That was back in the early 60s, funded by ARPA as part of Project MAC. The “customers” were the kinds of people who cared about the rainbow books (hint: all go

That was back in the early 60s, funded by ARPA as part of Project MAC. The “customers” were the kinds of people who cared about the rainbow books (hint: all government), though the science was open. ARPA (later DARPA) funded a lot of things that were built under contract, not just pure research. Most of project MAC was pure research and a lot of it is still fundamental and influential today.