Intergalactic Computer Network

---

title: "Intergalactic Computer Network" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["wide-area-networks", "texts-related-to-the-history-of-the-internet"] description: "Computer networking concept" topic_path: "history" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intergalactic_Computer_Network" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Computer networking concept ::

Intergalactic Computer Network or Galactic Network (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.'" An office memorandum he sent to his colleagues in 1963 was addressed to "Members and Affiliates of the Intergalactic Computer Network". 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.

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.

References

References

1. Leiner, Barry M.. (2003-12-10). ""Origins of the Internet" in A Brief History of the Internet version 3.32". The Internet Society.
2. Garreau, Joel. (2006). "Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies--and what it Means to be Human". Broadway.
3. "Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) (United States Government)". Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc..
4. Licklider, J. C. R.. (23 April 1963). "Topics for Discussion at the Forthcoming Meeting, Memorandum For: Members and Affiliates of the Intergalactic Computer Network". Advanced Research Projects Agency, via KurzweilAI.net.
5. (2000). "How the Web was Born: The Story of the World Wide Web". Oxford University Press.

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::