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The same thing happened in France, kind of.

For a while (in the 70s and 80s) there were two competing, state-sponsored networks in France: Minitel, based on x25 and made by French telcos, and Cyclades, based on datagrams and made by French CS research labs. The telcos lobbied the government to cut funding for Cyclades, which they saw as a competitor, and it eventually happened (under Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, probably neither Pompidou nor de Gaulle would have made that mistake).

There is a very good book (in French) about that story, called La France en réseaux, by Valérie Schafer. It is one of my favorite tech history books. I will certainly read yours and hope it is as good!

However, I saw it is only available as hardcover. Any chance you can make it available for Kindle?



Thanks, catwell. Super helpful. Schafer's work comes highly recommended. I'll get to it!

MIT Press put out an e-book version, and the soft cover comes out later this year. (A pdf is probably out there too...)




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