Popular Science Review - When Wizards Stay Up Late

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Review - Where Wizards Stay Up Late - Katie Hafner & Matthew Lyon

It's true that Where Wizards hovers on the borderline between science and technology, but there's enough of the scientific challenge in there to make this account of the development of the Internet fascinating.

If you thought it all started with the World Wide Web, think again. Here we trace the Internet back to the early university/military roots and see how the dedicated team involved overcame some remarkable technical challenges - and how contributions from the most unlikely sources would help solve the technical problems involved in internetworking - connecting different local networks together.

Unlike a saga of the development of Microsoft, there's a lot of physical engineering and maths involved here - it's not all programming and pizzas.

Why is there an @ sign in your email address? You'll find out that in this book, and a lot more besides.

The two things that hold it down to three stars - it is really more technology and science, and it's occasionally a little dull, even though the material is fascinating, and most of the book is very readable.

Also in hardback:

Reviewed by Brian Clegg

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