Section One

1. Brief Outline of the Internet

2. The Internet Tools
   • Archie..........E-Mail ..........FTP ..........Gopher ..........HTML..........HTTP
   • Listserv ..........TCP/IP ..........Telnet ..........Usenet..........Veronica ..........World Wide Web (WWW)

3. The Internet Statistics
   • Top 31 country and transnational domains by size in January 1995 (table)
   • Growth of the Internet (table)
   • The World Wide Web
     • Growth of Internet Browsing Services (table)

Brief Outline of the Internet and its Tools

The Internet has undergone drastic changes in the past two years. At one point it was exclusively the domain of scientists and academics, due in a large part to the fact that the large educational and research institutions had the resources and technology to connect themselves. With the rise in popularity of personal computers, it became clear that operating such connections could be done on an individual basis, providing there were companies which could supply the gateway to the global network. Given that this connection could be established by an individual with a computer and modem, companies quickly set up these gateways to the Internet for which they could sell connections.

As personal computers became more graphical, so did access to the Internet. In an attempt to make individual Internet connections more robust, technologies were developed called SLIP (Serial Line Internet Protocol) and PPP (Point to Point Protocol). These new Protocols would allow an individual computer to be its own Internet host. The best way to imagine this change is to contrast it with the dial-up Unix interface to the Internet, which used to be the preferred method of accessing the Internet.

The dial-up Unix Internet connection had a steep learning curve, since most commands were dependent upon some familiarity with Unix syntax. Also, if the user wanted to download files from the Internet, the file would first be loaded to the Unix HOST, and then transferred to the USER's computer. This made the process inefficient, and also meant that the user was restricted to the supply of Internet tools which were available on the Unix server.

NOTE:

As Internet access becomes more essential to businesses, a DIRECT CONNECTION may become necessary. This kind of connection can be obtained from most Internet access providers, though it requires more equipment and maintenance than a DIAL-UP connection, such as a server and Local Area Network infrastructure. The advantage, however, is that data can be moved along a direct connection more quickly than a dial-up, and it need never be dialed.

The increasing availability of SLIP and PPP connections made a number of things possible. Firstly, users could transfer files directly to their computers without the need for an intermediary computer. Also, electronic mail could be transferred to a user's computer, stored there, and read anytime later even without being connected to the Internet. (A mail package which is capable of this is typically called an OFFLINE MAIL READER.) Further, users could turn their own computers into Internet SERVERS, meaning that anybody else on the Internet could log into the computer and download or upload files and data, if the user allowed such access. Finally, users could chose which tools they wished to access the Internet with. Software developers have made a wide selection of these tools available for most operating systems. This gives Internet users great freedom in deciding which way to access the Internet. The following is a brief description of the most commonly used Internet tools.

NOTE:

Most of the newest tools are designed for a direction to the Internet, such as SLIP, PPP or a direct connection.

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