Circuits, Packets, and Protocols: Entrepreneurs and Computer Communications, 1968-1988

Circuits, Packets, and Protocols: Entrepreneurs and Computer Communications, 1968-1988

by James L. Pelkey
Circuits, Packets, and Protocols: Entrepreneurs and Computer Communications, 1968-1988

Circuits, Packets, and Protocols: Entrepreneurs and Computer Communications, 1968-1988

by James L. Pelkey

Hardcover

$79.95 
  • SHIP THIS ITEM
    Qualifies for Free Shipping
  • PICK UP IN STORE
    Check Availability at Nearby Stores

Related collections and offers


Overview

As recently as 1968, computer scientists were uncertain how best to interconnect even two computers. The notion that within a few decades the challenge would be how to interconnect millions of computers around the globe was too far-fetched to contemplate. Yet, by 1988, that is precisely what was happening. The products and devices developed in the intervening years—such as modems, multiplexers, local area networks, and routers—became the linchpins of the global digital society. How did such revolutionary innovation occur? This book tells the story of the entrepreneurs who were able to harness and join two factors: the energy of computer science researchers supported by governments and universities, and the tremendous commercial demand for Internetworking computers. The centerpiece of this history comes from unpublished interviews from the late 1980s with over 80 computing industry pioneers, including Paul Baran, J.C.R. Licklider, Vint Cerf, Robert Kahn, Larry Roberts, and Robert Metcalfe. These individuals give us unique insights into the creation of multi-billion dollar markets for computer-communications equipment, and they reveal how entrepreneurs struggled with failure, uncertainty, and the limits of knowledge.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781450397261
Publisher: Association for Computing Machinery and Morgan & C
Publication date: 04/01/2022
Series: ACM Books
Pages: 632
Sales rank: 701,939
Product dimensions: 0.00(w) x 0.00(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

James L. Pelkey spent his career as an investor and executive, including terms as a general partner at Montgomery Securities, President of Sorcim Corporation and Digital Sound Corporation, and, after his retirement, Trustee and Chairman of the Santa Fe Institute. He is a graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (1968) and Harvard Business School (1970). He now lives in Maui, Hawai´i.


Andrew L. Russell is Professor of History and Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences at SUNY Polytechnic Institute in Utica, New York. He is the author of numerous books and articles on the history of technology, standardization, and innovation, including Open Standards and the Digital Age: History, Ideology, and Networks (Cambridge University Press, 2014), and co-author with Lee Vinsel of The Innovation Delusion: How Our Obsession with the New Disrupts the Work That Matters Most (Currency, 2020).


Loring G. Robbins is a freelance writer based in Maui, Hawai´i. Previously, he worked as an animator and animation director for several media startups in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Table of Contents

Prelude to Change: Data Communications, 1949–1968
Onset of Competition: Data Communications, 1968–1972
Packet Switching and ARPANET: Networking, 1959–1972
Market Order: Data Communications, 1973–1979
Protocol Confusion: Networking, 1972–1979
Emergence of Local Area Networks: Networking, 1976–1981
The Chaos of Competition: Networking, 1981–1982
The Need for Standards: Networking, 1975–1984
Market Order: Networking, 1983–1986
Adaptation of Wide Area Networks: Data Communications, 1979–1986
Market Consolidation: Data Communications and Networking, 1986–1988
Government Support for Internetworking, 1983–1988
The Emergence of Internetworking, 1985–1988
Conclusions
From the B&N Reads Blog

Customer Reviews