This is a book about the bricks and mortar out of which are built those edifices that so well characterize late twentieth century industrial society networks of computers and terminals. Such computer networks are playing an increasing role in our daily lives, somewhat indirectly up to now as the hidden servants of banks, retail credit bureaus, airline reservation offices, and so forth, but soon they will become more visible as they enter our offices and homes and directly become part of our work, entertainment, and daily living. The study of how computer networks work is a combined study of communication theory and computer science, two disciplines appearing to have very little in common. The modern communication scientist wishing to work in this area finds himself in suddenly unfamiliar territory. It is no longer sufficient for him to think of transmission, modulation, noise immun ity, error bounds, and other abstractions of a single communication link; he is dealing now with a topologically complex interconnection of such links. And what is more striking, solving the problems of getting the signal from one point to another is just the beginning of the communication process. The communication must be in the right form to be routed properly, to be handled without congestion, and to be understood at the right points in the network. The communication scientist suddenly finds himself charged with responsibility for such things as code and format conversions, addressing, flow control, and other abstractions of a new and challenging kind.
