Book: The Dream Machine

J.C.R. Licklider is quite unknown outside US. It’s a pity, since he influenced computers evolution enormously. As a head of ARPA he put money into many obscure research groups, thus literarily emulating VC in 60s!

He did not like to write papers and books, but loved to invent things, talk to people and share ideas. And he had many.

This is an overview of the whole computer industry from 50s to 90s. And this is good and bad at the same time.

Positives:

• You feel broad picture and how huge areas were evolved and connected
• You jump into some details to zoom into PARC, ARPA and somewhat MIT

Negatives:

• Too many names and characters. It is hard to follow them all, but I don’t know how to solve this problem to be honest
• Few technical details, so it is hard to get the technical evolution right.

Overall this is a very decent book, but somehow you have very few highlights after reading it. There are still some:

1. APRA indeed greatly affect computer industry evolution and sponsored researches by Doug Engelbart and other un-obvious people that most likely would not get funding otherwise

2. PARC indeed invented the future (Alto) and throw it away. They were 10 years ahead with personal computers…

3. You often have a vision, but can’t foresee all details. Thus it is good to pursue it via dozens groups that probe various directions and discover new information. This is expensive, but grand ideas are always expensive…

4. VC works (in general).