This is Texinfo edition 1.01 of `bdgtti.texi' as of 20 September 1993. Created by Jörg Heitkötter on August 27, 1993.
The Texinfo edition originated from plain ASCII text file `/pub/EFF/papers/big-dummys-guide.txt' on The Electronic Frontier Foundation's server ftp.eff.org.
Copyright (C) 1993 EFF, The Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Published by The Electronic Frontier Foundation 1001 G Street, N.W., Suite 950 East Washington, DC 20001, USA
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Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this booklet into another language, under the above conditions for modified versions, except that this permission notice may be stated in a translation approved by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Copyright (C) 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc. 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.
The licenses for most software are designed to take away your freedom to share and change it. By contrast, the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free software--to make sure the software is free for all its users. This General Public License applies to most of the Free Software Foundation's software and to any other program whose authors commit to using it. (Some other Free Software Foundation software is covered by the GNU Library General Public License instead.) You can apply it to your programs, too.
When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not price. Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for this service if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it if you want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of it in new free programs; and that you know you can do these things.
To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid anyone to deny you these rights or to ask you to surrender the rights. These restrictions translate to certain responsibilities for you if you distribute copies of the software, or if you modify it.
For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether gratis or for a fee, you must give the recipients all the rights that you have. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the source code. And you must show them these terms so they know their rights.
We protect your rights with two steps: (1) copyright the software, and (2) offer you this license which gives you legal permission to copy, distribute and/or modify the software.
Also, for each author's protection and ours, we want to make certain that everyone understands that there is no warranty for this free software. If the software is modified by someone else and passed on, we want its recipients to know that what they have is not the original, so that any problems introduced by others will not reflect on the original authors' reputations.
Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software patents. We wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a free program will individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the program proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it clear that any patent must be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at all.
The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution and modification follow.
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These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program, and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it.
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In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under the scope of this License.
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It is not the purpose of this section to induce you to infringe any patents or other property right claims or to contest validity of any such claims; this section has the sole purpose of protecting the integrity of the free software distribution system, which is implemented by public license practices. Many people have made generous contributions to the wide range of software distributed through that system in reliance on consistent application of that system; it is up to the author/donor to decide if he or she is willing to distribute software through any other system and a licensee cannot impose that choice.
This section is intended to make thoroughly clear what is believed to be a consequence of the rest of this License.
Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and "any later version", you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that version or of any later version published by the Free Software Foundation. If the Program does not specify a version number of this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software Foundation.
If you develop a new program, and you want it to be of the greatest possible use to the public, the best way to achieve this is to make it free software which everyone can redistribute and change under these terms.
To do so, attach the following notices to the program. It is safest to attach them to the start of each source file to most effectively convey the exclusion of warranty; and each file should have at least the "copyright" line and a pointer to where the full notice is found.
one line to give the program's name and an idea of what it does. Copyright (C) 19yy name of author This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
Also add information on how to contact you by electronic and paper mail.
If the program is interactive, make it output a short notice like this when it starts in an interactive mode:
Gnomovision version 69, Copyright (C) 19yy name of author Gnomovision comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details type `show w'. This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions; type `show c' for details.
The hypothetical commands `show w' and `show c' should show the appropriate parts of the General Public License. Of course, the commands you use may be called something other than `show w' and `show c'; they could even be mouse-clicks or menu items--whatever suits your program.
You should also get your employer (if you work as a programmer) or your school, if any, to sign a "copyright disclaimer" for the program, if necessary. Here is a sample; alter the names:
Yoyodyne, Inc., hereby disclaims all copyright interest in the program `Gnomovision' (which makes passes at compilers) written by James Hacker. signature of Ty Coon, 1 April 1989 Ty Coon, President of Vice
This General Public License does not permit incorporating your program into proprietary programs. If your program is a subroutine library, you may consider it more useful to permit linking proprietary applications with the library. If this is what you want to do, use the GNU Library General Public License instead of this License.
Welcome to the Big Dummy's Guide to the Internet.
The genesis of the Big Dummy's Guide was a few informal conversations, which included Mitch Kapor of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Steve Cisler of Apple Computer, Inc. in June of 1991. With the support of Apple Computer, EFF hired a writer (Adam Gaffin) and actually took on the project in September of 1991.
The idea was to write a guide to the Internet for folks who had little or no experience with network communications. We intended to post this Guide to "the Net" in ASCII and HyperCard formats and to give it away on disk, as well as have a print edition available for a nominal charge. With the consolidation of our offices to Washington, DC, we were able to put the Guide on a fast track. You're looking at the realization of our dreams -- version one of the Guide. At the time I'm writing this, we're still fishing around for a book publisher, so the hard-copy version has not yet been printed. We're hoping to update this Guide on a regular basis, so please feel free to send us your comments and corrections.
EFF would like to thank the folks at Apple, especially Steve Cisler of the Apple Library, for their support of our efforts to bring this Guide to you. We hope it helps you open up a whole new world, where new friends and experiences are sure to be yours.
Enjoy!
Shari Steele
G'day, folks!
I came across this guide while reading "EFFector Online Volume 5 No. 15, 8/20/1993" (A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, ISSN 1062-9424), that is available via comp.org.eff.news and immediately decided to get my hands on it. After browsing through the raw ASCII text file, I thought that such a useful thing, should have a more beautiful "face" (and fewer "bugs").
As Shari points out, the EFF is still "fishing for a publisher." In other words, it's far from being clear when this guide will be available as hard copy, unless you want to print out the "buggy" ASCII file. Thus, I started over to make the bulk a Texinfo document, loosely modelled after Brendan Kehoe's Zen and the Art of the Internet, originally written for Widener University's, Computer Science Department, and later published as:
Kehoe, B.P. (1992) Zen and the Art of the Internet: A Beginner's Guide to the Internet. 2nd Edition (July). Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ. 112 pages. The 1st Edition, (February, 2nd) is still available via anonymous ftp from ftp.cs.widener.edu and many other Internet archives.
It was the first comprehensive book on the Internet available.
(Despite the "traditional" postings in
news.announce.newusers originated by ex-Net.god
Gene Spafford
Situation has changed dramatically, since. More and more books get into the stores, and hopefully facilitate the life of "newbies" on the Net. Just to mention two IMHO excellent examples:
Krol, E. (1992) The Whole Internet: Catalog & User's Guide. O'Reilly & Associates, Inc., Sebastopol, CA. 376 pages.LaQuey, T. and Ryer, J.C. (1992) The Internet Companion: A Beginner's Guide to Global Networking. Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., Reading, MA. 208 pages.
But, "the Net" in its present form would have never been evolved without the hundreds of un-paid voluntary efforts (de facto Internet still is run on a voluntary basis), so here are my two cents: The output of several night-shift editing sessions. "The Big Dummy's Guide to the Internet is now available at your local laser printer..."
See ya on the Net!
Jörg Heitkötter
p.s.: Although this guide is almost complete, and I really, really, honestly, don't have the time to go over it once again, feel free to report "bugs", or any inconsistencies you find. Drop me "more quotes," further additions, requests for moral support, or "whatever-you-want"... Just an e-mail away.
p.p.s.: I'd like to say a BIG "thank you" to Shari Steele, for
her immediate excitement on this project. Adam Gaffin, who generously
accepted my changes to his initial ASCII version.
Howard Rheingold, who let me include his article, now serving as
superb afterword of long-year first hand experience in cyberspace
(and yes, I mentioned your new book, Howard ;-)).
And, Last not least, thanks to Bruce Sterling, who also "gave away"
an article for free.
Again, Bernd Raichle
Additional thanks to Brendan Kehoe
G'day, folks! II
Some more moons have passed, and GNU "info" format is fully supported,
now. You can use either Emacs in INFO mode, or just GNU's info
browser (also available as xinfo for the X window system):
type `info -f bdgtti-1.01.info' and read "Dummy's" online in
hypertextual fashion.
But edition 1.01 not only features an "info" version. It also comes with
HTML support, i.e. the Hyper-Text Markup Language format, that is used by
the World-Wide Web project.
The bdgtti-1.01*.html files can thus be browsed using the
WWW tools: from within xmosaic, e.g. load `bdgtti-1.01_toc.html',
and there you go!
Finally, some more folks have helped on the way: Lionel Cons
perl to run this program.)
Ingo Dressler
"The Big Dummy's Guide to the Internet is now available in a variety of easily convertible formats, and at your local laser printer..."
Enjoy the trip!
Jörg Heitkötter
"It's kind of fun to do the impossible." --- Walt Disney
"If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the shoulders of giants." --- Sir Isaac Newton
"A work of art is never finished, only abandoned." --- Anonymous
By Mitchell Kapor
New communities are being built today. You cannot see them, except on a computer screen. You cannot visit them, except through your keyboard. Their highways are wires and optical fibers; their language a series of ones and zeroes.
Yet these communities of cyberspace are as real and vibrant as any you could find on a globe or in an atlas. Those are real people on the other sides of those monitors. And freed from physical limitations, these people are developing new types of cohesive and effective communities - ones which are defined more by common interest and purpose than by an accident of geography, ones on which what really counts is what you say and think and feel, not how you look or talk or how old you are.
The oldest of these communities is that of the scientists, which actually predates computers. Scientists have long seen themselves as an international community, where ideas were more important than national origin. It is not surprising that the scientists were the first to adopt the new electronic media as their principal means of day-to-day communication.
I look forward to a day in which everybody, not just scientists, can enjoy similar benefits of a global community.
But how exactly does community grow out of a computer network? It does so because the network enables new forms of communication.
The most obvious example of these new digital communications media is electronic mail, but there are many others. We should begin to think of mailing lists, newsgroups, file and document archives, etc. as just the first generation of new forms of information and communications media. The digital media of computer networks, by virtue of their design and the enabling technology upon which they ride, are fundamentally different from the now dominant mass media of television, radio, newspapers and magazines. Digital communications media are inherently capable of being more interactive, more participatory, more egalitarian, more decentralized, and less hierarchical.
As such, the types of social relations and communities which can be built on these media share these characteristics. Computer networks encourage the active participation of individuals rather than the passive non-participation induced by television narcosis.
In mass media, the vast majority of participants are passive recipients of information. In digital communications media, the vast majority of participants are active creators of information as well as recipients. This type of symmetry has previously only been found in media like the telephone. But while the telephone is almost entirely a medium for private one-to-one communication, computer network applications such as electronic mailing lists, conferences, and bulletin boards, serve as a medium of group or "many-to-many" communication.
The new forums atop computer networks are the great levelers and reducers of organizational hierarchy. Each user has, at least in theory, access to every other user, and an equal chance to be heard. Some U.S. high-tech companies, such as Microsoft and Borland, already use this to good advantage: their CEO's -- Bill Gates and Philippe Kahn -- are directly accessible to all employees via electronic mail. This creates a sense that the voice of the individual employee really matters. More generally, when corporate communication is facilitated by electronic mail, decision-making processes can be far more inclusive and participatory.
Computer networks do not require tightly centralized administrative control. In fact, decentralization is necessary to enable rapid growth of the network itself. Tight controls strangle growth. This decentralization promotes inclusiveness, for it lowers barriers to entry for new parties wishing to join the network.
Given these characteristics, networks hold tremendous potential to enrich our collective cultural, political, and social lives and enhance democratic values everywhere.
And the Internet, and the UUCP and related networks connected to it, represents an outstanding example of a computer network with these qualities. It is an open network of networks, not a single unitary network, but an ensemble of interconnected systems which operate on the basis of multiple implementations of accepted, non-proprietary protocols, standards and interfaces.
One of its important characteristics is that new networks, host systems, and users may readily join the network -- the network is open to all.
The openness (in all senses) of the Internet reflects, I believe, the sensibilities and values of its architects. Had the Internet somehow been developed outside the world of research and education, it's less likely to have had such an open architecture. Future generations will be indebted to this community for the wisdom of building these types of open systems.
Still, the fundamental qualities of the Net, such as its decentralization, also pose problems. How can full connectivity be maintained in the face of an ever-expanding number of connected networks, for example? What of software bugs that bring down computers, or human crackers who try to do the same? But these problems can and will be solved.
Digital media can be the basis of new forms of political discourse, in which citizens form and express their views on the important public issues of the day. There is more than one possible vision of such electronic democracy, however. Let's look at some examples of the potential power, and problems, of the new digital media.
The idea of something called an "electronic town meeting" received considerable attention in 1992 with Ross Perot's presidential campaign (or, at least, its first incarnation).
Perot's original vision, from 20 or so years ago, was that viewers would watch a debate on television and fill out punch cards which would be mailed in and collated. Now we could do it with 800 telephone numbers.
In the current atmosphere of disaffection, alienation and cynicism, anything that promotes greater citizen involvement seems a good idea. People are turned off by politicians in general -- witness the original surge of support for Perot as outsider who would go in and clean up the mess -- and the idea of going right to the people is appealing,
What's wrong with this picture? The individual viewer is a passive recipient of the views of experts. The only action taken by the citizen is in expressing a preference for one of three pre-constructed alternatives. While this might be occasionally useful, it's unsophisticated and falls far short of the real potential of electronic democracy. We've been reduced to forming our judgments on the basis of mass media's portrayal of the personality and character of the candidates.
All this is in contrast to robust political debates already found on various on-line computer systems, from CompuServe to Usenet. Through these new media, the issues of the day, ranging from national security in the post-Cold War era to comparative national health care systems, are fiercely discussed in a wide variety of bulletin boards, conferences, and newsgroups.
What I see in online debate are multiple active participants, not just experts, representing every point of view, in discussions that unfold over extended periods of time. What this shows is that, far from being alienated and disaffected from the political process, people like to talk and discuss -- and take action -- if they have the opportunity to do so. Mass media don't permit that. But these new media are more akin to a gathering around the cracker barrel at the general store -- only extended over hundreds, thousands of miles, in cyberspace, rather than in one physical location.
Recent years have shown the potential power of these new media. We have also seen several examples of where talk translated into action.
In 1987, the Federal Communications Commission proposed changing the way certain online providers paid for access to local phone service. Online, this quickly became known as the "modem tax" and generated a storm of protest. The FCC withdrew the idea, but not quickly enough: the "modem tax" has penetrated so deeply into the crevices of the Net that it has taken up a permanent and ghostly residence as a kind of virtual or cognitive virus, which periodically causes a re-infection of the systems and its users. FCC commissioners continue to receive substantial mail on this even though the original issue is long dead; in fact, it has generated more mail than any other issue in the history of the FCC.
More recently, Jim Manzi, chairman of Lotus Development Corp., received more than 30,000 e-mail messages when the company was getting ready to sell a database containing records on tens of millions of Americans. The flood of electronic complaints about the threat to privacy helped force the company to abandon the project. Issues of narrow but vital interest to the online community give a hint of the organizing power of the Net.
In August, 1991, the managers of a Soviet computer network known as Relcom stayed online during an abortive coup, relaying eyewitness accounts and news of actions against the coup to the West and to the rest of Russia.
And many public interest non-profit organizations and special interest groups already use bulletin boards heavily as a means of communicating among their members and organizing political activity.
But all is not perfect online. The quality of discourse is often very low. Discussion is often trivial and boring and bereft of persuasive reason. Discourse often sinks to the level of "flaming," of personal attacks, instead of substantive discussion. Flaming. Those with the most time to spend often wind up dominating the debate - a triumph of quantity of time available over quality of content.
It seems like no place for serious discussion. Information overload is also a problem. There is simply far too much to read to keep up with. It is all without organization. How can this be addressed?
Recent innovations in the design of software used to connect people to the Net and the process of online discussion itself reveal some hope.
Flaming is universal, but different systems handle it in different ways. Both the technology and cultural norms matter.
On Usenet, for instance, most news reader applications support a feature known as a "killfile," which allows an individual to screen out postings by a particular user or on a particular subject. It is also sometimes referred to as "the bozo filter." This spares the user who is sufficiently sophisticated from further flamage, but it does nothing to stop the problem at its source.
Censorship would be one solution. But what else can be done without resorting to unacceptably heavy-handed tactics of censorship? There is a great tradition of respect for free speech on these systems, and to censor public postings or even ban a poster for annoying or offensive content is properly seen as unacceptable, in my opinion.
Some systems use cultural norms, rather than software, to deal with flame wars. These online communities have developed practices which rely more on a shared, internalized sense of appropriate behavior than on censorship, for instance. The WELL (Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link) is a relatively small online conferencing system based in the San Francisco Bay area. On the WELL, individuals who get into a fight are encouraged to move the discussion out of the public conference and into e-mail. The encouragement is provided not only by the host of the conference, but also by the users. It is part of the culture, not part of the technology.
WELL hosts are volunteers who facilitate the discussion of a particular subject. While they have the power to censor individual postings, the power is very rarely used and only as a last resort, as it has been found that dispute resolution by talking it out among the parties is a superior method of problem solving in the long run.
It is not an accident that the WELL has a uniquely high quality of conversation. Nor is it coincidental that it developed as a small and originally isolated community (now on the Net) which gave it a chance to develop its own norms or that key management of the system came from "The Farm," a large, successful commune of the 1960's and 1970's led by Stephen Gaskin.
We still know very little about the facilitation of online conversations. It is a subject well worth further formal study and experimentation.
Some problems have to do with the unrefined and immature format and structure of the discussion medium itself. The undifferentiated stream of new messages marching along in 80 columns of ASCII text creates a kind of hypnotic trance. Compare this with the typical multiplicity of type fonts, varied layouts, images, and pictures of the printed page.
New media take time to develop and to be shaped. Reading text on a terminal reminds me of looking at the Gutenberg Bible. The modern book took a century to develop after the invention of printing with movable type and the first Western printed books. Aldus Manutius and the inventions of modern typefaces, pagination, the table of contents, the index, all of which gave the book its modern form, came later, were done by different people, and were of a different order than the invention of printing with movable type itself. The new electronic media are undergoing a similar evolution.
Key inventions are occurring slowly, for example, development of software tools that will allow the dissemination of audio and video across the Net. This type of software has usually been sone so far by volunteers who have given away the results. It's a great thing, but it's not sufficient, given how hard it is to develop robust software. Innovation in the application space will also be driven by entrepreneurs and independent software vendors at such point as they perceive a business opportunity to create such products (it would be nice if creators did it for art's sake but this seems unlikely).
There are some requirements to provide incentives to attract additional software development. This requires a competitive free market in network services at all levels to serve the expanding user demand for network services. It requires a technologically mature network able to support these services.
And there must be a user population, current or prospective, interested in paying for better applications -- and not just the current base of technically sophisticated users and students, though they will absolutely benefit.
There are multiple classes of new application opportunities. E-mail is overloaded because there aren't readily available alternatives yet. New and different kinds of tools are needed for collaborative work. Computer conferencing, as it evolves, may be sufficient for discussion and debate. But by itself, it cannot really support collaborative work, in the sense of readily enabling a group to make decisions efficiently, represent and track the status of its work process. Trying to run an organization via e-mail mailing list is very different than trying to have a discussion.
Computer networks can only fully realize their potential as innovative communications media in an environment which encourages free and open expression.
In some countries, legal principles of free speech protect freedom of expression in traditional media such as the printed word. But once communication moves to new digital media and across crosses international borders, such legal protections fall away. As John Perry Barlow, the co-founder of EFF puts it: "In Cyberspace, the First Amendment is a local ordinance." There is no international legal authority which protects free expression on trans-national networks. Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights calls for the protection of free expression in all media, but the declaration falls far short of being binding.
And if we're to take seriously the idea of the electronic online forum, we have to deal with the access issue. if the only people with access to the medium are well-educated, affluent, techno-literate elite, it won't be sufficiently inclusive to represent all points of view.
We also need, fundamentally, a better infrastructure (the highway system for information). As we move from the high-speed Internet to the even more powerful National Research and Education Network, we need to look at how to bring the power of these new media into the homes of everybody who might want it. Addressing this "last mile" problem (phone networks are now largely digitized, fiber-optic systems, except for the mile between your home and the nearest switching station) should be a priority.
Computer networks will eventually become ubiquitous around the world. We should therefore be concerned with the impact on society that they have, the opportunities to improve society, and the dangers that they pose. Fundamentally, we are optimists who believe in the potential of networks to enhance democratic values of openness, diversity, and innovation.
Because the medium is so new, it is important now to develop policies at the national and international level that help achieve the potential of computer networks for society as a whole. By the time television was recognized as a vast wasteland it was already too late to change. There is a rare opportunity to develop policies in advance of a technologically and economically mature system which would be hard to change.
"As a net is made up of a series of ties, so everything in this world is connected by a series of ties. If anyone thinks that the mesh of a net is an independent, isolated thing, he is mistaken. It is called a net because it is made up of a series of interconnected meshes, and each mesh has its place and responsibility in relation to other meshes."
-- Buddha
By Adam Gaffin
This book will help you join the global village known as Cyberspace or the Net. Millions of people around the world already spend parts of their lives in this land without frontiers. With this book, you will be able to use the Net to:
And you will have become the newest member of this ever growing community. If you stay and contribute, the Net will be richer for it -- and so will you.
But it will take a sense of adventure, a willingness to learn and an ability to take a deep breath every once in awhile.
Visiting the Net today is a lot like journeying to a foreign country. You know there are many things to see and do, but everything at first will seem so, well, foreign.
When you first arrive, you won't be able to read the street signs. You'll get lost. If you're unlucky, you may even run into some natives who'd just as soon you went back to where you came from. If this weren't enough, the entire country is constantly under construction; every day, it seems like there's something new for you to figure out.
Here's where you take a deep breath. Fortunately, most of the natives are actually friendly. In fact, the Net actually has a rich tradition of helping out visitors and newcomers. With few written guides for ordinary people, the Net has grown in large part one person at a time -- if somebody helps you learn your way around, it's almost expected you'll repay the favor some day by helping somebody else.
So when you connect, don't be afraid to ask for help. You'll be surprised at how many people will try to direct you around. And that leads to another fundamental thing to remember:
You can't break the Net!
As you travel the Net, your computer may freeze, your screen may erupt into a mass of gibberish. You may think you've just disabled a million-dollar computer somewhere -- or even your own personal computer. Sooner or later, this feeling happens to everyone -- and likely more than once. But the Net and your computer are hardier than you think, so relax. You can no more break the Net than you can the phone system. You are always in the driver's seat. If something goes wrong, try again. If nothing at all happens, you can always disconnect. If worse comes to worse, you can turn off your computer. Then take a deep breath. And dial right back in. Leave a note for the person who runs the computer to which you've connected to ask for advice. Try it again. Persistence pays.
In the 1960s, researchers began experimenting with linking computers to each other and to people through telephone hook-ups, using funds from the U.S Defense Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA).
ARPA wanted to see if computers in different locations could be linked using a new technology known as packet switching, which had the promise of letting several users share just one communications line. Previous computer networking efforts had required a line between each computer on the network, sort of like a train track on which only one train can travel at a time. The packet system allowed for creation of a data highway, in which large numbers of vehicles could essentially share the same lane. Each packet was given the computer equivalent of a map and a time stamp, so that it could be sent to the right destination, where it would then be reassembled into a message the computer or a human could use.
This system allowed computers to share data and the researchers to exchange electronic mail, or e-mail. In itself, e-mail was something of a revolution, offering the ability to send detailed letters at the speed of a phone call.
As this system, known as ARPANet, grew, some enterprising college students (and one in high school) developed a way to use it to conduct online conferences. These started as science-oriented discussions, but they soon branched out into virtually every other field, as people realized the power of being able to "talk" to hundreds, or even thousands, of people around the country.
In the 1970s, ARPA helped support the development of rules, or protocols, for transferring data between different types of computer networks. These "internet" (from "internetworking") protocols made it possible to develop the worldwide Net we have today.
By the close of the 1970s, links developed between ARPANet and counterparts in other countries. The world was now tied together in a computer web.
In the 1980s, this network of networks, which became known collectively as the Internet, expanded at a phenomenal rate. Hundreds, then thousands, of colleges, research companies and government agencies began to connect their computers to this worldwide Net. Some enterprising hobbyists and companies unwilling to pay the high costs of Internet access (or unable to meet stringent government regulations for access) learned how to link their own systems to the Internet, even if "only" for e-mail and conferences. Some of these systems began offering access to the public. Now anybody with a computer and modem -- and persistence -- could tap into the world.
In the 1990s, the Net grows at exponential rates. Some estimates are that the volume of messages transferred through the Net grows 20 percent a month. In response, government and other users have tried in recent years to expand the Net itself. Once, the main Net "backbone" in the U.S. moved data at 1.5 million bits per second. That proved too slow for the ever increasing amounts of data being sent over it, and in recent years the maximum speed was increased to 45 million bits per second. Even before the Net was able to reach that speed, however, Net experts were already figuring out ways to pump data at speeds of up to 2 billion bits per second -- fast enough to send the entire Encyclopedia Britannica across the country in just one or two seconds.
The worldwide Net is actually a complex web of smaller regional networks.
To understand it, picture a modern road network of trans-continental superhighways connecting large cities. From these large cities come smaller freeways and parkways to link together small towns, whose residents travel on slower, narrow residential ways.
The Net superhighway is the high-speed Internet. Connected to this are computers that user a particular system of transferring data at high speeds. In the U.S., the major Internet "backbone" theoretically can move data at rates of 45 million bits per second (compare this to the average home modem, which has a top speed of roughly 2400 bits per second). This internetworking "protocol" lets network users connect to computers around the world.
Connected to the backbone computers are smaller networks serving particular geographic regions, which generally move data at speeds around 1.5 million bits per second.
Feeding off these in turn are even smaller networks or individual computers.
Nobody really knows how many computers and networks actually make up this Net. Some estimates say there are now as many as 5,000 networks connecting nearly 2 million computers and more than 15 million people around the world. Whatever the actual numbers, however, it is clear they are only increasing.
There is no one central computer or even group of computers running the Internet -- its resources are to be found among thousands of individual computers. This is both its greatest strength and its greatest weakness. The approach means it is virtually impossible for the entire Net to crash at once -- even if one computer shuts down, the rest of the network stays up. But thousands of connected computers can also make it difficult to navigate the Net and find what you want. It is only recently that Net users have begun to develop the sorts of navigational tools and "maps" that will let neophytes get around without getting lost.
The vast number of computers and links between them ensure that the network as a whole will likely never crash and means that network users have ready access to vast amounts of information. But because resources are split among so many different sites, finding that information can prove to be a difficult task -- especially because each computer might have its own unique set of commands for bringing up that information.
While the Internet was growing, parallel networks developed. Large commercial services such as CompuServe and GEnie began to offer network services to individuals. Phone companies developed their own electronic-mail services. Some universities started their own international network. Hobbyists began networks such as Fidonet for MS-DOS computers and UUCP for Unix machines.
Today, almost all of these parallel networks are becoming connected. It is now possible to send electronic mail from CompuServe to MCIMail, from Internet to Fidonet, from Bitnet to CompuServe. In some cases, users of one network can now even participate in some of the public conferences of another.
But the Net is more than just a technological marvel. It is human communication at its most fundamental level. The pace may be a little quicker when the messages race around the world in a few seconds, but it's not much different from a large and interesting party. You'll see things in cyberspace that will make you laugh; you'll see things that will anger you. You'll read silly little snippets and new ideas that make you think. You'll make new friends and meet people you wish would just go away.
Major network providers continue to work on ways to make it easier for users of one network to communicate with those of another. Work is underway on a system for providing a universal "white pages" in which you could look up somebody's electronic-mail address, for example. This connectivity trend will likely speed up in coming years as users begin to demand seamless network access, much as telephone users can now dial almost anywhere in the world without worrying about how many phone companies actually have to connect their calls.
And as it becomes easier to use, more and more people will join this worldwide community we call the Net. Being connected to the Net takes more than just reading conferences and logging messages to your computer; it takes asking and answering questions, exchanging opinions -- getting involved.
If you chose to go forward, to use and contribute, you will become a "citizen of Cyberspace." If you're reading these words for the first time, this may seem like an amusing but unlikely notion -- that one could "inhaibit" a place without physical space. But put a mark beside these words. Join the Net and actively participate for a year. Then re-read this passage. It will no longer seem so strange to be a "citizen of Cyberspace." It will seem like the most natural thing in the world.
The following people, whether they know it or not, helped put this together. My thanks, especially to Nancy!
Rhonda Chapman, Jim Cocks, Tom Czarnik, Christopher Davis, David DeSimone, Jeanne deVoto, Phil Eschallier, Nico Garcia, Joe Granrose, Joe Ilacqua, Jonathan Kamens, Peter Kaminski, Thomas A. Kreeger, Leanne Phillips, Nancy Reynolds, Helen Trillian Rose, Barry Shein, Jennifer "Moira" Smith, Gerard van der Leun, Scott Yanoff.
Steven Levy, Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution, (Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1984). describes the early culture and ethos that ultimately resulted in the Internet and Usenet.
John Quarterman, The Matrix: Computer Networks and Conferencing Systems Worldwide (Digital Press, 1990) is an exhaustive look at computer networks and how they connect with each other.
FYI on Where to Start - A Bibliography of Internetworking Information, by Tracy LaQuey, Joyce K. Reynolds, Karen Roubicek, Mary Stahl and Aileen Yuan (August, 1990), is an excellent list of articles, books, newsletters and other sources of information about the Internet. It's available via ftp from nic.ddn.mil in the `rfc' directory as `rfc1175.txt' (see section FTP (Mining the Net, part II) for information on getting documents through FTP).
Another Glitch in the Call ------- ------ -- -- ----
We don't need no indirection We don't need no flow control No data typing or declarations Did you leave the lists alone?
Hey! Hacker! Leave those lists alone!
Chorus: All in all, it's just a pure-LISP function call. All in all, it's just a pure-LISP function call.
--- Anonymous Lisp Guru Sung to the tune of `Another Brick in the Wall' by Pink Floyd
Connecting to the Net depends on where you are. If you're a college student or work at a company with its own Net connections, chances are you can gain access simply by asking your organization's computing center or data-processing department -- they will then give you instructions on how to connect your already networked computer to the Internet.
Otherwise, you'll need four things: a computer, telecommunications software, a modem and a phone line to connect to the modem.
The phone line can be your existing voice line -- just remember that if you have any extensions, you (and everybody else in the house or office) won't be able to use them for voice calls while connected to the Net.
A modem is a sort of translator between computers and the phone system. It's needed because computers and the phone system process and transmit data, or information, in two different, and incompatible ways. Computers "talk" digitally; that is, they store and process information as a series of discrete numbers. The phone network relies on analog signals, which on an oscilloscope would look like a series of waves. When your computer is ready to transmit data to another computer over a phone line, your modem converts the computer numbers into these waves (which sound like a lot of screeching) -- it "modulates" them. In turn, when information waves come into your modem, it converts them into numbers your computer can process, by "demodulating" them.
Increasingly, computers come with modems already installed. If yours didn't, you'll have to decide what speed modem to get. Modem speeds are judged in "baud rate" or bits per second. One baud means the modem can transfer roughly one bit per second; the greater the baud rate, the more quickly a modem can send and receive information. A letter or character is made up of eight bits.
You can now buy a 2400-baud modem for well under $70 -- and most now come with the ability to handle fax messages as well. For $200 and up, you can buy a modem that can transfer data at 9600 baud (and often even faster, when using special compression techniques). If you think you might be using the Net to transfer large numbers of files, a faster modem is always worth the price. It will dramatically reduce the amount of time your modem or computer is tied up transferring files and, if you are paying for Net access by the hour, save you quite a bit in online charges.
Like the computer to which it attaches, a modem is useless without software to tell it how to work. Most modems today come with easy-to-install software. Try the program out. If you find it difficult to use or understand, consider a trip to the local software store to find a better program. You can spend several hundred dollars on a communications program, but unless you have very specialized needs, this will be a waste of money, as there are a host of excellent programs available for around $100 or sometimes even less. Among the basic features you want to look for are a choice of different "protocols" (more on them in a bit) for transferring files to and from the Net and the ability to write "script" or "command" files that let you automate such steps as logging into a host system.
When you buy a modem and the software, ask the dealer how to install and use them. Try out the software if you can. If the dealer can't help you, find another dealer. You'll not only save yourself a lot of frustration, you'll also have practiced the second Net Commandment: "Ask. People Know."
To fully take advantage of the Net, you must spend a few minutes going over the manuals or documentation that comes with your software. There are a few things you should pay special attention to: uploading and downloading; screen capturing (sometimes called "screen dumping"); logging; how to change protocols; and terminal emulation. It is also essential to know how to convert a file created with your word processing program into "ASCII" or "text" format, which will let you share your thoughts with others across the Net.
Uploading is the process of sending a file from your computer to a system on the Net. Downloading is retrieving a file from somewhere on the Net to your computer. In general, things in cyberspace go "up" to the Net and "down" to you.
Chances are your software will come with a choice of several "protocols" to use for these transfers. These protocols are systems designed to ensure that line noise or static does not cause errors that could ruin whatever information you are trying to transfer. Essentially, when using a protocol, you are transferring a file in a series of pieces. After each piece is sent or received, your computer and the Net system compare it. If the two pieces don't match exactly, they transfer it again, until they agree that the information they both have is identical. If, after several tries, the information just doesn't make it across, you'll either get an error message or your screen will freeze. In that case, try it again. If, after five tries, you are still stymied, something is wrong with a) the file; b) the telephone line; c) the system you're connected to; or d) you own computer.
From time to time, you will likely see messages on the Net that you want to save for later viewing -- a recipe, a particularly witty remark, something you want to write your Congressman about, whatever. This is where screen capturing and logging come in.
When you tell your communications software to capture a screen, it opens a file in your computer (usually in the same directory or folder used by the software) and "dumps" an image of whatever happens to be on your screen at the time.
Logging works a bit differently. When you issue a logging command, you tell the software to open a file (again, usually in the same directory or folder as used by the software) and then give it a name. Then, until you turn off the logging command, everything that scrolls on your screen is copied into that file, sort of like recording on video tape. This is useful for capturing long documents that scroll for several pages -- using screen capture, you would have to repeat the same command for each new screen.
Terminal emulation is a way for your computer to mimic, or emulate, the way other computers put information on the screen and accept commands from a keyboard. In general, most systems on the Net use a system called VT100. Fortunately, almost all communications programs now on the market support this system as well -- make sure yours does.
You'll also have to know about protocols. There are several different ways for computers to transmit characters. Fortunately, there are only two protocols that you're likely to run across: 8-1-N (which stands for "8 bits, 1 stop bit, no parity" -- yikes!) and 7-1-E (7 bits, 1 stop bit, even parity).
In general, Unix-based systems use 7-1-E, while MS-DOS-based systems use 8-1-N. What if you don't know what kind of system you're connecting to? Try one of the settings. If you get what looks like gobbledygook when you connect, you may need the other setting. If so, you can either change the setting while connected, and then hit enter, or hang up and try again with the other setting. It's also possible your modem and the modem at the other end can't agree on the right baud rate. If changing the protocols doesn't work, try using another baud rate (but no faster than the one listed for your modem). Again, remember, you can't break anything.! If something looks wrong, it probably is wrong. Change your settings and try again. Nothing is learned without trial, error and effort. Those are the basics. Now onto the Net!
Once, only people who studied or worked at an institution directly tied to the Net could connect to the world. Today, though, an ever-growing number of "public-access" systems provide access for everybody. These systems can now be found in several states, and there are a couple of sites that can provide access across the country.
There are two basic kinds of these host systems. The more common one is known as a UUCP site (UUCP being a common way to transfer information among computers using the Unix operating system) and offers access to international electronic mail and conferences.
However, recent years have seen the growth of more powerful sites that let you tap into the full power of the Net. These Internet sites not only give you access to electronic mail and conferences but to such services as databases, libraries and huge file and program collections around the world. They are also fast -- as soon as you finish writing a message, it gets zapped out to its destination.
Some sites are run by for-profit companies; others by non-profit organizations. Some of these public-access, or host, systems, are free of charge. Others charge a monthly or yearly fee for unlimited access. And a few charge by the hour.
But cost should be only one consideration in choosing a host system. Most systems let you look around before you sign up. What is the range of their services? How easy is it to use? What kind of support or help can you get from the system administrators?
The last two questions are particularly important because some systems provide no user interface at all; when you connect, you are dumped right into the Unix operating system. If you're already familiar with Unix, or you want to learn how to use it, these systems offer phenomenal power -- in addition to Net access, most also let you tap into the power of Unix to do everything from compiling your own programs to playing online games.
But if you don't want to have to learn Unix, there are other public-access systems that work through menus (just like the ones in restaurants; you are shown a list of choices and then you make your selection of what you want), or which provide a "user interface" that is easier to figure out than the ever cryptic Unix.
If you don't want or need access to the full range of Internet services, a UUCP site makes good financial sense. They tend to charge less than commercial Internet providers, although their messages may not go out as quickly.
Some systems also have their own unique local services, which can range from extensive conferences to large file libraries.
Fortunately, almost all public-access systems let you look around for awhile before you have to decide whether to sign up. Systems that charge for access will usually let you sign up online with a credit card. Some also let you set up a billing system. See section Telnet (Mining the Net, part I) for a list of public-access Internet sites.
When you have your communications program dial one of these host systems, one of two things will happen when you connect. You'll either see a lot of gibberish on your screen, or you'll be asked to log in. If you see gibberish, chances are you have to change your software's parameters (to 7-1-E or 8-1-N as the case may be). Hang up, make the change and then dial in again.
When you've connected, chances are you'll see something like this:
Welcome to THE WORLD Public Access UNIX for the '90s Login as 'new' if you do not have an account login:
That last line is a prompt asking you to do something. Since this is your first call, type
new
and hit enter. Often, when you're asked to type something by a host system, you'll be told what to type in quotation marks (for example, the `new' above). Don't include the quotation marks. Repeat: Don't include the quotation marks.
What you see next depends on the system, but will generally consist of information about its costs and services (you might want to turn on your communication software's logging function, to save this information). You'll likely be asked if you want to establish an account now or just look around the system.
You'll also likely be asked for your "user name." This is not your full name, but a one-word name you want to use while online. It can be any combination of letters or numbers, all in lower case. Many people use their first initial and last name (for example, "jdoe"); their first name and the first letter of their last name (for example, "johnd"); or their initials ("jxd"). Others use a nickname. You might want to think about this for a second, because this user name will become part of your electronic-mail address (see chapter 3 for more on that). The one exception are the various Free-Net systems, all of which assign you a user name consisting of an arbitrary sequence of letters and numbers.
You are now on the Net. Look around the system. See if there are any help files for you to read. If it's a menu-based host system, chose different options just to see what happens. Remember: you can't break anything. The more you play, the more comfortable you'll be.
What follows is a list of public-access Internet sites, which are computer systems that offer access to the Net. All offer international e-mail and Usenet (international conferences). In addition, they offer:
Additional services that may be offered include:
However, even on systems that do not provide these services directly, you will be able to use a number of them through telnet (see section Telnet (Mining the Net, part I) for more information on telnet). Systems marked "Unix" dump you right into Unix (a.k.a. "DOS with a college degree"). In most cases, this means you can also use the host system's various Unix functions. The other systems use menus, which are generally much easier for beginners to navigate -- they are just like menus in restaurants, in which you decide what you want from a list of options. Any unique features of a given system are noted. Some of these systems require you to use parameters of 7-1-E, so if you get gibberish when you connect, try that. Most let you look around for awhile before you have to sign up.
Several of these sites are available nationwide through national data networks such as the CompuServe Packet Network and PC-Pursuit.
Please note that all listed charges are subject to change.
Cupertino. Portal. Both Unix and menus. (408) 725-0561, 725-1724 or (408) 973-8091. Charges: $19.95 set-up fee, $19.95 a month. Voice help: (408) 973-9111.
Encinitas. Cyber Station, (619) 634-1376. Unix. Log on as: guest. Charges: $20 a month for one hour a day; $10 setup fee.
Irvine. Dial N' CERF. See under San Diego.
Los Angeles. Dial N' CERF. See under San Diego.
Oakland. Dial N' CERF. See under San Diego.
San Diego. Dial N' CERF USA, run by the California Education and Research Federation. Provides local dial-up numbers in San Diego, Los Angeles, Oakland and Irvine. For more information, call voice (800) 876-CERF or (619) 534-5087. Charges: $20 a month plus $10 an hour, with a one-time installation fee of $50.
San Jose. Netcom, (510) 865-9004 or 426-6860; (408) 241-9760; (415) 424-0131, up to 9600 baud. Unix. Maintains archives of Usenet postings. Log on as: guest. New users get a written guide to using Netcom and the Net in general. However, access to Net services beyond Usenet requires signature on a written "Network Agreement Form." Charges: $15 start-up fee and then $17.50 a month for unlimited use if you agree to automatic billing of your credit-card account (otherwise $19.50 a month for a monthly invoice). Voice help: (408) 554-UNIX.
San Jose. A2i, (408) 293-9010. Unix. Log on as: guest. Charges: $20 a month; $45 for three months; $72 for six months.
Sausalito. The Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link (WELL), (415) 332-6106, up to 2400 baud. Uses moderately difficult Picospan software, which is sort of a cross between Unix and a menu system. New users get a written manual. More than 200 WELL-only conferences. Log on as: newuser. Charges: $15 a month plus $2 an hour. Access through the nationwide CompuServe Packet Network available for another $4.50 an hour. Voice help: (415) 332-4335. Recorded message about the system's current status: (800) 326-8354 (continental U.S. only).
Golden. Colorado SuperNet. Unix. E-mail to fax service. Available only to Colorado residents. Local dial-in numbers currently available in Ft. Collins, Denver/Boulder and Colorado Springs. For dial-in numbers, call the number below. Charges: $2 an hour ($1 an hour between midnight and 6 a.m.); one-time $20 sign-up fee. Voice help: 303-273-3471.
Peoria. Peoria Free-Net, (309) 674-1100. Similar to Cleveland Free-Net (see Ohio, below). Users can "link" to the larger Cleveland system for access to Usenet and other services. There are also Peoria Free-Net public-access terminals in numerous area libraries, other government buildings and senior-citizen centers. Contact the number below for specific locations. Full access (including access to e-mail) requires completion of a written application. Charges: None. Voice help: (309) 677-2544.
Lynn. North Shore Access, (617) 593-5774. Unix. Log on as: guest. Charges: $10 for a month for 10 hours; $1 an hour after that. Voice help: (617) 593-3110.
Worcester. NovaLink, (508) 754-4009. Unix. Log on as: info. Charges: $12.95 sign-up (includes first two hours); $9.95 a month (includes five daytime hours), $1.80 an hour after that. Voice help: (800) 274-2814.
Ann Arbor. Michnet. Unix. Has local dial-in numbers in several Michigan numbers. For local numbers, call voice number below. Charges: $35 a month plus one-time $40 sign-up fee. Additional network fees for access through non-Michnet numbers. Voice help: (313) 764-9430.
New York. MindVox, (212) 988-5030. Log on as: guest. Local conferences. Charges: $15 a month; $10 set-up fee for non-credit card accounts. Voice help: (212) 988-5987.
New York. Panix, (212) 787-3100. Unix or menus. Log on as: newuser. Charges: $10 a month or $100 a year; one-time $40 fee. Voice help: (212) 877-4854.
Triangle Research Park. Rock Concert Net. Call number below for modem number. Unix. Charges: $30 a month; one-time $50 sign-up fee. Voice help: (919) 248-1999.
Cincinnati. Tri-State Free-Net, (513) 579-1990. Similar to Cleveland Free-Net. Full access (including access to e-mail) requires completion of a written application. Charges: None.
Cleveland. Wariat, (216) 481-9436 (2400 baud); (216) 481-9425 (higher speeds). Unix, menus. Charges: $35 a month or $200 for six months; $20 sign-up fee. Voice help: (216) 481-9428.
Lorain. Lorain County Free-Net, (216) 277-2359 or 366-9753. Similar to Cleveland Free-Net. Users can "link" to the larger Cleveland system for additional services. Full access (including access to e-mail) requires completion of a written application. Charges: None. Voice help: (216) 366-4200.
Medina. Medina Free-Net, (216) 723-6732, 225-6732 or 335-6732. Users can "link" to the larger Cleveland Free-Net for additional services. Full access (including access to e-mail) requires completion of a written application. Charges: None.
Youngstown. Youngstown Free-Net, (216) 742-3072. Users can "link" to the Cleveland system for services not found locally. Full access (including access to e-mail) requires completion of a written application. Charges: None.
Portland. Agora, (503) 293-1772 (2400 baud), (503) 293-2059 (9600 baud). Unix. Log on as: apply Charges: $6 a month for one hour per day.
Beaverton. Techbook, (503) 220-0636. Charges: $90 a year.
See also: listing under Baltimore, MD for Express Access.
Seattle. Halcyon, (206) 382-6245. Users can choose between menus and Unix. Log on as: bbs. Charges: $10 a month for Usenet and e-mail; $15 a month or $150 a year for these and other Internet services (FTP, IRC, telnet, etc.). Voice help: (206) 426-9298
If you don't live in a city with a public-access site, you'll still be able to connect to the Net. Several of these services offer access through national data networks such as the CompuServe Packet Network and PC-Pursuit, which have dozens, even hundreds of local dial-in numbers across the country. These include Holonet in Berkeley, Calf., Portal in Cupertino, Calf., the WELL in Sausalito, Calf., Dial 'N CERF in San Diego, Calf., the World in Brookline, Mass., and Michnet in Ann Arbor, Mich. Dial 'N CERF offers access through an 800 number. Expect to pay from $2 to $12 an hour to use these networks, above each provider's basic charges. The exact amount depends on the network, time of day and type of modem you use. For more information, contact the above services.
Two other providers deliver Net access to users across the country:
Delphi, based in Cambridge, Mass., is a consumer-oriented network much like CompuServe or America On-Line -- only it now offers subscribers access to Internet services.
Charges: $3 a month for Internet access, in addition to standard charges. These are $10 a month for four hours of off-peak (non-working hours) access a month and $4 an hour for each additional hour or $20 for 20 hours of access a month and $1.80 an hour for each additional hour. For more information, call (800) 695-4005.
PSI, based in Reston, Va., provides nationwide access to Internet services through scores of local dial-in numbers to owners of IBM and compatible computers. PSILink. which includes access to e-mail, Usenet and ftp, costs $29 a month, plus a one-time $19 registration fee. Special software is required, but is available free from PSI. PSI's Global Dialup Service provides access to telnet for $39 a month plus a one-time $39 set-up fee. For more information, call (800) 82PSI82 or (703) 620-6651.
Peter Kaminski maintains a list of systems that provide public access to Internet services. It's availble on the network itself, which obviously does you little good if you currently have no access, but which can prove invaluable should you move or want to find a new system. Look for his "PDIAL" file in the alt.bbs.lists or news.answers newsgroups in Usenet (for information on accessing Usenet, see section Usenet: the Global Watering Hole).
"Ah! Dear Watson, now we enter the mystic room of wizardry, where even the most brilliant of all logic minds might fail." --- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
"Welcome to the Pleasure Dome!" --- Frankie goes to Hollywood
Electronic mail, or e-mail, is your personal connection to the world of the Net.
Every one of the millions of people around the world who use the Net have their own e-mail address. A growing number of "gateways" tie more and more people to the Net every day. When you logged onto the host system you are now using, it automatically generated an address for you, as well.
The basic concepts behind e-mail parallel those of regular mail. You send mail to people at their particular addresses. In turn, they write to you at your e-mailbox address. You can subscribe to the electronic equivalent of magazines and newspapers. There is even electronic junk mail.
E-mail has two distinct advantages over regular mail. The most obvious is speed. Instead of several days, your message can reach the other side of the world in hours or even minutes (depending on where you drop off your mail and the state of the connections between there and your recipient). The other advantage is that once you master the basics, you'll be able to use e-mail to access databases and file libraries. You'll see how to do this later, along with learning how to transfer program and data files through e-mail.
E-mail also has advantages over the telephone. You send your message when it's convenient for you. Your recipient responds at his convenience. No more telephone tag. And while a phone call across the country or around the world can quickly result in huge phone bills, e-mail lets you exchange vast amounts of mail for only a few pennies -- even if the other person is in New Zealand.
E-mail is your connection to help -- your Net lifeline. The Net can sometimes seem a frustrating place! No matter how hard you try, no matter where you look, you just might not be able to find the answer to whatever is causing you problems. But when you know how to use e-mail, help is often just a few keystrokes away: ask your system administrator or a friend for help in an e-mail message.
The quickest way to start learning e-mail is to send yourself a message. Most public-access sites actually have several different types of mail systems, all of which let you both send and receive mail. We'll start with the simplest one, known, appropriately enough, as "mail," and then look at a couple of other interfaces. At your host system's command prompt, type this:
mail username
where username is the name you gave yourself when you first logged on. Hit enter. The computer might respond with
subject:Type
testor, actually, anything at all (but you'll have to hit enter before you get to the end of the screen). Hit enter.
The cursor will drop down a line. You can now begin writing the actual message. Type a sentence, again, anything at all. And here's where you hit your first Unix frustration, one that will bug you repeatedly: you have to hit enter before you get to the very end of the line. Just like typewriters, many Unix programs have no word-wrapping.
When done with your message, hit return. Now hit control-D (the control and the D keys at the same time). This is a Unix command that tells the computer you're done writing and that it should close your "envelope" and mail it off (you could also hit enter once and then, on a blank line, type a period at the beginning of the line and hit enter again).
You've just sent your first e-mail message. And because you're sending mail to yourself, rather than to someone somewhere else on the Net, your message has already arrived, as we'll see in a moment.
If you had wanted, you could have even written your message on your own computer and then uploaded it into this electronic "envelope." There are a couple of good reasons to do this with long or involved messages. One is that once you hit enter at the end of a line in "mail" you can't readily fix any mistakes on that line (unless you use some special commands to call up a Unix text processor. Also, if you are paying for access by the hour, uploading a prepared message can save you money. Remember to save the document in ASCII or text format. Uploading a document you've created in a word processor that uses special formatting commands (which these days means many programs) will cause strange effects.
When you get that blank line after the subject line, upload the message using the ASCII protocol. Or you can copy and paste the text, if your software allows that. When done, hit control-D as above.
Now you have mail waiting for you. Normally, when you log on, your public-access site will tell you whether you have new mail waiting. To open your mailbox and see your waiting mail, type
When the host system sees "mail" without a name after it, it knows you want to look in your mailbox rather than send a message. Your screen, on a plain-vanilla Unix system will display:
Mail version SMI 4.0 Mon Apr 24 18:34:15 PDT 1989 Type ? for help. "/usr/spool/mail/adamg": 1 message 1 new 1 unread >N 1 adamg Sun Mar 22 20:04 12/290 test
Ignore the first line; it's just computerese of value only to the people who run your system. You can type a question mark and hit return, but unless you're familiar with Unix, most of what you'll see won't make much sense at this point.
The second line tells you the directory on the host system where your mail messages are put. This is your "home directory." It's a good name to remember. Later, when you start transferring files across the Net, this is where they will usually wind up, or from where you'll send them. The second line also tells you how many messages are in your mailbox, how many have come in since the last time you looked and how many messages you haven't read yet.
It's the third line that is of real interest -- it tells you who the message is from, when it arrived, how many lines and characters it takes up, and what the subject is. The "N" means it is a new message -- it arrived after the last time you looked in your mailbox. Hit enter. And there's your message -- only now it's a lot longer than what you wrote!
Message 1: From adamg Mar 22 20:04:55 1992 Received: by eff.org id AA28949 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4/pen-ident for adamg); Sun, 22 Mar 1992 20:04:55 -0400 (ident-sender: adamg@eff.org) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 1992 21:34:55 -0400 From: Adam Gaffin <adamg> Message-Id: <199204270134.AA28949@eff.org> To: adamg Subject: test Status: R This is only a test!
Whoa! What is all that stuff? It's your message with a postmark gone mad. Just as the postal service puts its marks on every piece of mail it handles, so do Net postal systems. Only it's called a "header" instead of a postmark. Each system that handles or routes your mail puts its stamp on it. Since many messages go through a number of systems on their way to you, you will often get messages with headers that seem to go on forever. Among other things, a header will tell you exactly when a message was sent and received (even the difference between your local time and GMT -- as at the end of line 4 above).
If this had been a long message, it would just keep scrolling across and down your screen -- unless the people who run your public-access site have set it up to pause every 24 lines. One way to deal with a message that doesn't stop is to use your telecommunication software's logging or text-buffer function. Start it before you hit the number of the message you want to see. Your computer will ask you what you want to call the file you're about to create. After you name the file and hit enter, type the number of the message you want to see and hit enter. When the message finishes scrolling, turn off the text-buffer function, and the message is now saved in your computer. This way, you can read the message while not connected to the Net (which can save you money if you're paying by the hour) and write a reply offline.
But in the meantime, now what? You can respond to the message, delete it or save it. To respond, type a lower-case "r" and hit enter. You'll get something like this:
To: adamg Subject: Re: test
Note that this time, you don't have to enter a username. The computer takes it from the message you're replying to and automatically addresses your message to its sender. The computer also automatically inserts a subject line, by adding "Re:" to the original subject. From here, it's just like writing a new message. But say you change your mind and decide not to reply after all. How do you get out of the message? Hit control-C once. You'll get this:
(Interrupt -- one more to kill letter)
If you hit control-C once more, the message will disappear and you'll get back to your mail's command line.
Now, if you type a lower-case "d" and then hit enter, you'll delete the original message. Type a lower-case "q" to exit your mailbox.
If you type a "q" without first hitting "d", your message is transferred to a file called mbox. This file is where all read, but un-deleted messages go. If you want to leave it in your mailbox for now, type a lower-case "x" and hit enter. This gets you out of mail without making any changes.
The mbox file works a lot like your mailbox. To access it, type
mail -f mbox
at your host system's command line and hit enter.
You'll get a menu identical to the one in your mailbox from which you can read these old messages, delete them or respond to them. It's probably a good idea to clear out your mailbox and mbox file from time to time, if only to keep them uncluttered.
Are there any drawbacks to e-mail? There are a few. One is that people seem more willing to fly off the handle electronically than in person, or over the phone. Maybe it's because it's so easy to hit R and reply to a message without pausing and reflecting a moment. That's why we have smileys! There's no online equivalent yet of a return receipt: chances are your message got to where it's going, but there's no absolute way for you to know for sure unless you get a reply from the other person. Also, because computers are quite literal, you have to be very careful when addressing a message. Misplace a period or a single letter in the address, and your message could come back to you, undelivered.
So now you're ready to send e-mail to other people on the Net. Of course, you need somebody's address to send them mail. How do you get it?
Alas, the simplest answer is not what you'd call the most elegant: you call them up on the phone or write them a letter on paper and ask them. Residents of the electronic frontier are only beginning to develop the equivalent of phone books, and the ones that exist today are far from complete (still, later on, we'll show you how to use some of these directories).
Eventually, you'll start corresponding with people, which means you'll want to know how to address mail to them. It's vital to know how to do this, because the smallest mistake -- using a comma when you should have used a period, for instance, can bounce the message back to you, undelivered. In this sense, Net addresses are like phone numbers: one wrong digit and you get the wrong person. Fortunately, most net addresses now adhere to a relatively easy-to-understand system.
Earlier, you sent yourself a mail message using just your user-name. This was sort of like making a local phone call -- you didn't have to dial a 1 or an area code. This also works for mail to anybody else who has an account on the same system as you.
Sending mail outside of your system, though, will require the use of the Net equivalent of area codes, called "domains." A basic Net address will look something like this:
tomg@world.std.com
Tomg is somebody's user ID, and he is at (hence the @ sign) a site or "domain" known as std.com. Large organizations often have more than one computer linked to the Internet; in this case, the name of the particular machine is world (you will quickly notice that, like boat owners, Internet computer owners always name their machines).
Domains tell you the name of the organization that runs a given e-mail site and what kind of site it is or, if it's not in the U.S., what country it's located in. Large organizations may have more than one computer or gateway tied to the Internet, so you'll often see a two-part domain name; and sometimes even three- or four-part domain names.
In general, American addresses end in an organizational suffix, such as ".edu," which means the site is at a college or university. Other American suffixes include:
.com
.org
.gov
.mil
.net
Sites in the rest of the world tend to use a two-letter code that represents their country. Most make sense, such as `.ca' for Canadian sites, but there are a couple of seemingly odd ones, at least if you don't know the ISO 3166 standard international abbreviations. (see section Internet Country Codes for a list of the rest of the world.) E.g., swiss sites end in `.ch' (Confederatio Helvetica), German sites end in `.de' (DEutschland), while South African ones end in `.za' (Zuit Africaans). Some smaller U.S. sites are beginning to follow this international convention (such as unixland.natick.ma.us).
You'll notice that the above addresses are all in lower-case. Unlike almost everything else having anything at all to do with Unix, Most Net mailing systems don't care about case, so you can capitalize names if you want, but you generally don't have to. Alas, there are a few exceptions -- some public-access sites do allow for capital letters in user names. When in doubt, ask the person you want to write to, or let her send you a message first (recall how a person's e-mail address is usually found on the top of her message).
The domain name, the part of the address after the @ sign, never has to be capitalized.
It's all a fairly simple system that works very well, except,
again, it's vital to get the address exactly right -- just as you have
to dial a phone number exactly right. Send a message to tomg@unm.edu
(which is the University of New Mexico) when you meant to send it to
tomg@umn.edu (the University of Minnesota), and your letter will either
bounce back to you undelivered, or go to the wrong person.
If your message is bounced back to you as undeliverable, you'll get an ominous looking-message from MAILER-DAEMON (actually a rather benign Unix program that exists to handle mail), with an evil-looking header followed by the text of your message. Sometimes, you can tell what went wrong by looking at the first few lines of the bounced message. Besides an incorrect address, it's possible your host system does not have the other site in the "map" it maintains of other host systems. Or you could be trying to send mail to another network, such as Bitnet or CompuServe, that has special addressing requirements.
Sometimes, figuring all this out can prove highly frustrating. But remember the prime Net commandment: Ask. Send a message to your system administrator. He or she might be able to help decipher the problem.
There is one kind of address that may give your host system particular problems. There are two main ways that Unix systems exchange mail. One is known as UUCP and started out with a different addressing system than the rest of the Net. Most UUCP systems have since switched over to the standard Net addressing system, but a few traditional sites still cling to their original type, which tends to have lots of exclamation points in it, like this:
uunet!somesite!othersite!mybuddy
The problem for many host sites is that exclamation points (also known as "bangs") now mean something special in the more common systems or "shells" used to operate many Unix computers. This means that addressing mail to such a site (or even responding to a message you received from one) could confuse the poor computer to no end and your message never gets sent out. If that happens, try putting "forward" backslashes in front of each exclamation point, so that you get an address that looks like this:
uunet\!somesite\!othersite\!mybuddy
Note that this means you may not be able to respond to such a message by typing a lower-case `r' -- you may get an error message and you'll have to create a brand-new message.
If you want to get a taste of what's possible through e-mail, start an e-mail message to
almanac@oes.orst.edu
Leave the "subject:" line blank. As a message, write this:
send quote
Or, if you're feeling a little down, write this instead:
send moral-support
In either case, you will get back a message within a few seconds to a few hours (depending on the state of your host system's Internet connection). If you simply asked for a quote, you'll get back a fortune-cookie-like saying. If you asked for moral support, you'll also get back a fortune-cookie-like saying, only supposedly more uplifting.
This particular "mail server" is run by Oregon State University. Its main purpose is actually to provide a way to distribute agricultural information via e-mail. If you'd like to find out how to use the server's full range of services, send a message to the above address with this line in it:
send help
You'll quickly get back a lengthy document detailing just what's available and how to get it.
The "mail" program is actually a very powerful one and a Netwide standard, at least on Unix computers. But it can be hard to figure out -- you can type a question mark to get a list of commands, but these may be of limited use unless you're already familiar with Unix. Fortunately, there are a couple of other mail programs that are easier to use.
Elm is a combination mailbox and letter-writing system that uses menus to help you navigate through mail. Most Unix-based host systems now have it online. To use it, type
elm
and hit enter. You'll get a menu of your waiting mail, along with a list of commands you can execute, that will look something like this:
Mailbox is '/usr/spool/mail/adamg' with 38 messages [ELM 2.3 PL11] 1 Sep 1 Christopher Davis (13) here's another message. 2 Sep 1 Christopher Davis (91) This is a message from Eudora 3 Aug 31 Rita Marie Rouvali (161) First Internet Hunt !!! (fwd) 4 Aug 31 Peter Scott/Manage (69) New File <UK077> University of Londo 5 Aug 30 Peter Scott/Manage (64) New File <DIR020> X.500 service at A 6 Aug 30 Peter Scott/Manage (39) New File <NET016> DATAPAC Informatio 7 Aug 28 Peter Scott/Manage (67) Proposed Usenet group for HYTELNET n 8 Aug 28 Peter Scott/Manage (56) New File <DIR019> JANET Public Acces 9 Aug 26 Helen Trillian Ros (15) Tuesday 10 Aug 26 Peter Scott/Manage (151) Update <CWK004> Oxford University OU You can use any of the following commands by pressing the first character; d)elete or u)ndelete mail, m)ail a message, r)eply or f)orward mail, q)uit To read a message, press <return>. j = move down, k = move up, ? = help
Each line shows the date you received the message, who sent it, how many lines long the message is, and the message's subject.
If you are using VT100 emulation, you can move up and down the menu with your up and down arrow keys. Otherwise, type the line number of the message you want to read or delete and hit enter.
When you read a message, it pauses every 24 lines, instead of scrolling until it's done. Hit the space bar to read the next page. You can type a lower-case "r" to reply or a lower-case "q" or "i" to get back to the menu (the I stands for "index").
At the main menu, hitting a lower-case "m" followed by enter will let you start a message. To delete a message, type a lower-case "d". You can do this while reading the message. Or, if you are in the menu, move the cursor to the message's line and then hit D.
When you're done with Elm, type a lower-case "q". The program will ask if you really want to delete the messages you marked. Then, it will ask you if you want to move any messages you've read but haven't marked for deletion to a "received" file. For now, hit your n key.
Elm has a major disadvantage for the beginner. The default text editor it generally calls up when you hit your "r" or "m" key is often a program called emacs. Unixoids swear by emacs, but everybody else almost always finds it impossible. Unfortunately, you can't always get away from it (or vi, another text editor often found on Unix systems), so later on we'll talk about some basic commands that will keep you from going totally nuts.
Pine is based on elm but includes a number of improvements that make it an ideal mail system for beginners. Like elm, pine starts you with a menu. It also has an "address book" feature that is handy for people with long or complex e-mail addresses. Hitting A at the main menu puts you in the address book, where you can type in the person's first name (or nickname) followed by her address. Then, when you want to send that person a message, you only have to type in her first name or nickname, and pine automatically inserts her actual address. The address book also lets you set up a mailing list. This feature allows you to send the same message to a number of people at once.
What really sets pine apart is its built-in text editor, which looks and feels a lot more like word-processing programs available for MS-DOS and Macintosh users. Not only does it have word wrap (a revolutionary concept if ever there was one, it also has a rwspell-checker and a search command. Best of all, all of the commands you need are listed in a two-line mini-menu at the bottom of each screen. The commands look like this:
^W Where is
The little caret is a synonym for the key marked "control" on your keyboard. To find where a particular word is in your document, you'd hit your control key and your W key at the same time, which would bring up a prompt asking you for the word to look for.
Some of pine's commands are a tad peculiar (control-V for "page down" for example), which comes from being based on a variant of emacs (which is utterly peculiar). But again, all of the commands you need are listed on that two-line mini-menu, so it shouldn't take you more than a couple of seconds to find the right one.
To use pine, type
pine
at the command line and hit enter. It's a relatively new program, so many systems do not yet have it online. But it's so easy to use, you should probably send e-mail to your system administrator urging him to get it!
When you're involved in an online discussion, you can't see the
smiles or shrugs that the other person might make in a live
conversation to show he's only kidding. But online, there's no body
language. So what you might think is funny, somebody else might take as
an insult. To try to keep such misunderstandings from erupting into
bitter disputes, we have smileys. Tilt your head to the left and look at
the following sideways. :-). Or simply :).
This is your basic "smiley."
Use it to indicate people should not take that comment you just made as
seriously as they might otherwise. You make a smiley by typing a colon,
a hyphen and a right parenthetical bracket. Some people prefer using the
word "grin," usually in this form:
<grin>
Sometimes, though, you'll see it as *grin* or even just <g> for short. Some other smileys include:
;-)
:-(
:-O
8-)
=|:-)=
OK, so maybe the last two are a little bogus :-).
If you connect to the Net through a Unix system, eventually you'll have to come to terms with Unix. For better or worse, most Unix systems do NOT shield you from their inner workings -- if you want to copy a Usenet posting to a file, for example, you'll have to use some Unix commands if you ever want to do anything with that file.
Like MS-DOS, Unix is an operating system - it tells the computer how to do things. Now while Unix may have a reputation as being even more complex than MS-DOS, in most cases, a few basic, and simple, commands should be all you'll ever need.
If your own computer uses MS-DOS or PC-DOS, the basic concepts will seem very familiar -- but watch out for the cd command, which works differently enough from the similarly named DOS command that it will drive you crazy. Also, unlike MS-DOS, Unix is case sensitive -- if you type commands or directory names in the wrong case, you'll get an error message.
If you're used to working on a Mac, you'll have to remember that Unix stores files in "directories" rather than "folders." Unix directories are organized like branches on a tree. At the bottom is the "root" directory, with sub-directories branching off that (and sub-directories in turn can have sub-directories). The Mac equivalent of a Unix sub-directory is a folder within another folder.
cat
cd
cd and the two
periods -- this is where MS-DOS users will really go nuts.
cp
ls
dir command, except in
alphabetical order.
ls |more
`ls -l' will tell you the size of each file in bytes and tell you when each was created or modified.
mv
`mv file1 News' would move file1 to your News directory.
rm
ls man*
would find the following files:
manual, manual.txt, man-o-man.
Use a question mark when you're sure about all but one or two characters. For example,
ls man?
would find a file called mane, but not one called manual.
There are a number of computer networks that are not directly tied to the Net, but to which you can still send e-mail messages. Here's a list of some of the larger networks, how to send mail to them and how their users can send mail to you:
user@aol.comAmerica Online users who want to send mail to you need only put your Net address in the "to:" field before composing a message.
internet!domain!userSo if your address were
internet!world.std.com!adamg
Bitnet users have it a little easier: They can usually send mail directly to your e-mail address without fooling around with it at all. So send them your address and they should be OK.
73727,545. To send mail to a CompuServe user, change the comma to a
period and add `@compuserve.com'; for example:
If you know CompuServe users who want to send you mail, tell them to GO MAIL and create a mail message. In the address area, instead of typing in a CompuServe number, have them type your address in this form:
>INTERNET:YourID@YourAddress.For example, `>INTERNET:adamg@world.std.com'. Note that both the `>' and the `:' are required.
Now comes the tricky part. You have to reverse the numbers and add to them the letters `f', `n' and `z' (which stand for "FidoNode," "network," and "zone'). For example, the address above would become
f190.n322.
Now add `fidonet.org' at the end, to get `f190.n322. z1.fidonet.org'. Then add `First Name.LastName@', to get
FirstName.LastName@f190.n322.z1.fidonet.org.Note the period between the first and last names. Whew!
The reverse process is totally different. First, the person has to have access to his or her BBS's "net mail" area and know the