi Jeff. Enjoyed your post. To answer some of your...

2008-05-22T02:38:00.000-04:00

Hi Jeff. Enjoyed your post. To answer some of your questions:

1) Yes, I heard of Licklider in 2006 while I was watching a video of Alan Kay give a presentation on ideas he had developed about computing, specifically on his Squeak and Croquet projects. If you watch the video you'll see that Sutherland's Sketchpad project was more significant than creating the field of computer graphics and CAD. He invented object-oriented computing as well. Kay worked with Licklider, Sutherland, and Taylor at ARPA, and followed Taylor to PARC, where Kay's Dynabook concept was developed.

I had also gotten inspired to research the idea of human-computer symbiosis after doing some online reading, and came upon Licklider's paper.

3) At first the idea creeped me out with visions of cyborgs, but after doing some reading I realized that it doesn't have to be implemented this way. The GUI w/ mouse developed by Douglas Engelbart (in a very basic fashion), and fleshed out at Xerox PARC is an implementation of this idea.

I think we've made progress towards symbiosis, but also taken some steps back. A big part of it is matching what the computer can do with our cognitive needs. Kay and the people who work with him seem to have a very good bead on what this means. If you watch the video link I refer to above you'll see what I mean. I think the first Apple Macs were a step in the right direction. I think since the 1990s though there's been more flash than progress towards symbiosis in popular computing. The web hasn't helped. It's a great information resource, but for most of its life it's created modes of interaction that are not conducive towards the goal of symbiosis.

4) I agree with Steve Jobs on this. I wrote a couple blog posts of my own a) exploring a phrase that I had heard Alan Kay use, "low-pass filter", in reference to the computing pop culture that's dominated for the past 28 years, and b) commenting on "Triumph of the Nerds". I analyzed what happened at PARC in this context. The executives at PARC were the epitome of the "low-pass filter" concept I was exploring. Even Jobs had a "low-pass filter" experience of sorts with his visit at PARC. He said, "I was so blinded by the first thing they showed me," the GUI, "that I didn't 'see' the other two," that is, object-oriented programming, and networking. The truth is, the demo he saw was of the Smalltalk system, which Alan Kay, Adele Goldberg, Dan Ingalls, and others had worked on for several years. It was not just a GUI. It was also the first system to really flesh out the idea of object-oriented programming. The GUI and OOP were basically the same thing in that system, not separate. Jobs would eventually get it when he founded NeXT, after leaving Apple. So Jobs had limited "vision" as well at the time. He was just more perceptive than the top brass at Xerox. "They were copier-heads," he said, and, "They just grabbed defeat from the greatest victory in the computer industry." Quite right. The reaction of the Xerox execs to this truly revolutionary thing the researchers had created should be a lesson to all creative thinkers. These people had literally created the future, and the execs scoffed at it! They thought it was worthless. Kind of makes me wonder what they expected this team to produce. A word processing machine, perhaps?

5) This is a hard one for me, because I don't have enough historical context to really answer this well. From what I've read, it makes it sound like a tragedy, because the research methods and the people at ARPA were creating amazing innovations, both in technology and thought on technology. Some of the ideas, as you're exploring here, have still not been fleshed out fully.

As I note in my post on "Triumph of the Nerds" you might want to check out another PBS series, which came out in 1992, called "The Machine That Changed The World", if you can find it on video. It looks at the development of the computer from the perspective of the research and development that was done throughout its history. It explores a little of the ideas derived from Licklider's human-computer symbiosis, though it doesn't directly address it. "Triumph" focuses more on the business deals.

Comments on Moserware: Who Is This "Licklider" Guy?

A truly excellent book. There was a very good PBS ...

great blog, this Galatic Network of yours.

Anonymous: Interesting, I hadn't specif...

Characterizing Apple's "borrowing" f...

Wulfcry: Hope this helped give an overview of Lick...

I heard the name by coincidence but never put much...

anonymous: After this post I checked out "N...

I too look forward to human-machine symbiosis. I s...

I learned about JCR Licklider and his intergalacti...

bahadir: Thanks for the comment. Glad that ...

Hi Jeff , The article was quite EASY to re...

@Moser:I had not heard of that video, thou...

Mark Miller: Thanks for the very detailed c...

I usually read through posts really quickly in the...

What are you Asian?If you liked the book why n...

Another interesting book on this topic is "Where W...

Hi Jeff. Enjoyed your post. To answer some of your...

Hi Jeff ,

The article was quite EASY to re...

@Moser:

I had not heard of that video, thou...

What are you Asian?
If you liked the book why n...