Where Wizards Stay Up Late

The Origins of the Internet

By: Katie Hafner, Matthew Lyon

Narrated by: Mark Douglas Nelson

Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins

Publisher's summary

Twenty-five years ago, it didn't exist. Today, 20 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 1960s, 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 listeners behind the scenes, Where Wizards Stay Up Late captures the hard work, genius, and happy accidents of their daring, stunningly successful venture.

©1996 Katie Hafner (P)2012 Katie Hafner

Love From a Techie

This book will appeal to technically versed people who are interested not only in the history of the internet but also in the inner-workings of networks and how the various protocols of the internet (TCP, TCP/IP, FTP, SMTP, etc) came into existence.

Okay

The book goes deep on the early days, but not so much on the resulting internet. I was expecting a little more.

Good story, but too long

Could have cut at least 4 chapters. Reads like a treatise. Voice was very dry.

They gave birth to the web

Tells the tale of the pioneering engineers at DARPA who built the technology the morphed into the World Wide Web. Rejected as pure academics that didn't understand how things really worked by the phone companies and other. They had to believe in their abilities, passions, and put in insane hours to transform the world.

A must read!!!

What other book might you compare Where Wizards Stay Up Late to and why?

The also excellent 'A History of the Internet and the Digital Future' by Johnny Ryan covers similar material, but has a much wider focus, whereas Wizards focuses in much more depth on the early period specifically.

Any additional comments?

The definitive book on the creation and early history of the Internet.

more focused on the drama than the technical

more focused on the drama than the technical details. it was still enjoyable but I was hoping to learn more of the technical details.

Boring

Interesting topic, but everything could have been said in half the length. I did learn quite a bit, but it was a struggle to finish the book.

Everything you always wanted to know...

Everything you always wanted to know about ARPANET and the creation of the internet --plus the other 85%. WWSUL should be in every computer history buff's collection. (On the other hand, if this area of computing isn't of particular interest for you, try Isaacson's books instead.) Good nerd stuff!

Not great but good.

Narrator put me to sleep but it was well written and mostly interesting. A little slow.

Guess you had to.be there ...

In the latter half of the 1980s, I purchased a second hand book mistakenly thinking, from the title and futuristic cover that it was science fiction. It wasn't, though it easily could have been. It was the magnificent Tracey Kidder book, The Soul of a New Machine. With little knowledge of computers then, I read it and loved it, drawn in from the very beginning, full of character, excitement and energy.
I had hoped that Where Wizards Stay Up Late might be similar. Sadly, it wasn't.
Lacking vibrancy but with too many names and some repetition, it is rather tedious to anyone lacking the technical understanding of the movement of packages.
Good narration, though, from Mark Douglas Nelson