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Internet, the world-wide network of computer networks, has captured the imagination of the general public. In mid-1993 the Internet was barely mentioned in the popular computing magazines. By mid-1994 it was the topic of articles in national news magazines, local newspapers, and grocery-store tabloids. By Autumn 1996 the Internet was the phenomenon of the decade.
Awareness of the Internet was spread initially by word of mouth. Computer pundits were not discussing the Internet in Spring 1993 when I first began investigating the Internet in my work as a librarian. Indeed, most pundits seem to have acquired Internet access only in the Spring of 1994. Prior to that time, computer magazines were not helpful for those wishing to learn about the Internet.
By December 1994, there was something of a feeding frenzy of interest in the Internet. Bookstores were flooded with guides to the Internet. Software vendors were rushing to market with collections of software designed for navigating the resources on the Internet. It was almost as if the crest of the Internet wave had passed. Pundits who did not have access to the Internet in 1993 were in late 1994 already writing negative opinions about the difficulties of navigating Internet resources, and about the uselessness of those resources. This frenzy of media interest, praise, and criticism continues to this day.
Complaints about the Internet are many. Certainly it can be difficult to find information and resources on the Internet. A great deal of information is unvalidated, non-authoritative, or otherwise questionable. Some is deliberately false. Some resources should not be available to children. Some would argue that even adults should not have access to some Internet resources. In other words, Internet resources are similar to all other information resources in the world.
It is important to remember that the Internet is not a service. Rather, it is a means of gaining access to services and of retrieving information and other objects that can be represented electronically. In trying to understand the Internet, one might draw an analogy between the Internet and New York City.
New York is big, complicated, and disorganized. The city's myriad resources can be hard to find. Some of what happens or what is available in New York should not be seen by children. For those wishing to navigate the complexity of New York, there are guidebooks, phone directories, magazine articles, and individuals with expert knowledge about areas of particular interest. One can navigate the complexity of the city by subway, taxi, and bus. One can even hire a private guide to conduct a tour of the city.
The Internet can be compared to the streets of New York City. The services available on the Internet have their analogies in the city's libraries, department stores, bookshops, art galleries, street vendors, and street-corner zealots passing out literature or lecturing the passing crowds. It is safe to assume that somewhere on the streets of the city there will be found information and services of interest to almost anyone. However, finding that information might take some time for someone who is new to the city and its resources. Similarly, somewhere on the Internet there also will be found information and services of interest to almost anyone.
Traveling on the Internet requires only a few basic tools. First is a computer with a network connection to the Internet. A direct connection to the Internet uses a PC equipped with a network interface card that connects to a local area network that is in turn linked to the Internet. Such a connection is common at universities, and becoming common in businesses.
If a direct network connection is not available, an alternative is to connect to the Internet through the computer's serial port. This involves a telephone connection to a terminal server that offers SLIP (Serial Line Internet Protocol) or PPP (Point to Point Protocol) service. Any of these connections can be used with a variety of commercial or shareware software to make your local computer a host on the Internet and to access services and information from the entire earth. This tutorial emphasizes the use of freeware and shareware versions of software running under Microsoft Windows 3.x and Windows 95.
Continue to Internet Services
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Revised: December 28, 1999
Harry_M_Kriz , [hmkriz@vt.edu]