J.C.R. Licklider's vision for the IPTO

The Information Processing Techniques Office of the Advanced Research Projects Agency was founded in 1962 as a step toward realizing a flexible military command and control system. In setting the IPTO's research agenda for funding, its first director, J.C.R. Licklider, emphasized the development of time-sharing systems. This article looks at how Licklider's early vision of "a network of thinking centers" helped set the stage for the IPTO's most famous project: the Arpanet.