Dead Media Beat: The ARPANET Sourcebook: The Unpublished Foundations of the Internet

(((Too bad it costs eighty bucks... but eighty years from now, when nobody remembers the word "Internet,"
a paper document like this one will seriously freak people out.)))

Link: PeerLLC - The ARPANET Sourcebook: The Unpublished Foundations of the Internet.

About The ARPANET Sourcebook

In 1966 IBM mainframes could only connect to other IBM mainframes, Burroughs only to other Burroughs, etc. Beginning in 1967 the US Defense Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) office sponsored development of a "heterogeneous" network compatible with computers from any manufacturer.

That R&D effort, one of the most successful in history, resulted in the on-time, on-budget construction of the revolutionary ARPANET, the immediate predecessor of today's Internet.

The ARPANET Sourcebook: The Unpublished Foundations of the Internet reproduces the seminal papers, reports, and RFCs that led to the birth of modern network computing. Most appear here in book form for the first time.

Part A, Imagining the ARPANET, covers the initial studies of network feasibility and includes:

the introductory and concluding chapters of Paul Baran's seminal but little-known RAND research report On Distributed Communications in which packet switching was first conceptualized.
p>the classic 1968 paper The Computer as a Communication Device by J.C.R. Licklider and Robert Taylor, respectively the ARPANET's earliest proponent and the ARPA administrator who pushed the development project.

"The book is a great addition to those trying to figure out how the ARPANET that eventually morphed into the Internet may have come about. Historians have learned never to believe anything except contemporaneous documentation and no one bothered much about saving records in the early days. So this work helps fill a long term vacuum." —— Paul Baran

(((FLASH!! Exciting addendum from publisher!)))

On Feb 15, 2008, at 2:59 AM, Dan Doernberg wrote:

Bruce, (((Yo!)))

We're really thrilled that you noted the publication of our new ARPANET original document collection in your Wired blog:

http://blog.wired.com/sterling/2008/02/dead-media-be-1.html

However:

*** Important correction: The US price for the *paperback* is $59.95.... it's the casebound edition (basically intended for libraries who insist on hardcovers) that is $79.95.

(((I'm sure this is thrilling news for those of you out there who wanna drop sixty bucks on a paperback!)))

Would it be possible to correct this in a fairly visible way? It's the very first thing said ("Too bad it costs eighty bucks...") and, as-is, your readers are given a pretty negative "initial impression" that's not warranted! (((Oh.)))

Note— I can easily see how this happened, and I've added some bolding and underlining to highlight the less expensive paperback price. (((If only the Internet had been marketed with this kinda savvy – imagine where that obscure technical network for computer scientists might be today!)))

PS— Readers should be able to infer from the mention of "Part A" that there are other parts...but those skimming rather than reading carefully (most!??) won't realize that there are also these two parts:

Part B, Planning the ARPANET, reproduces the first 18 RFCs, some for the first time.

Part C, Building the ARPANET, reprodues all the BBN quarterly technical reports detailing the network's actual implementation.

(((I know that I, in particular, am hungering to read those fifty-year-old
ARPANET requests for comments. When the word on those RFCs hits the streets, man, the fur is gonna fly!)))

Would it also be possible to add something like the two lines above to your post, just to give a fuller overview of the scope of the material covered? (((No problem! For the Internet history tech press, there's nothing I won't do! I even blurbed Katie Hafner's book back in 1996! Really!)))

Thank you very much,

===========================================================

Dan Doernberg, Publisher

Peer-to-Peer Communications LLC

Email: [email protected]
Web: http://www.peerllc.com

(((PS: buy the hardback. The paperback's gonna fall apart one of these days.)))