Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet

Description

A little more than twenty-five years ago, computer networks did not exist anywhere - except in the minds of a handful of computer scientists. In the late 1960s, the Defense Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency funded a project to create computer communication among its university-based researchers. The experiment was inspired by J. C. R. Licklider, a brilliant scientist from MIT. At a time when computers were generally regarded as nothing more than giant calculators, Licklider saw their potential as communications devices.
Where Wizards Stay Up Late is the story of the small group of researchers and engineers whose invention, daring in its day, became the foundation for the Internet. With ARPA's backing, Licklider and others began the quest for a way to connect computers across the country.
In 1969, ARPA awarded the contract to build the most integral piece of this network - a computerized switch called the Interface Message Processor, or IMP - to Bolt Beranek and Newman (BBN), a small Cambridge, Massachusetts, company. A half-dozen engineers at BBN, who called themselves the IMP Guys, knew it was possible to do what larger companies - including AT&T and IBM - had dismissed as impossible. But making computer networking possible required inventing new technologies. Working around the clock, the IMP Guys met a tight deadline, and the first IMP was installed at UCLA nine months after the contract award.
A nationwide network called the ARPANET grew from four initial sites. Protocols were developed, and along the way a series of accidental discoveries were made, not the least of which was e-mail. Almost immediately, e-mail became the most popular feature of the Net and the "@" sign became lodged in the iconography of our times. The ARPANET continued to grow, then merged with other computer networks to become today's Internet. In 1990, the ARPANET itself was shut down, fully merged by then with the Internet it had spawned.

Get the book

Amazon.com

Search the book

eBay.com

Search the book

Other editions

• 

  Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins Of The Internet

  • 1999-08-19
  • 304 pages
  • Ebook
  • Simon and Schuster

Similar books

• 

  Quality Web Systems: Performance, Security, and Usability

  By Elfriede Dustin, Jeff Rashka, Douglas McDiarmid

  The RSI approach to use case analysis was developed by Mark Collins - Cope . This chapter explores the definition of use cases to capture functional requirements for a Web system and the application of those use cases to support the ...

• 

  Principles, Protocols, and Architecture

  By Douglas Comer, David L. Stevens

  Principles, Protocols, and Architecture

• 

  Perl 5 Complete

  By Ed Peschko, Michele DeWolfe, Edward S. Peschko

  To get a hash slice of the same data structure , you could say : my $ hashref $ stateKeys - > { ' ID421 ' } ; to get the hash referenced by ' ID421 ' , i.e. , $ stateKeys { ID421 = > { state = > ' Minnesota ' , capital = > ' St Paul ' ...

• 

  生活科技應用網路概論(第二版)(電子書)

  By 鄧文淵 總監製/文淵閣工作室 編著

  ... 島金石掌網路書店 2 全館搜尋可|琶中艾害|葵艾書簡體害雜誌 MQQK |艾具|服飾酶 Google 搜尋*9 有時候手上只有相關的圖片,卻. 1-23 。 利用搜尋工具指定多個篩選條件.

• 

  物联网关键技术及应用

  By 张春红, 裘晓峰, 夏海轮

  [ 30 ]李立会,李少军,刘忠领,智能视频监控技术综述, [ 31 ]赵俊,智能视频监控系统关键技术研究,西安电子科技大学, [ 32 ]刘智权,视频监控:物联网时代应用先锋, http://www.cww.net.cn/tech/html/2010/2/25/2010225920526487.htm [ 33 ]冯凯,童世华, ...

• 

  The Essential Guide to Wireless Communications Applications: From Cellular Systems to WAP and M-Commerce

  By Andy Dornan

  Moore's Law ( named after Intel cofounder Gordon Moore ) states that the number of circuits packed into a given area of a silicon chip doubles approximately every eighteen months , leading to a similar improvement in processing power .

• 

  “互联网+”智慧校园技术与工程实施

  By 曹杰, 陈林, 廖恩红

  本书详细介绍了“互联网+”智慧校园的概念、实现技术和典型工程实施应用。全书共5章，即“互联网+”智慧校园技术概论、智慧校园网络体系、情景感知系统、云计算技术以及智慧 ...

• 

  How to Do Everything with Your GPS

  By Rick Broida

  Is Wherify Worth It ? One Parent's Take Dave Johnson ( this book's tech editor ) and I rarely see eye to eye on anything . So it was with some apprehension that I asked him to share his experience with Wherify , the built - for - kids ...

• 

  Youth, Pornography, and the Internet

  By Committee to Study Tools and Strategies for Protecting Kids from Pornography and Their Applicability to Other Inappropriate Internet Content, Dick Thornburgh

  The Internet has changed the way we access the world. This is especially true for kids, who soak up new technologies like eager little sponges.

• 

  Effective STL: 50 Specific Ways to Improve Your Use of the Standard Template Library

  By Donal O'Mahony, Michael A. Peirce, Hitesh Tewari

  Effective STL: 50 Specific Ways to Improve Your Use of the Standard Template Library