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And don't forget "The Dream Machine" (https://www.amazon.com/Dream-Machine-Licklider-Revolution-Co...).

It's not solely about the internet but does an awesome job covering the rise of the PC industry and the launch of the internet.

⬐ m-app

I'm just about finishing the Stripe Press re-release. It's an amazing collection of stories in a beautiful book. Can highly recommend it.

The practical aspects of modern computing were to a large extent born from US defence funding. Starting from the theoretical roots: Von Neumann architecture [0] and various defence projects including ARPA[1].

"But that doesn't necessarily and always mean that people couldn't have invented something without military funding and uses in mind."

Sure, it doesn't. But funding and large number of end users combined with price-inelastic demand for your product enable product development and field testing like no other scenario does.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Draft_of_a_Report_on_the...

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Dream-Machine-Licklider-Revolution-Co...

⬐ ataturk

All true, and we have to live with it. The idea that humanity has gained because of military needs is not outright unethical, but it's troubling. It means that everything we aspire to as a culture in the US relates to killing other people. I personally have a big issue with that. I'm not some drumming in the park lefty hippie, though. I have avoided working directly for MIC companies throughout my career, but I'm not exactly lily white when it comes to this matter. It is nearly impossible to separate yourself from the evils of militarism and big government in the US. Even the most benign looking company you might work for, when you peel back the veneer, is taking government money in some form. It's not always obvious how. I used to work for a company that made legal research software. Well, the US Government, including institutions like JAG, are big customers of it. Everything in the US, one way or another, is backstopped by taxpayer money.

On a side note, I don't get all the adulation for the recently deceased John McCain. Mr. McCain was one of the biggest supports of the MIC and its warmongering ways the past 30 years. Here was a man like no other when it came to gilding the pockets of the militarist corporations. He's exactly what Eisenhower warned us about, and Smedly Butler a generation before that!

We could, if we wanted to, disassemble this mess. It would not mean we would eliminate national defense. It would just meant we would cease the warmongering, the unnecessary spending on ridiculous boondoggles like the Littoral Combat Ship (while regular military people go on welfare), and basically move to more of a Swiss style approach to defense where regular people are involved back in the process again. Right now, it's all about billions of dollars funneling from you and me into the pockets of Lockheed Martin, L3 Systems, General Dynamics, and the like. It's time that it stopped. Despite what you think, this is what the new breed of Republicans is trying to accomplish--McCain was never a Constitutional conservative. Not for a single day. And his run for President was a stage-managed failure on purpose in order to promote the devious ends of his cohort. It's time to hit the brakes on all of it.

I can really recommend Waldrop's The Dream Machine [1]. It is a pretty detailed description of the different driving forces that let to the Internet, personal computers, AI research etc. Yes, a lot was influenced by the US military and DARPA, starting with RADAR systems and the need for computation in WW2 and continuing with the cold war, the Sputnik shock and increased research spending afterwards. On the other hand, a lot of the folks involved certainly had no militaristic attitude or intentions. A lot of government funding early on sparked an amazing development, the foundations of the things we work with today.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Dream-Machine-Licklider-Revolution-Co...

For an idea-buyer hero, how about Licklider? https://amzn.com/0670899763/

I'm currently reading "The Dream Machine" [1], about the first evolutions of computing. At the moment it's describing the period during and immediately after the Second World War, with computers like ENIAC. It blows my mind that in the space of around 20 years, we progressed from computers that were programmed by turning shafts and ran computations using systems of wheels and mechanical relays [2] to the Lunar Module Guidance Computer with its pre-emptive multitasking and automatic pilot.

Sometimes the rate of technological advance is just staggering.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Dream-Machine-Licklider-Revolution-Co...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Mark_I

⬐ spatulan

I thought the Lunar Guidance computer used cooperative multitasking.

⬐ ekimekim

IIUC it was a bit of both. A unit of work was meant to be short lived, but if a higher priority unit of work came along it would be pre-empted and its state pushed out to a temporary store.

There's a full description in the article, though it's buried a bit far down. Here's a snippet for grep-ability:

    if a low-priority job was executing and a high-priority job was scheduled, the low-priority job was suspended while the higher-priority job executed.

Alan, I am rereading

http://www.amazon.com/Dream-Machine-Licklider-Revolution-Com...

It was published in 2001. What do you think of its relevancy 15 years later in the context of our age of "big data" and "Machine Learning"?

⬐ ontouchstart

BTW, I did read the book about 10 years ago. Like what Alan commented below, I recognized some of the paragraphs and stories in the book with a kind of dream-like déjà vu. Very interesting feeling.

⬐ alankay

I don't think I understand the question. This is by far the best book about how the major research funding and community happened in the 60s (Parc was one of the outgrowths). I would say that our "age" (or any age) could be enriched by understanding this book. For example, the real issues are not "big data" but "big understanding", not "Machine Learning" but "Machine Thinking". Some of the "Dream Machine" is about how the funders were willing to put forth considerable resources for "problem finding" not just "problem solving" -- a lot more of that needs to be done today.

⬐ ontouchstart

Thank you Alan, your answer is the exact reason that I asked that question.

I highly recommend this book [1] on Licklider's life, because it's also one of the best books on the computing movement from the creation of the early machines through the Xerox PARC years and slightly beyond. It's also the only one recommended by Alan Kay[2].

[1] http://www.amazon.com/The-Dream-Machine-Licklider-Revolution...

[2] http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg04144.html

I'm currently reading "The Dream Machine"[1] and coincidentally at the point where BASIC is being invented. What I found interesting is how closely linked LISP and BASIC are in motivation and the spirit of the era. Not to mention the direct connection of Dartmouth, McCarthy, and time sharing.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/The-Dream-Machine-Licklider-Revolution...

⬐ peapicker

That book is fantastic, rates very highly on my list of excellent histories of computing.