Book Review

[David W. Borden]

I think this is a great idea (a book review every issue).  I will
help as I read many books each month, some of which will interest other
AMRAD members.....david,k8mmo


At 10:26 2/14/99 -0600, Randy Mays wrote: 

> I am reading, and want to recommend, an
> excellent book titled The Victorian Internet by Tom Standage.=A0 As
> the cover notes, this is "the remarkable story of the telegraph and
> the nineteenth century's on-line pioneers."=A0 Tom Standage is the
> science writer for "The Economist" (attention Hal:=A0 this is a
> British magazine). 
>
> What has stuck me so far about this book is the number of parallels
> between what happened in the first days of the telegraph (which was not
> electric, by the way) and what is happening today, both in the commercial
> world and in ham radio.=A0 One example:=A0 the French came up with some very
> innovative optical telegraphs (line of sight, different patterns to form
> characters,etc.).=A0 Because they were so good at this, and because they
> had built such a large infrastructure, when the electric telegraph came
> along, they were slow to catch up. 
>
> The book also talks about the technical problems of the first attempt at
> a trans-Atlantic cable, and how the same kind of engineering mistakes we
> see today (including the infamous "not invented here" syndrome)
> were made then. 
>
> The Victorian Internet is available at Barnes & Noble.=A0 I
> ordered my copy through their Web site.=A0 The only thing I do at
> bookstores these days is buy magazines and have an occasional scone.=A0
> It's much easier to have the mail carrier deliver a book to your house
> than to go through the ordeal of buying it and carrying it out to your
> car, which may be as much as 50 yards from the front of the store. 
>
> Attention, Paul:=A0 would you consider including a more thorough book
> review in the next AMRAD newsletter?=A0 I was going to write something on
> Litz wire, but each time I started working on the article I dozed off.
>
> Randy