Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet

by Katie Hafner

  John Melvin helped us in our unsuccessful search for whoever might have been at the other end of the initial log-in session between UCLA and SRI. Now we know who it was not. We are still eager to know who it was.

  Chapter Six

  The description of the earlyARPANETsites was based on BBN quarterly technical reports, technical papers, and interviews with John Melvin and John Day. Alex McKenzie supplied information on the early days of the Network Operations Center. The description of the IMP’s maintenance problems and subsequent resolution was based on interviews with Ben Barker, Frank Heart, Severo Ornstein, and Alex McKenzie. The description of the ICCC ’72 demonstration of theARPANETwas based on interviews with Al Vezza, Bob Kahn, Steve Crocker, Len Kleinrock, Jon Postel, Alex McKenzie, and Larry Roberts. “PARRY Encounters the Doctor” was published in its entirety as an RFC and appeared inDatamationmagazine, July 1973.

  Chapter Seven

  The description of Ray Tomlinson’s original e-mail hack and his choice of the @ sign as a separator—and as a problem forUNIXusers—was based on interviews with Tomlinson and JohnVittal.

  Parts of the MsgGroup archives were first sent to us by Ed Vielmetti. Einar Stefferud saved them all and deposited them at the Boston Computer Museum. Ken Harrenstien helped us straighten out some early mailing-list history. Ned Freed supplied us with comparative figures on e-mail usage.

  The description of the origins of Adventure was based on interviews with Don Woods, Will Crowther, and Dave Walden. Woods’s recollections of Adventure also appear inThe Unix Book of Games,by Janice Winsor, Prentice-Hall Computer Books, 1996. Observations on page 208 about proclamations of officialness on the Net come from “How Anarchy Works,” by Paulina Borsook,Wiredmagazine, October 1995. The history of the finger program came from Les Earnest.

  Chapter Eight

  Descriptions of the packet-radio and packet-satellite programs were based on various technical papers (see bibliography), as well as on personal interviews withVint Cerf, Alex McKenzie, and Bob Kahn. Some material was taken from interviews conducted by the Charles Babbage Institute. The description of the evolution of TCP/IP was based on interviews with Vint Cerf, Bob Kahn, John Shoch, Alex McKenzie, and Jon Postel.

  The description of the origins of Ethernet was based on interviews with Bob Metcalfe. Butler Lampson’s description of Ethernet is taken fromFumbling the Future,by Douglas Smith and Robert C. Alexander (William Morrow, 1988), p. 97.

  Ole Jacobsen’s article, “The Trouble with OSI,” ConneXions,volume 6, no. 5, May 1992, particularly the reference to double AA batteries, helped guide the section on OSI vs. TCP/IP. Peter Salus’s bookCasting the Net,(Addison-Wesley, 1995), and his article “Protocol Wars: Is OSI Finally Dead?” inConneXions,volume 9, no. 8, August 1995, also helped frame the debate.

  Danny Cohen gave us permission to edit slightly and reprint the poem that he read to those gathered at the Act One Symposium at UCLA in 1989.

  Bibliography

  Books

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  Unpublished Papers, Interviews from Secondary Sources, and Other Documents

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