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Where Wizards Stay Up Late
by Katie Hafner and Matthew Lyon

Everybody knows about the Internet (or rather, those of you who are now reading this know about the Internet). Yet, its history is not very well known. This book, subtitled "The Origins of the INTERNET", covers the 'pre-history' of the Internet.

The book starts off by looking at the creation of ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) and how one person, frustrated by having to used different terminals to talk to three different computers, came up with the idea of connecting them together using a network so that he could talk to any of the computers from just one terminal.

From that, the book shows how the idea of connecting computers all over the place developed. After looking over various proposals, two ideas were developed that proved to be revolutionary: packet switching to deliver data from computer to computer, and distributed control to make each computer responsible for passing on data from one line to another. These two developments were to be vital to the to-be-born Internet.

After sending out detail proposals and getting bids, the company of Bolt Beranek and Newman (or BBN) was chosen to develop the network. After many months of hard work, described in great detail, the first IMPs (Interface Message Processors) were delivered to four sites. The IMPs were used to connect disparate computers in a simple network. Thus was the Arpanet born.

As the months pass and more and more computers were connected together via IMPs, it became clear that standard protocols were needed to let hosts talk to each other. The book shows the dramatic development of Telnet and FTP and, on top of FTP, the first e-mail programs were developed. It was around this time that '@' was chosen as the separator in the e-mail address. It was also then that the first RFCs (requests for comments) were released, detailing various aspects of the network and protocols, and setting the tone on how such networking standards were to be developed.

The Arpanet exploded (metaphorically) after a successful exhibition set up to demonstrate the network. As different parts of the world developed their own versions of the Arpanet, it became clear that another protocol was needed to let these networks talk to one another. Thus was TCP (transport control protocol) born, later to become TCP/IP (transport control protocol/internet protocol). Thus was the Internet born. Here, the book ends, on a somewhat sad note, with the shutting down of the Arpanet which had served it purpose.

Filled with lots of detail and numerous small notes (for example, that BBN was originally an acoustics consulting company before getting the Arpanet bid), this book is a wonderful historical book that chronicles the rise of one of the most successful networks ever known.

However, the book does not cover the later history of the Internet, i.e. the development of USENET, gopher, archie, wais, the World Wide Web, etc. However, it does note the first 'flame-wars' that took place over the early mailing lists and does mention one of the oldest mailing-lists still in existence, SF-LOVERS, which I first subscribed to while I was on BITNET (and still subscribe to today).

This book is definitely recommended for those interested in the pre-history and early history of the Internet.

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Where Wizards Stay Up Late by Katie Hafner and Matthew Lyon

Where Wizards Stay Up Late
by Katie Hafner and Matthew Lyon