Casting the Net: From ARPANET to INTERNET and Beyond by Peter H. Salus, Vinton G. Cerf (Foreword by)

From the Publisher

The design decisions and standards which have made internetworking possible form the focus for this book. The information is essential for any future technical contributions and will provide a central source of information concerning the Internet's technical standards.

Electronic Review of Computer Books - Danny Yee

In A Quarter Century of Unix, Peter H. Salus explores the history of Unix; in Casting the Net, he turns to the history of the Internet. After a brief look at the "prehistory" of networking, he covers the development of the ARPANET in some detail. He then discusses a variety of material, organized thematically and roughly chronologically: early networks in Europe and Japan (but nothing about Australia); the development of new protocols (particularly for mail); the switch to TCP/IP; the OSI protocol wars; UUCP and Usenet; BITNET and Fidonet (and a bit on IBM's VNET); the NSFnet; the NREN and the NII; the most recent commercialization and explosion of the Internet; and so forth. Information up to December 1994 is used, so Casting the Net is not too badly out of date.

In a couple of places, Salus pretends he's writing a book for the masses -- at one point he devotes a couple of pages to explaining the difference between datagram and circuit based networks -- but this is not maintained. While Casting the Net doesn't assume a great deal of technical knowledge, it is still very much a technical history, written for those who work with networks and networking protocols. For example, as digressions, it contains all the April Fools' Day RFCs: This material can hardly be appreciated by anyone who's never read an RFC or tried to understand a networking protocol.

Whereas A Quarter Century of Unix was built out of quotes, more of Casting the Net is taken up by diagrams, time lines, and digressions. Most of these are reprinted from easily accessible sources (like the digressions, many of the quotes are from RFCs), so there is a lot less original material than in the earlier book, and I don't think it is as impressive an achievement. There's still a lot of good material in it, however, and it's a good read (once again, I finished it within a day of receiving my copy). If you are after a compact technical history of the Internet, then there isn't much competition.

Booknews

This history of the growth and development of the matrix of computer networks is peppered with humorous poems, historically significant memos, and quotations. It covers the formation of the ARPANET, commercialization and new protocols, UNIX and USEnet in the 1970s, MILNET, CSNET, and NSFNET in the 1980s, and developments in Japan, Europe, and Asia. The appendix offers visions of the future, in the form of letters from the year 2023 found in a reverse time capsule. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Product Details

• Table of Contents
• Forewords & Introductions
• Read an Excerpt

Table of Contents

Forewords & Introductions

At a time when the Internet has occupied the covers of bothBusiness Week and Time and every daily newspaper speculates on numbers of users and billions of dollars in "opportunities," when the President and Vice President of the United States have their own electronic mail addresses, and when the Supreme Court makes its dicta available via anonymous ftp, it is appropriate to look at the origins and development of this wondrous entity.

At the end of 1969, the ARPANET, the first packet-switching computer network, consisted of four sites. At the end of 1994, there were nearly four million hosts. While there is much discussion as to just how many users each of these hosts represents, the range is from a (conservative) average of three to a (flamboyantly unrealistic) ten: That is, from 12 to 40 million users worldwide.

Many tens of thousands of networks make up the Internet, which is a network of networks. Many of these networks are not full participants in the Internet, meaning that there are many applications which they cannot employ. In Neuromancer, a 1984 science fiction novel, William Gibson used the term "the matrix" for his cyberspace. John S. Quarterman employed the term in his 1990 compendium, and it has since come into common usage. I use the Matrix here to refer to all computers capable of sending and receiving electronic mail. Though not even a part of the original ARPANET, mail is now the prime application for the Matrix user.

Max Beerbohm once criticized Quiller-Couch for writing "a veritable porcupine of quotations." I recognize that the same indictment could be handeddown against me. And that some of my "quotations" are not so much quills as battering-rams. However, some of them are feathers (or perhaps down comforters). There is general feeling that the inventors of technological wonders are deadly dull, that they have no interests outside their work, and that writings about technology are unreadable. And I admit that much of this is (selectively) true. So I have larded this history with lighter works: Len Kleinrock's and Vint Cerf's verse, as well as parodies by a number of others. And the final appendix contains Kleinrock's most recent verse and Cerf's future history in its entirety.

This book could not have been written without the active cooperation of many of the original participants. At the head of the list stand Vint Cerf, Bob Kahn, Alex McKenzie, Mike Padlipsky, Jon Postel, John Quarterman, and Dave Walden. They have tolerated my questions and supplied me with documents with humor and grace. I am beholden to Marlyn Johnson of SRI and to a number of staff members of Bolt Beranek and Newman for locating and giving me access to documents I would never have otherwise read: Ivanna Abruzzese, Jennie Connolly, Lori McCarthy, Bob Menk, Aravinda Pillalamarri, and Terry Tollman.

The assistance of the following is gratefully acknowledged: Rick Adams, Jaap Akkerhuis, Eric Allman, Piet Beertema, Steve Bellovin, Bob Bishop, Roland Bryan, Peter Capek, David Clark, Lyman Chapin, Glyn Colinson, Peter Collinson, Sunil Das, Dan Dern, Harry Forsdick, Donalyn Frey, Simson Garfinkel, Michel Gien, John Gilmore, Teus Hagen, Mark Horton, Peter Houlder, Peter Kirstein, Len Kleinrock, Kirk McKusick, Bob Metcalfe, Mike Muuss, Mike O'Dell, Craig Partridge, Brian Redman, Brian Reid, Jim Reid, Larry Roberts, Keld Simonsen, Gene Spafford, Hanery Spencer, Bob Taylor, Brad Templeton, Ray Tomlinson, Rebecca Wetzel, and Hubert Zimmermann.

Len Tower and Stuart McRobert have saved me from more gaucheries than I care to recall, as have the (anonymous) readers of the manuscript. Tom Stone and Kathleen Billus at Addison-Wesley have once again shepherded me successfully through the reefs from conception to production.

Much of the material in the Time-Lines is derived from that of John Quarterman and Smoot Carl-Mitchell, to whom I am grateful.

As I have neither a dog nor a cat, I can only (as always) thank Dr. Mary W. Salus and almost-Dr. Emily W. Salus for their niggling and carping, which has improved all my work over the past 25 years.

P.H.S.
Boston
January 1995

Read an Excerpt

At a time when the Internet has occupied the covers of bothBusiness Week and Time and every daily newspaper speculates on numbers of users and billions of dollars in "opportunities," when the President and Vice President of the United States have their own electronic mail addresses, and when the Supreme Court makes its dicta available via anonymous ftp, it is appropriate to look at the origins and development of this wondrous entity.

At the end of 1969, the ARPANET, the first packet-switching computer network, consisted of four sites. At the end of 1994, there were nearly four million hosts. While there is much discussion as to just how many users each of these hosts represents, the range is from a (conservative) average of three to a (flamboyantly unrealistic) ten: That is, from 12 to 40 million users worldwide.

Many tens of thousands of networks make up the Internet, which is a network of networks. Many of these networks are not full participants in the Internet, meaning that there are many applications which they cannot employ. In Neuromancer, a 1984 science fiction novel, William Gibson used the term "the matrix" for his cyberspace. John S. Quarterman employed the term in his 1990 compendium, and it has since come into common usage. I use the Matrix here to refer to all computers capable of sending and receiving electronic mail. Though not even a part of the original ARPANET, mail is now the prime application for the Matrix user.

Max Beerbohm once criticized Quiller-Couch for writing "a veritable porcupine of quotations." I recognize that the same indictment could be handeddown against me. And that some of my "quotations" are not so much quills as battering-rams. However, some of them are feathers (or perhaps down comforters). There is general feeling that the inventors of technological wonders are deadly dull, that they have no interests outside their work, and that writings about technology are unreadable. And I admit that much of this is (selectively) true. So I have larded this history with lighter works: Len Kleinrock's and Vint Cerf's verse, as well as parodies by a number of others. And the final appendix contains Kleinrock's most recent verse and Cerf's future history in its entirety.

This book could not have been written without the active cooperation of many of the original participants. At the head of the list stand Vint Cerf, Bob Kahn, Alex McKenzie, Mike Padlipsky, Jon Postel, John Quarterman, and Dave Walden. They have tolerated my questions and supplied me with documents with humor and grace. I am beholden to Marlyn Johnson of SRI and to a number of staff members of Bolt Beranek and Newman for locating and giving me access to documents I would never have otherwise read: Ivanna Abruzzese, Jennie Connolly, Lori McCarthy, Bob Menk, Aravinda Pillalamarri, and Terry Tollman.

The assistance of the following is gratefully acknowledged: Rick Adams, Jaap Akkerhuis, Eric Allman, Piet Beertema, Steve Bellovin, Bob Bishop, Roland Bryan, Peter Capek, David Clark, Lyman Chapin, Glyn Colinson, Peter Collinson, Sunil Das, Dan Dern, Harry Forsdick, Donalyn Frey, Simson Garfinkel, Michel Gien, John Gilmore, Teus Hagen, Mark Horton, Peter Houlder, Peter Kirstein, Len Kleinrock, Kirk McKusick, Bob Metcalfe, Mike Muuss, Mike O'Dell, Craig Partridge, Brian Redman, Brian Reid, Jim Reid, Larry Roberts, Keld Simonsen, Gene Spafford, Hanery Spencer, Bob Taylor, Brad Templeton, Ray Tomlinson, Rebecca Wetzel, and Hubert Zimmermann.

Len Tower and Stuart McRobert have saved me from more gaucheries than I care to recall, as have the (anonymous) readers of the manuscript. Tom Stone and Kathleen Billus at Addison-Wesley have once again shepherded me successfully through the reefs from conception to production.

Much of the material in the Time-Lines is derived from that of John Quarterman and Smoot Carl-Mitchell, to whom I am grateful.

As I have neither a dog nor a cat, I can only (as always) thank Dr. Mary W. Salus and almost-Dr. Emily W. Salus for their niggling and carping, which has improved all my work over the past 25 years.

P.H.S.
Boston
January 1995