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indyreadrosa's review
5.0
Post a Halt and Catch Fire TV watching binge I decided to read as many pop history type books about the computer industry as I could fine. This one is another good edition and I am glad I read it. After reading Hackers it was fun to see some of the same people show up even if this is a far more technical story telling style. I appreciated how many of the different people involved were covered and this book game me new avenues to explore (like what was going on in Hawaii?) I love how many choices people had to make. The growth of email was fun to read about. I will go back to this one and know I will get even more out of the book.
lizmart88's review
3.0
If you're interested in learning more about the Internet began, thus is a good overview. It doesn't cover much about the origins of computers but it does a thorough job of telling the story of ArpaNet form the sixties through the late eighties. It stops as the world Wide Web is being created.
The writing is clear and compelling though a few parts do get a bit too in the weeds detailing the back and forth arguing about certain protocols. The cast of characters is also hard to remember and differentiate among.
Overall, I recommend it if you're interested in this topic.
The writing is clear and compelling though a few parts do get a bit too in the weeds detailing the back and forth arguing about certain protocols. The cast of characters is also hard to remember and differentiate among.
Overall, I recommend it if you're interested in this topic.
imaginaryturtle's review
4.0
Extensively researched... I particularly liked how the author told us both sides of the story - the work going on at BBN as well as that done by the students as a part of the NWG. All in all, quite an informative read.
laci's review
5.0
Until now I only have picked up some bits and pieces of information about the beginnings of the 'net. Where Wizards Stay Up Late not only describes the entire genesis of the technology, and the people behind it, but also provides the political context and the general moods in society that gave it the initial spark. In other words, I knew there was an ARPA that did the ARPANET thing, but I never knew _why_ there was an ARPA or how it operated.
Update: as a side note, there wasn't a whole bunch of material on similar projects outside of the US; most of them were just cursory mentions. It seems the research in the US came first and gained the most traction though, and I understand it's kinda out of scope for this book, so I'm not complaining.
Update: as a side note, there wasn't a whole bunch of material on similar projects outside of the US; most of them were just cursory mentions. It seems the research in the US came first and gained the most traction though, and I understand it's kinda out of scope for this book, so I'm not complaining.
hammo's review
4.0
Narrativistically, the creation of the internet is a mess.
There are so many characters and it's impossible to pick out which of them is
- the hero
- the villian
- the sidekick
and so on.
My best guess for who is the hero of this story is Licklider.
In any reasonable world, the story of the internet would look like this:
> An eccentric scientist and a savvy businessman team up to create the internet and bring down the evil postal service empire.
Instead the story is a complicated tangle of personalities building stuff in layers on top of one another.
NOTES
During Licklider's undergraduate studies, he switched from chemistry to physics to the fine arts to psychology. When he graduated he had degrees in maths, psychology, and physics.
Licklider recommended never signing onto a project which lasted longer than five to seven years so you can always move on to other things.
Telegrams needed relay stations as the signal decayed. Initially these stations had people listening to the signal, writing them down, then passing them on to someone else to resend. By 1903, the human's role had been reduced to taking paper tape with holes punched into it by one machine, hanging it on a hook, then feeding it into another machine.
The culsulting firm BBN - known as the third university in Cambridge - had a policy that every new hire had to be better than the previous people.
Willy Crowther was one of the key mathematicians behind the ARPANET at BBN. He was a rockclimber, and spent a lot of time hanging from doorframes. He would appear to be doing nothing but hanging for days at a time, then sudden unleash the ideas he had been thinking about.
Lawrence Roberts - one of the ARPANET guys - was pulled over for speeding. So he collected data and ran physics calculations to prove he could not possibly have accelerated his car in the given distance to exceed the speed limit.
There was once someone who mailed enough bricks to Alaska - one at a time - to build a house. It was the cheapest form of shipping.
Roberts needed to find someone to replace him at DARPA. Licklider was the guy for the job, but when Roberts enquired after him he was on a walking tour in England. Roberts eventually tracked him down in Wales.
Robert Metcalfe went to MIT for undergrad, then went to Harvard for graduate school. He hated it because it was full of old money, whereas MIT was full of "no money".
While DNSes were being figured out, some people thought that TLDNs should reflect funding sources: MIT, DARPA, etc.
TCP/IP was an unofficial standard. Everyone was supposed to be using an ISO standard, but that never gained enough momentum to get off the ground. The lesson is "standards should be discovered, not decreed."
There are so many characters and it's impossible to pick out which of them is
- the hero
- the villian
- the sidekick
and so on.
My best guess for who is the hero of this story is Licklider.
In any reasonable world, the story of the internet would look like this:
> An eccentric scientist and a savvy businessman team up to create the internet and bring down the evil postal service empire.
Instead the story is a complicated tangle of personalities building stuff in layers on top of one another.
NOTES
During Licklider's undergraduate studies, he switched from chemistry to physics to the fine arts to psychology. When he graduated he had degrees in maths, psychology, and physics.
Licklider recommended never signing onto a project which lasted longer than five to seven years so you can always move on to other things.
Telegrams needed relay stations as the signal decayed. Initially these stations had people listening to the signal, writing them down, then passing them on to someone else to resend. By 1903, the human's role had been reduced to taking paper tape with holes punched into it by one machine, hanging it on a hook, then feeding it into another machine.
The culsulting firm BBN - known as the third university in Cambridge - had a policy that every new hire had to be better than the previous people.
Willy Crowther was one of the key mathematicians behind the ARPANET at BBN. He was a rockclimber, and spent a lot of time hanging from doorframes. He would appear to be doing nothing but hanging for days at a time, then sudden unleash the ideas he had been thinking about.
Lawrence Roberts - one of the ARPANET guys - was pulled over for speeding. So he collected data and ran physics calculations to prove he could not possibly have accelerated his car in the given distance to exceed the speed limit.
There was once someone who mailed enough bricks to Alaska - one at a time - to build a house. It was the cheapest form of shipping.
Roberts needed to find someone to replace him at DARPA. Licklider was the guy for the job, but when Roberts enquired after him he was on a walking tour in England. Roberts eventually tracked him down in Wales.
Robert Metcalfe went to MIT for undergrad, then went to Harvard for graduate school. He hated it because it was full of old money, whereas MIT was full of "no money".
While DNSes were being figured out, some people thought that TLDNs should reflect funding sources: MIT, DARPA, etc.
TCP/IP was an unofficial standard. Everyone was supposed to be using an ISO standard, but that never gained enough momentum to get off the ground. The lesson is "standards should be discovered, not decreed."
maggiedelano's review
3.0
This book was okay. It was interesting to learn more about how the Internet started. However, I would have liked more about the actual technology itself and less about each engineer's idiosyncrasies. The authors also didn't do a great job at helping the reader keep track of all the people in the book, and the epilogue feels super outdated as so much has changed since 1996.
jjwalter2001's review
5.0
Not as interesting as I thought it would be...I ended up skimming a good chunk of the book hoping there'd be some sections that got me more interested.