Nerds 2.0.1: A Brief History of the Internet

Description

Nerds 2.0.1, the first detailed history of computer networking, begins in the 1960s with the launch of the Soviet Sputnik satellite and the efforts of one Pentagon bureaucrat, Bob Taylor, to save money. By building a network of computers, he believed the government could avoid buying so many new ones for academic research. From these modest Cold War beginnings a global networking industry has flourished, creating virtual communities, online shopping, the ubiquitous e-mail, and immense fortunes. Stephen Segaller's timely book draws on interviews with more than seventy of the pioneers who have used their technological genius and business skills to make incompatible systems work together, to make networking user-friendly, and to create a new global communications medium that rivals the telephone system or television in its scope and reach.Nerds 2.0.1 tells the dramatic, often comical story of how the world's computers have come to be wired together over the last thirty years. This paperback reprint contains new material to update the picture of this still-evolving saga. Copyright......Page 6 Contents......Page 9 Acknowledgments......Page 11 Introduction Very, Very Long Legs......Page 15 Part One The 1960s: Inventing the Wheel......Page 29 Chapter One A Testing Time......Page 31 Chapter Two Something Seductive......Page 50 Chapter Three Not So Hard......Page 74 Part Two The 1970s: Networking the Nerds......Page 99 Chapter Four Kind of a Happening......Page 101 Chapter Five Suits, Hippies, and Hackers......Page 119 Chapter Six A Human Could Use It......Page 138 Chapter Seven Copierheads......Page 160 Part Three The 1980s: Serving the Suits......Page 177 Chapter Eight "OK for Corporate America"......Page 179 Chapter Nine Close to the Silicon......Page 215 Chapter Ten Earthquakes and Vulcans......Page 230 Chapter Eleven It Takes Two to Sign a Contract......Page 250 Chapter Twelve Steal My Software......Page 266 Part Four The 1990s: Wiring the World......Page 283 Chapter Thirteen People Just Laughed......Page 285 Chapter Fourteen An Interesting Commercial Opportunity......Page 295 Chapter Fifteen The Slumbering Giant......Page 309 Chapter Sixteen Really Good Vibes......Page 322 Chapter Seventeen All Geeked Up......Page 344 Conclusion Not A Fad......Page 360 Postscript E-lif.er.a. tion ( ee-lif-e-ray-shon)......Page 366 Appendix A: Cast of Characters (those in italics, not interviewed)......Page 379 Appendix B: Timeline......Page 386 Appendix C: Glossary of Technical Terms......Page 397 Appendix D: Acronyms......Page 401 Photo Credits......Page 404 Index......Page 405