Licklider reader

A reader for J.C.R. Licklider and Robert W. Taylor's 1968 essay "The Computer as a Communication Device", with my highlights, notes, questions to Claude, and drawings on top.

The essay itself is not in this repo. You download the PDF from internetat50.com, and the essay is built from your copy.

This copy uses gender-neutral wording (he → they, men → people, and so on). The 1968 original uses masculine words.

Read my annotations

Open http://vishalbakshi.com/licklider/ and drop the PDF on the page. It is read-only: you can open my chats and drawings, pop passages out, and filter by kind, but you can't add anything.

Run your own copy

The full reader in local/ lets you highlight, take notes, ask Claude about passages, and draw. It only works with this one PDF.

You need:

• a Mac (the PDF is read with macOS's PDFKit through Swift, which comes with Xcode or its command line tools)
• Python 3
• Claude Code, installed and logged in. Questions run through the claude command, so they use your own Claude account. No API key is needed.

Then:

git clone https://github.com/vishalbakshi/licklider
cd licklider/local
tools/rebuild.sh
python3 server.py

tools/rebuild.sh downloads the PDF and builds the essay text and figures. Then open http://localhost:8770.

You start with my annotations. They are in local/annotations.json, and the "delete all" link at the top right clears them if you want a blank copy.

Keys

Select some text, then press:

Key	What it does
A	Ask Claude about the passage (cyan)
N	Write a note (navy). In a note's chat, click Ask to send a question along with your notes.
H	Highlight (yellow)
U	Underline
P	Pop the passage out full screen. P again closes it.
D	Open a drawing pad with a pen, a straight line tool and text. D again closes it.
X	Clear the marks on the selection

⌘ or Shift with A, N, P, H or U shows only the paragraphs with that kind of mark. Use Shift for H and N, because the browser keeps ⌘H and ⌘N. The buttons on the left do the same.

Claude can search the web when a question needs current information.