http://learning.lib.vt.edu/wintcpip/wintcpip.html (World Wide Web Directory, 06/1995)The most recent plain text (ascii) version of this paper is Release 06. It is available by anonymous ftp (December 21, 1994 | 57,546 bytes) from the Univeristy Libraries at Virginia Tech and by Gopher from the Blacksburg Electronic Village.
The first version of this paper was released via Internet news and BITNET listserv on November 15, 1993. Revised and expanded versions were released on January 16, February 9, and March 21, 1994. A version was published by O'Reilly Associates in the March 1994 issue of the "Global Network Navigator Toolkit," which was then accessible at http://nearnet.gnn.com/GNN-ORA.html.
Release 05 (June 21, 1994) was a major expansion that was published by the Virginia Tech College of Engineering on the CD-ROM "1994-95 VT Engineering Tools." A print copy of Release 05 was also published by the Computing and Systems Technology Division of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers in "CAST Communications," Vol. 17, No. 2, pp. 6-14 (Summer 1994).
I am pleased to note that this paper is included on PC Week's list of primers and tutorials useful to information technology professionals who must rely on serial connections to the Internet. The list was published in "PC Week," Vol. 12, No. 13, p. 13 (April 3, 1995).
Individual sections of this hypertext version are revised frequently, often within a day or two of the release of a new version of a client package. Each section carries its own revision date.
Internet, the global network of computer networks, is arousing enormous popular interest. In part, this interest is being driven by the availability of free or inexpensive shareware software for Microsoft Windows. It is now technically simple for a personal computer to become a host on the Internet. The casual user can find, retrieve, and view information gathered from around the world without having to learn complicated computer commands. In this paper, I describe the principal functions and services available via the Internet. Then I outline the technical background and terminology needed by the beginner who wants to make his PC a host on the Internet. Finally, I describe several Windows software packages and programs that facilitate using Internet services. All the software is freely available over the Internet.
This is a hypertext document composed of several individual parts. You can select a specific topic from the contents list below. Alternatively, you can select the Continue or Go back anchors in the individual sections to move sequentially through the major divisions of the document. From any section you can return to this page by selecting the Contents anchor. Note that the software descriptions themselves cannot be read sequentially. After reading about a particular client, you must return to this page or the Software Descriptions page to select another client.