Inventing the Internet

275 Pages·1999·1.187 MB·English

by  Janet Abbate

JANET ABBATE
INVENTING
THE
I N T E R N E T
Inventing the Internet
Inside Technology
edited by Wiebe E. Bijker, W. Bernard Carlson, and Trevor Pinch
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Inventing the Internet
Janet Abbate
The MIT Press
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England
© 1999 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form
by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording,
or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from
the publisher.
Set in New Baskerville by Wellington Graphics.
Printed and bound in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Abbate, Janet.
Inventing the Internet / Janet Abbate.
p. cm. — (Inside technology)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0–262-01172–7 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Internet (Computer network)—History. I. Title. II. Series.
TK5105.875.I57A23 1999
004.67′8′09—dc21 19-847647
CIP
Contents
Introduction 1
1
White Heat and Cold War: The Origins and Meanings of Packet
Switching 7
2
Building the ARPANET: Challenges and Strategies 43
3
“The Most Neglected Element”: Users Transform the ARPANET 83
4
From ARPANET to Internet 113
5
The Internet in the International Standards Arena 147
6
Popularizing the Internet 181
Notes 221
Bibliography 241
Index 259

Acknowledgments
Many people and institutions gave me support while I was working
on this project. The Charles Babbage Institute helped fund my gradu-
ate studies through its Tomash Graduate Fellowship and gave me
access to its collection of oral histories and archival materials on the
Advanced Research Projects Agency. I am indebted to Arthur Norberg,
Judy O’Neill, and the CBI’s staff for paving the way for me and for
and others interested in this important chapter of the history of com-
puting. Brian Kahin and Jim Keller at Harvard shared their knowl-
edge of Internet policy issues while I was a member of the Kennedy
School of Government’s Information Infrastructure Project. The IEEE
History Center at Rutgers University provided a postdoctoral fellow-
ship while I was writing the manuscript, and I beneªted from stimu-
lating conversations with Bill Aspray, Andy Goldstein, David Morton,
Rik Nebeker, Mike Geselowitz, and other colleagues at Rutgers. I spent
countless working hours at the Someday Café in Somerville and La
Colombe in Philadelphia, each of which provided a congenial environ-
ment along with superb coffee.
I made use of a number of archival collections. In addition to the
Charles Babbage Institute, I wish to thank Sheldon Hochheiser at the
AT&T archives and the staffs of the ARPA and MIT archives. I am
indebted to Martin Campbell-Kelly for collecting unpublished materi-
als on networking activities at the National Physical Laboratory, and
to Jon Agar at the National Archive for the History of Computing at
the University of Manchester for assistance in using them. Jennie
Connolly at the library of Bolt, Beranek and Newman (now a part of
GTE Internetworking) was also extremely helpful. Members of the
Internet community made my work immeasurably easier by docu-
menting their own activities in online archives and by creating the
information infrastructure that supports so much scholarly work today.
viii Acknowledgments
I would like to thank these participants in the story of the Internet
who took the time to talk with me by telephone or in person: Donald
Davies, Derek Barber, David Farber, Alex McKenzie, John Day,
Stephen Lukasik, and Colonel Heidi Heiden. Many others, including
the late Jon Postel, responded helpfully to email queries. I am grateful
to Paul Baran, Donald Davies, Derek Barber, Leonard Kleinrock,
Howard Frank, Alex McKenzie, Vint Cerf, and Barry Leiner for read-
ing drafts of various chapters and offering insights and corrections.
Murray Murphey, Karin Calvert, and Carolyn Marvin helped me
work out early versions of these ideas while I was a graduate student
at the University of Pennsylvania. I also learned much from the re-
sponses of audiences at talks I gave at Syracuse University, the Massa-
chusetts Institute of Technology, Drexel University, and the University
of Pennsylvania and at Large Technical Systems conferences in Sweden
and France. Thomas P. Hughes, advisor and friend, encouraged my
ªrst attempts to write a history of the ARPANET long before the
Internet became a household word. His advice and support over the
years have been invaluable.
A number of friends and colleagues generously read and discussed
portions of the manuscript, including Arthur Norberg, Bill Aspray,
Martin Campbell-Kelly, Atsushi Akera, Elijah Millgram, and Judith
Silverman. Paul Ceruzzi offered useful advice and the opportunity to
discuss my ideas with other historians of computing. Robert Morris
was always willing to share his expertise and enthusiasm on network
matters and helped me appreciate many technical issues. Susan
Garªnkel challenged me to think more creatively about the Internet
as a cultural phenomenon. Special thanks are due my friends and
writers’ workshop partners Amy Slayton and David Morton, who com-
mented on many drafts and whose patience, insight, and humor
helped pull me through when the project seemed overwhelming.
Finally, my love and deepest thanks to my sisters and brothers—Edith,
Kennan, Lauren, Alain, Alison, Matthew, and Geoff—and their fami-
lies, who provided moral support and laughs over the years, and to
my parents, Anne and Mario Abbate, who stood behind me unfailingly.
I couldn’t have done it without you.
Inventing the Internet