At long last, I can share the final table of contents for Other Networks: A Radical Technology Sourcebook (forthcoming from Anthology Editions…sometime…soon!)–a coffee table book that is equal parts speculative, playful, and serious. In the introduction I write about the need for “other networks,” how taxonomies shape and determine knowledge, why I decided on this network taxonomy in particular, and how the future of the internet is the future of networks. But just in terms of how I’m defining “other networks”…

My initial goal was to compile an inventory of networks that preceded the internet, by which I meant any network that existed before the widespread adoption of TCP/IP. This would have been simple enough, if it weren’t for the fact that the adoption of TCP/IP took over a decade (or longer) to happen, and also for the fact that (as it turns out) one may run a network on TCP/IP but not necessarily connect that network to the internet. Moreover, it also turns out that nearly countless computer networks emerged throughout the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s—so many, in fact, that this book would need to expand to another two or three volumes in order to include them all. These networks also present intriguing complications when it comes to classification: according to the taxonomy used in this book, these networks would mostly be considered “hybrid,” in that they used (often undocumented, frequently proprietary) combinations of wireless and wired infrastructures, and they also often relied upon a wide range of protocols and/or software that this book’s structure, biased as it is toward material infrastructure, cannot quite account for. My imperfect solution, then, has been to include only one digital computer network (time-sharing networks) as a way to gesture to all the other “other networks” that remain to be documented and to try to account for many (not all and not even most) networks that did not use TCP/IP. For the sake of not allowing my definition of ‘network’ to remain tied only to computer networks, I have also defined a network simply as the connection between two or more nodes that facilitates human communication (thereby excluding networking technologies such as radar, that are mostly used for tracking).

Anyways, I hope this list intrigues!

*

Chronological List of Networks
Chronological List of Network Experiments
Acknowledgements
Foreword
Introduction

Wireless Networks:
Sound Networks
[1] Drums
[2] Whistling

Air Networks
[3] Fire or Smoke Signals
[4] Pneumatic Tubes
[5] Skywriting

Water Networks
[6] Hydraulic Semaphore

Optical Networks
[7] Flag Signaling
[8] Optical Telegraph
[9] Infrared Communication
[10] Signal Lamp
[11] Heliograph
[12] Photophone
[13] Ultraviolet Communication
[14] Laser Communication
[15] Visible Light Communication

Radio Networks
[16] Amateur Radio
[16.1] Radiotelegraphy
[16.2] Radioteletype
[16.3] Amateur Television
[16.4] Hellschreiber
[16.5] Earth-Moon-Earth Communication
[16.6] Amateur Radio Satellite
[16.7] Amateur Packet Radio
[17] Radio Broadcast
[18] Pirate Radio
[19] Radiofax
[20] Two-Way Radio
[21] Pager
[22] Meteor Burst Communication
[23] Slow Scan Television
[24] Project West Ford
[25] Pirate Television
[26] Packet Radio Network
[27] Microbroadcast
[28] Software Defined Radio
[29] Wi-Fi
[30] Bluetooth

Microwave Networks
[31] Microwave Radio-Relay
[32] Communications Satellite

Wired Networks:

Electrical Wire Networks
[33] Electrical telegraph
[33.1] Electrical Printing Telegraph
[33.2] Image Telegraph
[33.3] Fire Alarm Telegraph
[33.4] Pantelegraph
[33.5] Telephonic Telegraph
[34] Telephone
[35] Wired Radio
[36] Telautograph
[37] Telefacsimile
[38] Videophone
[39] Telex

Barbed Wire Networks
[40] Barbed Wire Telegraph
[41] Fence Phones

Hybrid Networks:

[42] Library
[43] Book
[44] Postal System
[44.1] Pigeon Post
[44.2] Projectile Post
[44.3] Balloon Mail
[44.4] Pony Express
[44.5] Airgraph and V-Mail
[44.6] Email Letter
[45] Sneakernet
[46] Radio Broadcast Network
[47] Broadcast Television
[48] Cable Television
[48.1] NABU
[49] Cellular Network
[50] Time-Sharing Network
[51] Teletext
[52] Videotex

Imaginary Networks:

[53] Necromancy
[54] Pasilalinic-Sympathetic Compass
[55] Telephonoscope
[56] Telepathy
[57] Ley Lines
[58] Mundaneum
[59] World Brain
[60] Memex
[61] Faster-Than-Light Communication Networks
[62] Project Xanadu
[63] Metaverse
[64] The Clacks
[65] Pandoran Neural Network
[66] Cosmic Internet