HN Books @HNBooksMonth

Following the tip to Stephenson's article, here's also a really good book, 'The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century's On-line Pioneers'.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Victorian-Internet-Remarkable-Nine...

Oh - he also wrote "The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century's On-line Pioneers".

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0802716040/

It's interesting and easy to read. Recommended.

Looks like he's done a few similar books on historical topics. I'm off to spend some money!

Here's a 1901 version of the map:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a5/1901_East...

And somewhat related, a wonderful book called The Victorian Internet:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0802716040/

If you ever wondered whether the Internet really is a "series of tubes", here are the tubes:

http://www.popsci.com/files/imagecache/article_image_large/f...

That photo is from an interesting article (by my namesake James Geary) about undersea cables:

http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2009-03/who-protects-i...

Enjoy! :-)

⬐ alastairpat

The two linked popsci.com pages are both giving 404 errors for me – are you able to find a working link? They look interesting!

(Technically speaking, the web server is returning 200 OK, but it's 'Page Not Found')

⬐ Stratoscope

Hmm... Not sure what could be wrong there. The links are both working for me. I wonder if anyone else is getting the 404 errors?

⬐ mastorrent

popsci.com seems to be redirecting for Australian-based IP addresses. Fails for me in Sydney, but works from my US-based VPS. This is the image: http://i41.tinypic.com/zx05kw.jpg and the Wayback Machine has the article: http://web.archive.org/web/20101231014805/http://www.popsci....

⬐ alastairpat

Thanks very much – I am indeed trying from Australia. Seems insane that they're breaking URLs in an attempt to serve us 'local' content.

⬐ bigiain

I gave up on Popular Science years ago because of exactly that...

⬐ cynwoody

Thanks for posting the 1901 map. I'm amazed at the extent of the network back then.

Of course, in 1901, each of those lines was measured in (low double-digit) words per minute. Now the metric is more like feature films per second. And the word "cable" once again means a communication line, not a message transferred over one.

⬐ jeza

I do find it impressive that Australia was more or less connected to the rest of the world by telecommunications in 1872 once the overland telegraph line was completed. The US was only connected reliably connected to Europe about six years earlier in 1866. So not a bad effort given the vaster geographic distances to span between Europe and Australia.

Tom Standage's "The Victorian Internet" has a lot of great detail about the culture of the telegraph operator and how it compares to the internet culture today.

"Wandering workers who went from job to job were known as 'boomers.' There were no formal job interviews; applicants were simply sat down on a busy wire to see if they could handle it. Since they could find work almost anywhere, many boomers had an itinerant lifestyle; a great number of them suffered from alcoholism or mental health disorders. In a sense, the telegraph community was a meritocracy --- it didn't matter who you were as long as you could send and receive messages quickly --- which was one of the reasons that women and children were readily admitted to the profession." p. 140

"Indeed, despite the strange customs and the often curious lifestyle of many operators, telegraphy was regarded as an attractive profession, offering the hope of rapid social advancement and fueling the expansion of the middle class. Courses, books, and pamphlets teaching Morse to beginners flourished. For the ambitious, it provided an escape route from small towns to the big cities, and for those who liked to move around, it meant guaranteed work wherever they went." p.143

Substitute some current computer language for Morse and you could definitely be talking about the present.

http://www.amazon.com/Victorian-Internet-Remarkable-Nineteen...