Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins Of The Internet
By Katie Hafner
You can view this book's Amazon detail page here.
Tags: history internet work BBN
- Started reading:
- 19th January 2008
- Finished reading:
- 10th February 2008
Review
Rating: 8
This book was given to me by BBN at the new employees welcome brunch. It tells the story of the early days of DARPA, then called ARPA. It was written in 1994, so it’s not especially up to date in that regard. The book covers the early years of ARPA and its efforts to join the various branches of scientific research. It was this pooling of scientific minds, along with the advent of computers to lead ARPA to create a network of computers around the country. An amazing task in the mid 1960s. BBN was the company that actually won the contract and built the network. It was this network, and other similar projects in the US and Europe that eventually lead to a global network, that today we call The Internet.
The book doesnt try to be a story book, although it spends a few pages on some key players as we follow them through their careers of working on the ARPANET. It goes into great details on the technologies of the day. In that regard it might almost be considered text book like. The book is an interesting mix between history lesson, technology lesson and a story of a few select men who made all this possible.
I enjoyed reading it, as I am a fan of history, technology and as an employee of BBN, it was cool to look back at some of my predecessors.
