Summary
Building on Licklider’s symbiosis idea, this paper argued for on-line, interactive computing at a time when batch processing dominated. It anticipated a future in which many people work at connected consoles in real time — an early articulation of the networked, time-shared computing that ARPANET would later realize.
Why it matters
The paper is one of the conceptual roots of computer networking itself, leading directly to Licklider’s later memo to the “Intergalactic Computer Network”. It belongs to the same arc of human-centered, networked computing that the Independent Internet continues.
Part of the AP0110.ORG source library. See the wiki overview.