Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins Of The Internet Paperback – 6 January 2003
by
Katie Hafner and Matthew Lyon
(Author)
Twenty five years ago, it didn't exist. Today, over twenty million people worldwide are surfing the Net. WHERE WIZARDS STAY UP LATE is the exciting story of the pioneers responsible for creating the most talked about, most influential, and most far-reaching communications breakthrough since the invention of the telephone. In the 1960's, when computers were regarded as mere giant calculators, J.C.R Licklider at MIT saw them as the ultimate communications devices. With Defense Department funds, he and a band of visionary computer whizzes began work on a nationwide, interlocking network of computers. Taking readers behind the scenes, WHERE WIZARDS STAY UP LATE captures the hard work, genius, and happy accidents of their daring, stunningly successful venture.
- Print length320 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- Publication date6 January 2003
- ISBN-100743468376
- ISBN-13978-0743468374
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Product description
About the Author
Katie Hafner is a contributing editor, and the co-author of CYBERPUNK (Transworld). Matthew Lyon, her husband, is Assistant to the President of the University of Texas at Austin where they live.
Product details
- Language : English
- Paperback : 320 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0743468376
- ISBN-13 : 978-0743468374
- Customer reviews:
Customer reviews
4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
227 global ratings
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Top reviews from other countries
Etienne A.
5.0 out of 5 stars
I loved this book - although it is not perfect and ...
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 22 May 2018Verified Purchase
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.
2 people found this helpful
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jcf-42
5.0 out of 5 stars
histoire
Reviewed in France on 21 June 2014Verified Purchase
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.
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.
Bas Vodde
5.0 out of 5 stars
The story on the history of the Internet
Reviewed in the United States on 12 July 2009Verified Purchase
"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.
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.
10 people found this helpful
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