Intergalactic Computer Network

{{distinguish|Interplanetary Internet}}

{{Internet}}

Intergalactic Computer Network or Galactic Network{{cite web|author=Leiner, Barry M.|title="Origins of the Internet" in A Brief History of the Internet version 3.32|publisher=The Internet Society|date=2003-12-10| url=http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/brief.shtml#Origins|access-date=2007-11-03|display-authors=etal}} (IGCN) was a computer networking concept similar to today's Internet.

J.C.R. Licklider, the first director of the Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO) at The Pentagon's ARPA, used the term in the early 1960s to refer to a networking system he "imagined as an electronic commons open to all, 'the main and essential medium of informational interaction for governments, institutions, corporations, and individuals.'"{{cite book|last=Garreau|first=Joel|title=Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies--and what it Means to be Human|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YCuOKOD5nY4C&pg=PA22|year=2006|publisher=Broadway|isbn=978-0-7679-1503-8|page=22}}{{cite encyclopedia | title=Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) (United States Government) | encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica | publisher=Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. | url=http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/745612/Defense-Advanced-Research-Projects-Agency-DARPA#ref829305 | access-date=11 January 2014 }} An office memorandum he sent to his colleagues in 1963 was addressed to "Members and Affiliates of the Intergalactic Computer Network".{{cite web|author=Licklider, J. C. R.|title=Topics for Discussion at the Forthcoming Meeting, Memorandum For: Members and Affiliates of the Intergalactic Computer Network|date=23 April 1963|location=Washington, D.C.|publisher=Advanced Research Projects Agency, via KurzweilAI.net |url=http://www.kurzweilai.net/memorandum-for-members-and-affiliates-of-the-intergalactic-computer-network|access-date=2013-01-26}} As head of IPTO from 1962 to 1964, "Licklider initiated three of the most important developments in information technology: the creation of computer science departments at several major universities, time-sharing, and networking."

Licklider first learned about time-sharing from Christopher Strachey at the inaugural UNESCO Information Processing Conference in Paris in 1959.{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/howwebwasbornsto00gill|url-access=registration|title=How the Web was Born: The Story of the World Wide Web|last1=Gillies|first1=James M.|last2=Gillies|first2=James|last3=Gillies|first3=James and Cailliau Robert|last4=Cailliau|first4=R.|date=2000|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-286207-5|pages=[https://archive.org/details/howwebwasbornsto00gill/page/13 13]|language=en}}

By the late 1960s, his promotion of the concept had inspired a primitive version of his vision called ARPANET. ARPANET expanded into a network of networks in the 1970s that became the Internet.