The Internet on a Budget - Part 1

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What is the Internet:

The Internet is a collection of computers around the globe all connected 
together in a vast network with the ability to exchange information. This 
network was originally created to allow government computers to exchange 
vital information even after a nuclear attack disrupted most normal 
communications. It then expanded to the world wide academic fraternity of 
universities and research institutes and finally to the rest of the world. 
Connecting your computer to this network allows you to tap (and 
contribute) to this stream of information.

Each computer on the Internet has an address -- just like your mailing 
address -- that identifies it to all other computers on the 'Net. This 
address is its "URL" (Uniform Resource Locator) -- it identifies both the 
computer and the protocol (type of connection) used with it. An example 
would be "http://www.company.com" -- this identifies a computer called 
"www" at "company" in the "com" (COMmercial) domain (the top-level or 
"country" part of the address) and using the "http" (HyperText Transfer 
Protocol -- the World Wide Web) protocol.

Some other protocols would be: "ftp" for File Transfer Protocol; "gopher" 
for an older way of getting (mostly) text based information; and "news" 
for Usenet Newsgroups (like a bulletin board.) There are others that you 
can find out about once you're on-line. "E-Mail" (Electronic Mail) is the 
Internet service most people are going to use most often. It's basically 
the Internet equivalent of regular mail (or "snail" mail, as it's 
frequently referred to on the net) from the post office. Another service 
called "IRC", for Internet Relay Chat, is a live version of Usenet, like 
talking on a party-line telephone.

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Prepared by Peter Conrad Cumminsky, consultant, ASEE, CET, Team OS/2 
(707) 987-9484
Visit my Computer Taming web site at 
URL:http://www.angelfire.com/biz/taming/ 


(C) Copyright 1993-1998 peterconrad@hotmail.com