Rating: 
Summary: Enthralling History of the Internet's Origin
Review: This book gives you the complete story behind the conception and birth of the internet. The story focuses on the work done by BBN to pioneer and develop all of the protocols and designs that are the internet. The book does a good job of laying the foundation of where the state of computing was when these initial developments were being made and what outside social and economic trends effected and encouraged the internet's development. The authors do a very good job of focusing on the personalities, anecdotes and larger issues without getting bogged down in minutiae. At 265 pages, the book is packed and makes for a very quick read. The writing style of Ms. Hafner and Mr. Lyon is outstanding, which greatly increases the quality of the book.There are some very interesting aspects of the development that are related. I was very interested in the origins of BBN, their background in acoustics, and the zeal with which they pursued the original DARPA contract. Of equal interest was the method in which the teams were managed, and the way that the development was not pursued with large teams and brute force, but rather with smaller teams that were headed by the best possible people and given all of the resources that they needed. The creation of the internet is an awe-inspiring event, and the text offers several subtle management lessons that are too important to be overlooked. The book also does a splendid job of showing some of the theory that was used in the development of the necessary software and how the developers did such a good job of bridging theory and practical engineering development. In this light the book does a much better job discussing theory than two other recent books on the history of the Computer, "Engines of the Mind" by Shurkin and "Computer" by Campbell-Kelly and Aspray. These are just some of the interesting stories told, the whole text is packed cover to cover with similar stories. I highly recommend this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Spoonfed information
Review: This book imparts a good deal of interesting information clearly and concisely. It focuses on the technical side of the development of the Internet and stops short of describing the creation of the protocols and policy. Its main shortcoming is that it sticks so much to description that it lacks thoughtful insight. Additionally, the portrayal of the characters is flat and shallow.
Rating: 
Summary: Good history of early days
Review: This book is a good history of the early days of the Internet. I would recommend to anyone who is interested in the history of the net before it really took off. Unfortunately the history of the internet is lacking in compelling personalities that would make the history more interesting. This is especially true compared to the history of the PC with the likes Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. The men who built the internet were a bright bunch of men, but lacking in ego that made for the battles of the PC era. The lack of personalities is not the book's fault, but just makes the story a little less interesting than some other technology history books.
Rating:
Summary: Good Book.
Review: This book is a welcome respite from the technologically-oriented books on technology. The authors do a nice job of telling the story behind what has become the Internet. It is not a technical manual of how stuff works in the computer network. It is a glimpse into how stuff works in the human network. A historical perspective is more than just the facts; it is an interpretation of those facts, to help frame our present in some context. This book gives us some perspective of how the ARPAnet came into being. For anyone involved in the field of computer networking, this book is a "must-read".
Rating:
Summary: The Non-Tech of Tech
Review: This book is a welcome respite from the technologically-oriented books on technology. The authors do a nice job of telling the story behind what has become the Internet. It is not a technical manual of how stuff works in the computer network. It is a glimpse into how stuff works in the human network. A historical perspective is more than just the facts; it is an interpretation of those facts, to help frame our present in some context. This book gives us some perspective of how the ARPAnet came into being. For anyone involved in the field of computer networking, this book is a "must-read".
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating !
Review: This book is the story of another example of how dedicated, forward thinking people created a technology that became an industry (I find parallels with the invention of television). More than just the technical details, in this book you get great insight into the personalities and the various outside forces that went into what became the Internet. It was fascinating reading and gives one a greater appreciation for those who preceeded us.
Rating:
Summary: An engaging reading
Review: This book provides an interesting account on the early days of internet. The story will make anyone who is fascinated by the impact of internet today to appreciate the effort of its early pioneers. Anyone would wish that they were there witnessing one of the man greatest accomplishment in the making.
Rating:
Summary: Great story
Review: This book provides excellent documentation about the origins of the Internet. The authors conducted hundreds of interviews, which they combined with facts gleamed from thousands of pages of archived materials dating back to the very beginnings of the Net. I've been teaching courses about the Internet for several years, and so I was already familiar with the general timeline of who did what and when. What was fascinating to me about this book was that the authors made it possible to get to know the personalities behind the names and faces. They discussed the motivations of these leaders, the challenges they faced, and the tremendous amount of cooperation that they engaged in. The early part of the book was especially engaging, when the authors discuss the early motivations for setting up ARPANET through the construction of the first 2 nodes. As the Net begins to grow, adding more nodes monthly, Hafner and Lyon must cut back on the level of detail they provide about the main players because so much happens so fast. At that point, my eyes glazed over a little, but overall, I found the book incredibly exciting, and a very important contribution to the history of the Net.
Rating:
Summary: Great story
Review: This book provides excellent documentation about the origins of the Internet. The authors conducted hundreds of interviews, which they combined with facts gleamed from thousands of pages of archived materials dating back to the very beginnings of the Net. I've been teaching courses about the Internet for several years, and so I was already familiar with the general timeline of who did what and when. What was fascinating to me about this book was that the authors made it possible to get to know the personalities behind the names and faces. They discussed the motivations of these leaders, the challenges they faced, and the tremendous amount of cooperation that they engaged in. The early part of the book was especially engaging, when the authors discuss the early motivations for setting up ARPANET through the construction of the first 2 nodes. As the Net begins to grow, adding more nodes monthly, Hafner and Lyon must cut back on the level of detail they provide about the main players because so much happens so fast. At that point, my eyes glazed over a little, but overall, I found the book incredibly exciting, and a very important contribution to the history of the Net.
Rating:
Summary: A good book about the history of the net
Review: This book tells about how the Internet as we know it today has come into existence. In February 1966 Bob Taylor who was employed by the Advanced Research Project Agency located in the Pentagon, was in charge of three non-networked computer terminals, each terminal running a different operating system. Communications between the terminals was at that point in time impossible. Taylor set out to explore a way to get the three computers to talk to each other. The political climate at the time was such that the Russians have launched sputnik into space (1957). President Eisenhower began ARPA as a research and development agency to rival the Soviet's advances in technology. ARPA's mission was to find a way for (government-sensitive) information withstand an attack (from the Soviets) on the Pentagon. Paul Baran joined ARPA. He was working on a way "to build communications structures whose surviving components could continue to function as a cohesive entity if the other pieces were destroyed." Baran diagramed 3 kinds of networks in a paper he wrote. The three networks were, centralized, de-centralized and distributed. Baran had another idea. To send information over the network, he suggested that the messages themselves be fractured. This was formulated into packet-switching. Special computers had to be constructed in order to uses packet-switching. The software form these computers was build by a company called BBN. The hardware of the machines known as IMPs was built by Honeywell. In the beginning there were four nodes on the network. Over time the amount of nodes grew to 115 - until senstive government nodes claimed their own network, MIILNET. Through funding, the National Science Foundation helped get many more colleges and universities on the network.
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