Since the times of Bulleting Board Systems (BBS) the internet was something mystical to me. I started experimenting with a small, pocket sized modem but then my father brought home my first real modem, a 14.4Kbps Zyxel, the size of today’s external hard drives. That’s around 1.6KB per second. Most of the time, due to bad lines and connections, this number was even lower. But hey, everything was text based back then and the biggest apps around were few 100KB anyway. ;)

So, when I stumbled across “Where Wizards Stay Up Late” by Katie Hafner & Matthew Lyon and saw a bunch of good reviews, it was matter of seconds and the book was on its way. If you were ever wondering what led to the computer connection back in ’60s, why’s there the @ sign in your email and how the internet was born, then that’s the book for you.

I actually read it well over a year ago but remembered it watching this short animated documentary explaining the major milestones in internet evolution.