[ih] What is the origin of the private network address 192.168.*.*?

[Stephane Bortzmeyer]

The excellent Q&A site Server Fault has an interesting question, which
may interest some persons here. Answer directly on Server Fault (you
need to log in with an OpenID identifier) or post here and I'll write
it back to Server Fault.

http://serverfault.com/questions/64013/what-is-the-origin-of-the-private-network-address-192-168

I had a smart (but non-technical) user ask me today:

Why did they pick 192.168.. for a private network address?

The only answer I could come up with is because 192 = 11000000 in binary. And 168 is 10101000 in binary. Both of which are kind of cool looking.

Is there a real historical reason for that particular choice of numbers? Why not 127.127..? Or 128.128..?

Similar question for 10.0.0.0 and 172.16.0.0