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Katie Hafner

Matthew Lyon

Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins Of The Internet Paperback – January 21, 1998

by Katie Hafner (Author)

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Twenty five years ago, it didn't exist. Today, twenty million people worldwide are surfing the Net. Where Wizards Stay Up Late is the exciting story of the pioneers responsible for creating the most talked about, most influential, and most far-reaching communications breakthrough since the invention of the telephone.
In the 1960's, when computers where regarded as mere giant calculators, J.C.R. Licklider at MIT saw them as the ultimate communications devices. With Defense Department funds, he and a band of visionary computer whizzes began work on a nationwide, interlocking network of computers. Taking readers behind the scenes, Where Wizards Stay Up Late captures the hard work, genius, and happy accidents of their daring, stunningly successful venture.

Print length

304 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Simon & Schuster
Publication date

January 21, 1998
Dimensions

5.5 x 0.9 x 8.44 inches
ISBN-10

9780684832678
ISBN-13

978-0684832678
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Editorial Reviews

Review

David Plotnikoff San Jose Mercury News The book, almost certainly destined to be the definitive work on the birth and early years of the Internet, is sweeping in scope....Whoever chooses to write the next chapter in the saga...has a tough act to follow.

Daniel Akst Los Angeles Times Important...meticulous...admirably straightforward.

Lars Eighner The Texas Observer In all the dreck and dross of Internet books, here is a brilliant gem...remarkably well written.

Mark Baechtel The Washington Post Excellent...makes for crackling entertainment...reawakens a sense of wonder in readers jaded by too much Internet hype.

Richard Bernstein The New York Times Book Review If you always wanted to know who put the 'at' sign in your E-mail address, then Where Wizards Stay Up Late is the book for you.

About the Author

Katie Hafner is a technology correspondent at Newsweek and coauthor of Cyberpunk: Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier. Matthew Lyon and Katie Hafner are married and live in the San Francisco Bay area.

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Product details

ASIN : 0684832674
Publisher : Simon & Schuster; First Paperback Edition (January 21, 1998)
Language : English
Paperback : 304 pages
ISBN-10 : 9780684832678
ISBN-13 : 978-0684832678
Item Weight : 10.5 ounces
Dimensions : 5.5 x 0.9 x 8.44 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #123,380 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #96 in Computer Networks, Protocols & APIs (Books)
- #279 in Internet & Telecommunications
- #520 in Computer Science (Books)

Customer Reviews:
238 ratings

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4 star		21%
3 star		8%
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Top reviews from the United States

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R. Bennett

The best history of the Internet I have yet to read

Reviewed in the United States on April 15, 2019

Verified Purchase

I am a Gen-X I.T. guy. I was raised from the time personal computers were thousands of dollars and were bought by offices to allow their employees to have primitive word processing programs and maybe a simple calculator. For all computers to be linked together and able to talk to each other, share information, locate problems between them, and enable human beings a new facility to communicate in addition to humankind's speech, hearing, touch, and thought that becomes a new basic ability for us just as these others are. (Who could go a day without texts or email messages coming to them to realize their new place in the world?). This book takes the birth of the Internet--what preceded it, what promoted it, what was required to be invented so it could fulfill its purpose--and tells it in interviews with the founding fathers (there were not founding women based on the culture of the time) and goes back through records and accomplishments that led piece by piece to the network of networks we have today. The book makes real people out of the original engineers and programmers and showed how they thought, what they did to overcome their problems, and how they worked together as teams to come up with one of the most important intelligence-expanding discoveries in the history of the human race. This book is written for both computer-neophytes (gives definitions of the terms and vocabulary used that even casual computer users will find relevant in today's computer-oriented world) and experienced computer- and network- experts. Without the products of these inventors and geniuses, the connected world we have today where practically everyone in non-third-world countries has access to a computer and the Internet, the connectedness we enjoy as a world full of people would not be present to the extent it is today. For anyone wanting to understand how this most significant discovery was made and put together, this is the book that is easy to read and understand and will help you see the providence that combined to make this invention that will save the planet and lead mankind to the stars possible.

13 people found this helpful

Helpful

Tink Tucker

How the Internet was born - an amazing story.

Reviewed in the United States on September 27, 2016

Verified Purchase

I have been meaning to purchase this book for years. It tells the story of how the Arpanet was formed, the Arpanet's design being essentially the same as the Internet's except that the former was intended for connecting academic and federal government institutions rather than commercial institutions and private citizens. It is amazing how such a small group of brilliant scientists and engineers worked so closely across institutions and the country to not only virtually overnight conceptualize but then to actually build the first long distance digital network that has grown to become essential across the world. Their dedication and astounding foresight resulted in creating something, in a day 45 years ago when transistors had hardly been invented and computers were literally refrigerator and room sized, that would eventually be extended to reliably connect even today's personal computers and smartphones at orders of magnitude higher speeds than were possible at the time.

Truly inspiring and highly recommended.

7 people found this helpful

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Matthew74

Great read about BBN and the ARPANET!

Reviewed in the United States on September 19, 2018

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Excellent and entertaining social history of BBN, ARPANET, and the Internet. I think it reached a good balance between the people, events, and technology. It was entertaining without being “popular”, and historical without being “academic”. For me, the book did a good job of taking me back in time and seeing things from that perspective of those times, rather than from the author’s point of view, or ours today. The “narrarator”, if there was one, disappeared completely but told an interesting story. It is a shame that BBN and the engineers are not better known, considering the importance of their contributions. It is about the very beginning of the Internet, not so much how it came together after ARPANET. It gave me a new perspective on the Boston area where I lived for several years. I looked the BBN campus up on the net, and you can still see where it all started.

3 people found this helpful

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JamesE

Well organized history. But a difficult, dense read. And I really tried!

Reviewed in the United States on May 31, 2020

Verified Purchase

I really was excited to read this book having been an early adopter of the personal computer and the Internet. There's a lot of important, historical information organized here, which makes it a valuable resource. However, it was a pretty dense and sometimes difficult read. In an effort to capture many details, the author often wanders about and gets lost in their own minute details. As well, the chapters didn't feel well connected together, at times making the read feel disjointed. Perhaps that's part of the serendipitous, unplanned nature of how the Internet came to be.

One person found this helpful

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ARPANET --> Internet

Reviewed in the United States on June 8, 2014

Verified Purchase

A surprisingly lively and engaging book, the reader is taken back to the early days of the Cold War and introduced to the people, technologies and times that caused the birth and evolution of what has become the 21st Century's defining backbone - the Internet. Meeting the "wizards" for the first time, you get the sense for the challenges, the brilliance and the stone age technology that first birthed the web.

As a child of the 1970's and living in a town that had IBM as its largest employer, I remember well the development of the personal computer, the disruption of the mainframe business, and the emergence of the internet during my 1989-1993 college days. It is interesting now to look back as see the forces that were at the cutting edge of that great disruptive force that changed the course of communications. Discussed are items like the development of the Ethernet and TCP/IP - which still form the backbone of many networking technologies.

Interesting, insightful and well written, you will gain much appreciation for the true pioneers of the internet - the (almost 100%) men of ARPA and their progeny - ARPANET - the primal ooze from which the current World Wide Web and networking evolved.

6 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Etienne A.

I loved this book - although it is not perfect and ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 22, 2018

Verified Purchase

I loved this book - even if it is not perfect and is definitely a bit nerdy. Although it would need to be updated in a second edition, I found the history of the net fascinating. Now I really want to understand the technical details of networking, which I should have done years ago.

One person found this helpful

mal

Fascinating subject matter, dull delivery

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 9, 2012

Verified Purchase

The subject matter, the origins of the Internet, is fascinating and the book does an acceptable job of covering it.

However, the delivery feels dull. The portraits of the key characters, and their surroundings feel like diversions, more often than not failing to bring the human dimension to the story. The book is nowhere near as engaging as Tracy Kidder's "The soul of new machine" or David Kushner's "Masters of Doom".

Technical content, and overall level of detail, feel OK at the start whilst covering BBN's involvement but generally fade away as the story progresses.

Not a bad book, but not memorable.

Denny

A must-read for net-nerds!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 30, 2014

Verified Purchase

This book is a must-read for anyone whose interest in the Internet extends beyond just using it, and into how and why it came about. The number of incredibly smart people who were involved at various times in various ways is amazing.

Chris Smith

Great Book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 8, 2013

Verified Purchase

I have the original paperback and absolutely love this book. Being a computer geek myself I find it very interesting and entertaining read. I've read it through a couple of times, love it.

Mr. M. Halliday

Engrossing!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 2, 2013

Verified Purchase

What a great book about the history of the internet! Get this book if (like me) you remember the old days of Arpa Net and 'no proper networks!'

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