RSRH G4000 Jay Hauben (jrh29@columbia.edu) Research in the Humanities Spring 1996 J.C.R. Licklider: Towards a Biography J.C.R. Licklider was a very active scientist, administrator and educator from the early 1940s until his death in 1990. Lick, as he asked everyone to call him, played a profound role in the revolutionary computer and communications developments of the second half of the twentieth century. At most times in his life, Lick participated in or lead at least two or three major projects often each in a different field. His contributions deserve to be documented and a solid biography would contribute to that documentation. Writing such a biography however is a difficult task because of the need to gather data about the many projects that Lick was contributed to. A brief summary of some of these projects and involvements follows together with an indication of some of the research techniques I've begun to use. Also, a bibliography of sources and references is appended. After earning BS and MA degrees from Washington University in 1937 and 1938, Lick did research at Swarthmore College and earned a Ph.D. from University of Rochester in 1942 with the acceptance of his thesis entitled An Electrical Investigation of Frequency Localization in the Auditory Cortex of the Cat. He almost immediately began to make significant scientific discoveries as part of World War II related research at Harvard University. His main research concerned factors effecting the intelligibility of speech sounds. His research throughout the 1940s and 1950s was documented in numerous scientific journals and at scientific conferences in the US and Europe. In Cambridge, Massachusetts after WW II, an intense intellectual ferment centered around cybernetics and feedback and Norbert Wiener included Lick and some of his Harvard friends. Lick went from Harvard to MIT around 1950 with the plan to set up a Psychology Department there. He continued his work in physiological psychology, acoustics and electronics at MIT as well as participating in US Navy and Air Force Summer programs. At MIT Lick used analog computers to help him in his modeling of auditory activity of the brain. He was also aware of the rapid development of digital computing for example at Lincoln Laboratories. In 1958, he was President of the Acoustics Society of America. By then he had joined the engineering research firm Bolt Beranek and Newman recently started by some of his colleagues from MIT. Part of the reason Lick went to BBN was to have a chance to use for his scientific work a digital computer operated in interactive rather than batch processed mode. In 1959 BBN received a beta test model of the new DEC PDP-1. Lick was one of the first people to sit at a minicomputer with an interactive operating system for four or five hours per day over a substantial period of time. Among other things, he and his team used the computer to attempt to model what would be possible when the corpus of human knowledge was electronically available digitalized. This research sponsored by the Council on Library Resources set a foundation for the subsequent substantial development toward an all electronic library. (See his book, Libraries of the Future ) Lick also used the interactive PDP-1 for his acoustical research. Out of this experience Lick became a life-long champion of interactive computing and he wrote his seminal article, "Man-Computer Symbiosis." At the time of his experiencing the advantages of interactive computing, Lick was still involved with the computer scene at MIT which was bubbling with enthusiasm for time-sharing. The combination of interactive computing and the prospects of time-sharing give raise to the vision of the interconnection of the whole population to an interactive time-shared central computer. Lick went on to call his vision the "Intergalactic Network" which closely resembles the Internet of today. Half way through the library study at BBN, Lick was invited by the US Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) to direct its funding of computer and behavioral projects. Lick accepted on the condition that he be allowed to stress interactive computing as the focus of the funding. From 1962 to 1964, Lick set in place the funding of the birth of academic computer science departments in major US universities. His vision and ARPA funding also set the basis for the ARPAnet packet switching experiment and the Internet which grew out of it. Also in the 1960s Lick worked for IBM, helped explore the possibility of an Edunet with Educom and was director of Project MAC at MIT. He helped set the basis for public television in the US with his chapter, "Public Television: A Program for Action" in the Report of the Carnegie Commission on Educational Television which was instrumental in leading to the establishment of the US Public Broadcasting System (PBS). Back at MIT in the late 1960s, Lick was approached by students seeking access to computers. He was helpful in the formation of the Student Information Processing Board whose purpose was to open up broad access for undergraduates to MIT's computers. In the 1970s, Lick worked two more years for ARPA as the director of its Information Processing Technologies Office (IPTO). He also settled into a pattern of research, teaching and advising at MIT. He began each of his classes by writing "J.C.R. Licklider" on the blackboard and telling his students that may be how his name is spelled, but they should call him "Lick." He continued his full schedule at MIT including leadership for the Laboratory for Computer Science (LCS) and research on man-computer interfaces. After his retirement in 1986 from full time work at MIT, a party was held to honor Lick. Between two and three hundred people showed up each feeling as if Lick were his or her personal friend. He was prolific, very active and almost universally loved as an enthusiast and visionary who had significant dreams of a better society and who also knew how to make them into reality. Lick died suddenly in 1990 at the age of 75. He left behind a legacy of writings and accomplishments not yet broadly appreciated. Today's global computer communication network is however the best testament to the importance of Lick's life and work. I have begun to try to put together the pieces of Lick's prolific and important life. It is interesting to realize that the electronic facilities I am using owe a great deal to Lick's work and vision. The library holdings at Columbia are indexed more and more online via the CLIO system as are major holding through out the US by the RLIN system. I can access these and other indices (available online via e.g. the CLIO PLUS system) from any computer attached to Columbia's internal networks or attached to the Internet. Using these databases, email, interlibrary loan, and the collection of material made by Ronda Hauben and Michael Hauben, I have assembled the attached bibliography. There are frustrations that come with current online searches. First there is the need for trial and error until the search quest is specific enough to yield a significant reference. But then there is the difficulty or at least the time for getting material that is stored physically at distant locations. I also posted the following request for help with this biography to a number of Usenet newsgroups : I am beginning to work on a biography of J.C.R. Licklider whose vision and constant activity very much set the foundation for the global computer telecommunications network of today. Sadly, Licklider died in 1990 and so far no solid biography has been written to honor him and to tell the important story of the role he played establishing the field of academic computer science and of his vision for man- computer symbiosis and a global communications network. I would very much like to hear anecdotes, significant stories and memories of `Lick'. Any pointers concerning J.C.R. Licklider, his years in St. Louis, his work at Harvard, MIT, the Acoustical Society of America, BBN, IBM, ARPA, Project MAC, and after would be helpful. I will post to Usenet drafts and the final version of the biography I am working on. It would be valuable if a public thread got started discussing Licklider and his contribution. Thanks. Jay Hauben jrh29@columbia.edu -------------------------------------------------------------- "...If the network idea should prove to do for education which a few have envisioned . . . and if all minds should prove to be responsive, surely the boon to human kind would be beyond measure." J.C.R. Licklider and Robert Taylor --------------------------------------------------------------- The result of this posting on such newsgroups as soc.culture.scientists, sci.psychology.misc, soc.history.science, mit.eecs.discuss, mit.lcs.misc, alt.folklore.computers, alt.os.multics and ne.org.bcs has been a steady trickle of email messages and public postings pointing me to other people, books or uncatalogued documents. One trail was started by a person in Boston who responded that he thought Licklider had something to do with the Student Information Processing Board. He gave me one email address that lead me through a string of people. Finally I was lead to one of the students who in 1968 first brought to Lick the request/idea/demand that all MIT undergraduates have access to the Institute's computers. This same person knew the email addresses of Albert Vezza who was Lick's second in command in the Laboratory for Computer Science which they both directed in the 1980s and of a Licklider family member. Another person posted public-ally and sent me email. He remembered Lick from the 1968 Educom summer conference. He gave me references to Lick's connection with Edunet and he suggested I contact Mina Rees. Dr Rees it turns out is in her 90's and unfortunately can not remember much from the early 1940's when she might have known Lick. The last trail of significance so far that has come out of my posting on Usenet has been a string of email addresses to people at BBN who knew Lick. That trail has yet to turn up fresh details but some of the stories serve to confirm information I have from other sources. And every week so far a new email address has been suggested to me. The last source I will mention is the online book Netizens by Ronda Hauben and Michael Hauben (URL http://www.columbia.edu /~hauben/netbook/). This collection of essays documents the history and social impact of the global computer communications network. The authors have included many insightful quotations from Lick's writings and have analyzed the pivotal role that he played in envisioning the global network and setting the foundations that made it possible. Their work has inspired me to attempt this biography.