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Comment by mediocrejoker | Hacker News Reader

If anyone is interested in a really well written travel essay about how one of those cables was installed in the 90s, this one never seems to get old: https://www.wired.com/1996/12/ffglass/

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Stephenson's "Mother Earth, Mother Board" is still, I believe, the longest piece published in Wired. A tremendous piece that still holds up.

Here's the link for Neal Stephenson's Motherboard Earth: https://www.wired.com/1996/12/ffglass/

Indeed well worth a read even this long after it was published.

Thanks! Somehow I missed this essay, looking forward to reading in later tonight.

Interesting to note that submarine cables played a significant part in the plot of Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson.

Cryptonomicon really hammered home how very much we depend on undersea cables to power the internet. Great read for those who have not had the pleasure. Plus you get to learn something.

And for an older take, I loved this book on the first transatlantic telegraph cable as a child:

Cyrus Field's Big Dream: The Daring Effort to Lay the First Transatlantic Telegraph Cable

For more on the history of the telegraph, I recommend The Victorian Internet by Tom Standage, which also covers in detail the laying of the first trans-Atlantic cables. Fascinating stuff.

I have a quite good book on the shelves on the very same subject, but I am unable to locate it at present.

For a slightly wider take, Arthur C. Clarke's "How the world was one" is a most readable account of how telecommunications has made the world smaller, starting with the first submarine cables, proceeding with satellites (of course he would!) before devoting a section to fibre optics at the end. Brilliant account.

There is a museum on the cape cod massachusetts called the "French Cable Station Museum", that has a lot of the old euqipment used back to transmit telegraph data from Europe to America. Its not open year round apparently.

I did the tour a few year ago, run be retired engineer who was enthusiastic and excellent at explaining the difficulties in getting it all working.

As an added bonus, old school html:

http://www.frenchcablestationmuseum.org/index.htm

There is also this book Tubes by Andrew Blum about the cables: https://www.amazon.com/Tubes-Journey-Internet-Andrew-Blum/dp...

Someone gave it to me at a previous job but never left a note to say who so I couldn't thank them.

Cryptonomicon/Reamde sized too!

(It's a expression, but I'm sure someone else will get it :) )

~41530 words

Came here just to post this link; it's really stuck with me over the years.

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