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Ask HN: Where can one learn about the history of the internet and the protocols?

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Re: Ask HN: Where can one learn about the history of the internet and the protocols?

#11

Post by dedalus »

Inventing the Internet (https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/inventing-internet) is a fantastic place to start

Innovations in Internetworking (https://www.amazon.com/Innovations-Internetworking-Artech-Te...) is a great collection of papers that help you understand the original thinking behind each protocol

The Elements of Networking Style (https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Networking-Style-Animadversi...) explains why you see only 4 layers in the real Internet while ISO slices it into 7 and all the fun parts os standard bodies while retaining a unique sense of satire

Re: Ask HN: Where can one learn about the history of the internet and the protocols?

#14

Post by godelmachine »

"The Design Philosophy of the DARPA Internet Protocols" is what you are looking for →

http://ccr.sigcomm.org/archive/1995/jan95/ccr-9501-clark.pdf

Excellent summary of the same by Adrian Colyer →

https://blog.acolyer.org/2015/01/22/the-design-philosophy-of...

You can also read "The Innovators" by Walter Isaacson to get acquainted with how it gained momentum.

Re: Ask HN: Where can one learn about the history of the internet and the protocols?

#15

Post by jimpudar »

godelmachine wrote: post #14

"The Design Philosophy of the DARPA Internet Protocols" is what you are looking for → http://ccr.sigcomm.org/archive/1995/jan95/ccr-9501-clark.pdf Excellent summary of the same by Adrian Colyer → https://blog.acolyer.org/2015/01/22/the-design-philosophy-of... You can also read "The Innovators" by Walter Isaacson to get acquainted with how it gained momentum.

Reading the design philosophy was a life changing experience for me. It's really incredible how much we take this incredible system for granted.

Re: Ask HN: Where can one learn about the history of the internet and the protocols?

#16

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

Even more interesting would be an in depth analysis of the OSI protocols and comparison to their IP equivalents. The actual technical details of OSI are largely absent from the internet and hard to search since IP lifted it's terminology.

Re: Ask HN: Where can one learn about the history of the internet and the protocols?

#17

Post by takashiuan »

Computer History Museum and their youtube channel. They do a great job producing the oral history series.

i.e. Oral History of Robert "Bob" Kahn Part 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKxNMTVnBzM

CHM oral history playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQsxaNhYv8daKdGi7s85u...

http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/oralhistories/

Re: Ask HN: Where can one learn about the history of the internet and the protocols?

#20

Post by 8bitsrule »

yathern wrote: post #6
yodon wrote: post #5

Perhaps not exactly what you're looking for, but from a historical perspective The Cuckoo's Egg does a wonderful job of capturing what the state of networking was in the late 1980's

Definitely highly recommend! Also check out what Clifford (if I remember his name correctly) is up to these days! He sells Klein bottles and builds little robots to help him. Definitely someone I want to be when I grow up haha.

Clifford Stoll. Interesting character. (Book is 1989; ISBN 0-385-24946-2)
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