Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet

I loved this book - even if it is not perfect and is definitely a bit nerdy. Although it would need to be updated in a second edition, I found the history of the net fascinating. Now I really want to understand the technical details of networking, which I should have done years ago.

I've had my eye on this book for a while, and thought I'd better read it before the events it describes (it was written in 1996) become even more lost in the mists of time. It describes how a disparate collection of technologists in the 1960s built links between a handful of computers and thereby supplemented their facility for calculation with one for communication. Given that they were originally built exclusively for the former purpose (the adjective "electronic" was originally universally appended to their name to distinguish them from the people of the same title whom they were supposed to assist), their use for information exchange - let alone the revolutionary impact the Internet has had on society - wasn't an obvious step to take at the time. The very small number of individuals who had the idea, and the larger (but not much larger) number who implemented it are paraded through this interesting and readable book. The impetus for writing it came from a 1994 gathering to celebrate the 25th anniversary of switching on the first ARPANET node at UCLA which, to all intents and purposes, marked the birth of the Internet. The party was organized by BBN, a US technology company whose employees played important roles in developing the early network and who were keen that this should not be forgotten, even (or especially) at that point in time, when the arrival of the Web was beginning to revolutionise the Internet. This book could be viewed as part of that effort, but it appears to be a reasonably complete and detailed account of how the work developed at BBN and elsewhere, how it was supported by the Defence Advanced Projects Agency in the US, and some account of later developments in that remarkable edifice.

What a great book about the history of the internet! Get this book if (like me) you remember the old days of Arpa Net and 'no proper networks!'

This book is a must-read for anyone whose interest in the Internet extends beyond just using it, and into how and why it came about. The number of incredibly smart people who were involved at various times in various ways is amazing.

This is an excellent book for all those who would guess that Bolt, Beranek and Newman is a law firm. It may sound like one, but it isn't. BBN - now a subsidiary of GTE/Verizon - is a company which is most intimately tied to the birth of what is nowadays known as the internet. And if the BBN's marketing guys would have been half as good as their engineers, we would probably hear a lot more about BBN today and less about, say, Cisco. In a clear and highly readable style, Hafner and Lyon have covered the history of the packet switching networks with encyclopedic breadth. You'll learn both about the early theoretical fathers of packet switching, like Paul Baran and Donald Davies; you have the people in the DoD's Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) like Joseph Licklider, Bob Taylor or Larry Roberts, who not only had a grand view of computer networking or obtained the necessary governmental funding, but were also able to specify their wishes precisely enough that the engineers were able to build the network based on their plans. And finally, there is Frank Heart's team at BBN, guys who actually built the darn thing. The subtitle - The origins of the internet - is well chosen. Most of the book focuses on the years 1968-1972, from Roberts' draft proposal, to the 1972 international conference on computer communication. Other development, either earlier or later, is covered only fragmentary. There are other interesting stories, like the origins of USENET, internet news exchange service, but they are not the scope of this book. The book leaves a pleasant impression that the authors actually understand the necessary technical background of the topic they are writing about. Some diagrams might help further, but I am sure that numerous metaphors used in the book will also alone help the casual reader to understand the idea of packet switching. Chapter notes and bibliography section deserve special praise, and the subject index comes in handy, too. Overall, a very satisfying book.

I have the original paperback and absolutely love this book. Being a computer geek myself I find it very interesting and entertaining read. I've read it through a couple of times, love it.

History-geeks must-read. I love the fact that the author has had many interviews with the people who actually were there in the beginning.

The subject matter, the origins of the Internet, is fascinating and the book does an acceptable job of covering it. However, the delivery feels dull. The portraits of the key characters, and their surroundings feel like diversions, more often than not failing to bring the human dimension to the story. The book is nowhere near as engaging as Tracy Kidder's "The soul of new machine" or David Kushner's "Masters of Doom". Technical content, and overall level of detail, feel OK at the start whilst covering BBN's involvement but generally fade away as the story progresses. Not a bad book, but not memorable.

a must for those interested in computers/internet history

"Where the wizards stay up late" is an excellent, funny and easy to read description about the history of the internet. It is well researched and engaging. The book consists of eight chapters about the creation of the ArpaNet, the predecessor of the Internet. It starts with describing the creation of the ARPA research organization in the US government, the people influencal to that creation and the description of Licklider, the early head of the agency which was so influencal to the creation on the net. The second chapter discusses the creation of the concept of packet-switching by Paul Baran and Donald Davies and how this was, early on, ignored by most of the rest of the world. Especially the attitude of AT&T is, in retrospective, of course quite amusing. The third chapter talks about the history of BBN, which was the company that build the first 'routers' (called IMPs) for the first network. And how this small company won the contract for building the ARPANET. The book continues with the creation of the first IMP for the UCLA and how the company had trouble with the early Honeywell computers that were used as a basis. The early computers had a bug in their synchronization which caused the machine to be much less reliable than needed. Honeywell couldn't believe how reliable BBN wanted the machine to be. Quite amusing. The following chapter covers the history of Steve Crocker and Vint Cerf. Vint created (with Kahn) later the TCP and IP protocols, Steve was the author of the first RFC--the way internet standards are described and how they have been evolved. The sixth chapter describes the creation of more IMPs and how the ARPANET gradually grew... and the problems that caused. How the FTP protocol was created (and the mail protocol hacked in the FTP protocol) and how they showed off the ARPANET during a small conference (and AT&T still not believing in the concept). The next chapter covers Email. The creation of Email and how it became the major usage of the network early on. Especially interesting are the discussions about mail headers and inconsistency. At least it demonstrations that easy agreement in creating the internet protocols is an illusion, it took a lot of discussion and a long time. The final chapter goes in a faster pace and explains how Cerf/Kahn created the IP protocol and implemented that on other networks and how the NFS created a new network gradually linking more and more networks together and creating the Internet. Amusing to read was how the ARPANET actually became more and more a government DOD network and that it, in a sense, was NOT the 'father' network of the internet (depending on how you define father... it wasn't the first network to be linked up). Also the story of the creating of Ethernet and the fight between OSI and TCP/IP are amusing. The book ends with a small epilogue describing the 25th anniversary of BBN for the creating of the first IMP. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It is exceptionally well written and researched. The history its sharing is amusing and especially considering the impact of the decisions made back then in the world today. This book is definitely worth reading for anyone interested in computer science, networking and its history. A must read.

L'informatique est certes jeune mais il y a déjà de quoi écrire son histoire. La création d'Internet en est un épisode majeur et ce livre la raconte brillamment. À recommander (ou à offrir) à tous les passionnés d'informatique.

課題で出るくらいなのでいい本なんだと思います。まぁ、本当は、Webの創成の方が良かったみたいですが、絶版で中古も元値より高い値段が付いてることが多いのでこっちにしました。