http://www.teleport.com/help/basics/clue.htm (PC Press Internet CD, 03/1996)
What is the Internet?
The Internet is a collection of other networks. From your point of view, it
is a huge aggregation of computers that you can access. You can connect to
these computers for a variety of purposes - to get files from them (text,
software, graphics, etc.), to send email, to chat online with people, to
play games, to use programs, and so on.
Most Internet use has to do with either communication between people, or
access to information, or both.
______________________________________________________________
| || | |
| || Real time | With a time delay |
|===============||================|===========================|
| || | |
| One-to-one || Talk | Email |
| || | |
|---------------||----------------|---------------------------|
| || | |
| One-with-many || IRC | Usenet news |
| || | Mailing lists |
| || | Email |
|_______________||________________|___________________________|
- Email
- "email" is short for "electronic mail". Electronic mail is a process by which people send messages to one another over computer networks.
- Mailing lists
- A mailing list is a group of people. People on the list send mail to one another by addressing it to the entire group. Mailing lists are like Usenet newsgroups in this regard, but many of them are private.
- Usenet news
- Usenet is a collection of over 13,000 newsgroups. Most newsgroups do not contain "news" in the traditional sense but are forums in which people discuss a wide range of topics.
- Talk
- Talk is a utility that lets you communicate with someone else on the Internet in a conversational, real-time manner. It is like a telephone call, except you are typing to one another instead of speaking.
- IRC
- IRC stands for Internet Relay Chat. It is a utility that lets you communicate in a comversational "real time" manner over the Internet. With IRC you can participate in conversations on hundreds of different topics. Each topic has its own "channel", like on a CB radio, and a channel can contain two people or dozens of people.
- World Wide Web
- The World Wide Web is an electronic web of files connected by hypertext links. Hypertext links are links that let you move from one file to another with a keystroke or a click of your mouse. The physical location of the files on the World Wide Web is irrelevant -- you can be reading a document from a computer in Portland, and follow a link to a related document in Australia.
- FTP
- FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. FTP lets you move files from another computer on the Internet to your own, or from your computer to another computer on the Internet.
"Anonmymous FTP" means you can get the files even if you do not have an account at the site where the files are located.
- Gopher
- Gopher is an information retrieval system. Gophers provide information in a branching hierarchy of menus and files.
- Telnet
- Telnet is a protocol that programs use to let you login to a site on the Internet through your connection to Teleport. Telnet programs use terminal emulation, meaning that when you connect to the remote site, your computer functions as a terminal for that computer.
- Archie
- Archie is a way to search for files that are available for anonymous FTP.
- Veronica
- Veronica is a way to search for information on gophers.
- WAIS
- WAIS stands for Wide Area Information Search. WAIS is a way to do keyword searches of over 500 indices on the Internet. Indices exist on a variety of topics, ranging from molecular biology to biblical literature.
Teleport Help: / 11.24.95 / docs@teleport.com