''The Hitchhikers Guide to the Internet'', by

Ed Krol Ed Krol (born August 21, 1951) is the former network manager at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications and the former assistant director of Campus Information Technologies and Educational Services (CITES) at the University of Illinoi ...

, was published in 1987 through funding by the

National Science Foundation The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is an Independent agencies of the United States government#Examples of independent agencies, independent agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that su ...

. It was the first popular user's guide to the history and use of the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

. The title was a reference to the popular ''

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' is a Science fiction comedy, comedy science fiction franchise created by Douglas Adams. Originally a The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (radio series), radio sitcom broadcast over two series on BBC ...

''.

Background

In 1985, Ed Krol began working at the

University of Illinois The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United ...

, became network manager for the

National Center for Supercomputing Applications The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) is a unit of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and provides high-performance computing resources to researchers in the United States. NCSA is currently led by Professor Bill ...

when it was formed and was involved in the establishment of the

NSFNET The National Science Foundation Network (NSFNET) was a program of coordinated, evolving projects sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) from 1985 to 1995 to promote advanced research and education networking in the United States. The ...

. During this time, in August 1987, he published (through funding by the ''

''), the online text document, ''Hitchhiker's Guide to the Internet'' "because he had so much trouble getting information and was sick of telling the same story to everyone". Two years later this was republished as RFC 1118. The text attracted

Tim O'Reilly Timothy O'Reilly (born 6 June 1954) is an Irish-American author and publisher, who is the founder of O'Reilly Media (formerly O'Reilly & Associates). He popularised the terms open source and Web 2.0. Education and early life Born in County Co ...

's attention. Krol reworked and extended it into book form and it was published by

O'Reilly O'Reilly () is a common Irish surname. The O'Reillys were historically the kings of East Bréifne in what is today County Cavan. The clan were part of the Connachta's Uí Briúin Bréifne kindred and were closely related to the Ó Ruairc ( ...

in 1992 as the ''

Whole Internet User's Guide and Catalog ''The Whole Internet User's Guide and Catalog'', by Ed Krol, was published in September 1992 by O'Reilly. The ''Los Angeles Times'' notes that the ''Whole Internet User's Guide and Catalog'' was the "first popular book about the medium" and "w ...

.'', though the additional digital catalog related to the text was made freely available online.

References

External links

* at

Project Gutenberg Project Gutenberg (PG) is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, as well as to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks." It was founded in 1971 by American writer Michael S. Hart and is the oldest digital li ...

Books about the Internet 1987 non-fiction books Texts related to the history of the Internet Request for Comments {{internet-book-stub

Background

See also

References

External links