[ih] Internet-history Digest, Vol 64, Issue 24

[John Shoch]

For those who may not already be familiar with Jim Pelkey, his web site,
and his book, allow me to add a bit more to John Day's comments:

--Jim  Pelkey was a fascinating guy, spending time in the world of finance,
venture capital, and startups.
--In the 1980's he went on a quest to interview people in the world of
data- and computer-communications (starting, I think, with a list of
introductions from Paul Baran).
--The result of that effort was a massive collection of interviews, and a
comprehensive web site describing the history based on the interviews.
--For some, like me, the web site was a great reference to dip into.  But
the flexibility of a massive hypertext site did not necessarily make it
easy to understand the story, from beginning to end.
--Years later Jim joined with two others to take all this material and
produce a new book (over 500 pages), which John Day has referenced;  it was
published in 2022 by the ACM.
--All the original transcripts were donated to the Computer History Museum
in Mountain View.
--And the CHM web site is, in turn, derived from the book (sort of coming
full circle).

The book is not particularly technical, but it helps frame the technical
issues; it is filled with wonderful stories and context.
[We know, however, that people's memories are not perfect;  so there are
some errors I noticed, and the occasional....reimagining....of history.]

For those who would enjoy the more linear treatment, it is a great read --
got me through several transcontinental flights.

John Shoch


> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2025 06:27:07 -0400
> From: John Day <jeanjour at comcast.net>
> To: Greg Skinner <gregskinner0 at icloud.com>, Greg Skinner via
>         Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org>
> Subject: Re: [ih] Possible source of additional info
> Message-ID: <28D2AAC1-A8C2-4B1C-A39E-17BCD87E6FD7 at comcast.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain;       charset=utf-8
>
> Yes, this one is interesting and is the primary source for the book,
> Circuits, Packets, and Protocols published just before Jim passed away.
>
> The interviews in the 1980s are a very interesting window into what people
> were thinking before the Internet was generally known by the public in the
> 1990s.
>
> Take care,
> John
>
>