Casting the Net: From ARPANET to INTERNET and Beyond

Rating:
Summary: This pieces it all together
Review: I came across this book while writing "The Encyclopedia of Networking." What a great resource. I was trying to write a historical outline by referring to the RFCs written during the early years of the Internet. What a task! This book puts it all into perspective. Salus has interviewed the people involved, including Cerf and many others, and in so doing, has made a major contribution to the Internet historical archives. Never mind that it is getting a little dated. Its a great read and kept me up past midnight.

Rating:
Summary: This pieces it all together
Review: I came across this book while writing "The Encyclopedia of Networking." What a great resource. I was trying to write a historical outline by referring to the RFCs written during the early years of the Internet. What a task! This book puts it all into perspective. Salus has interviewed the people involved, including Cerf and many others, and in so doing, has made a major contribution to the Internet historical archives. Never mind that it is getting a little dated. Its a great read and kept me up past midnight.

Rating:
Summary: I have more to say after reading another book...
Review: I just finished reading "Where Wizards Stay up Late," another Internet history book. It is just as good and I actually felt a little nastalgia after reading the book, as if I were there myself. I highly recommend both books if you want to learn how all this technology developed. By the way, this book reads more like a novel. The Salus book reads more like a good rendering of the RFCs. But all these writers have done their job in interviewing the historical figures.

Rating:
Summary: I have more to say after reading another book...
Review: I just finished reading "Where Wizards Stay up Late," another Internet history book. It is just as good and I actually felt a little nastalgia after reading the book, as if I were there myself. I highly recommend both books if you want to learn how all this technology developed. By the way, this book reads more like a novel. The Salus book reads more like a good rendering of the RFCs. But all these writers have done their job in interviewing the historical figures.

Rating:
Summary: A terrific look at the birth of the Internet
Review: If you want to find out how things like the Internet, Usenet and other services we take for granted were developed, there's no better book than this one. Salus gives a detailed chronology of the Internet's history and development, with interviews of the people involved and numerous excerpts from RFCs and other documents. There's even details on how the alt.* hierarchy of Usenet newsgroups was born, with a debunking of the rumor that it stands for Anarchists, Lunatics and Terrorists. A terrific book.