About the book
Foreword:
I met Scott Yeager in 1992 shortly after I left BT Tymnet along with my friends Al Fenn, Ken Holcomb, Bill Euske, BJ Chang, Ron Whitlock, Dan Lasater, and Steve Feldman to join a new networking startup that became well-known in Internet history.
The events that followed – the creation of MFS Datanet; the conception of the Commercial Internet; and the championing of the concept by Scott against immense opposition from those who failed to grasp the vision – have changed our world forever.
I was asked to write this biography of my friend as we have a shared history over the years. Thanks to his archive of source materials and copious notes, the task has been easy.
A great deal of the narrative herein is a literal transcription of notes and documents saved by and commentary provided by Scott, with my only contribution editing for grammar, readability and formatting. I have included the tale of my own involvement in many events, and my own viewpoint. This is nonetheless mostly Scott’s story and my role vacillates between that of Editor and Author.
– Nathan Gregory, December 2016
Acknowledgements:
The material in this book came from extensive notes and documentation supplied by Scott Yeager himself, much of it from his earlier efforts at an Autobiography.
Additional information comes from others who were present and contributed their memories and tales. I volunteered as a favor to my long-time friend to pull the previously existing work together, add my own memories and notes, and incorporate the many conversations and other documentation provided by other parties present for the events described.
For much of this book I am merely a scribe and copy-editor, doing my best to make this historical tale accurate and readable, and add supporting documentation from available archives and network resources.
My only purpose is to document the early history of the Commercial Internet, a story heretofore largely untold. For, although this is a biography of Scott, it is also a larger history of how the Internet as we know it today came into being, something of which he became a major driver.