Internet Basics

Internet & the World Wide Web

What is the Internet?

In the late 1960s, the United States Department of Defense (DOD) developed an experimental communication system called ARPANet. This network initially linked computer networks at U.S. military bases. It was later extended to include defense-related companies and research institutions. In the early 1980s these interconnected networks spread widely to include universities and other organizations. With the advent of personal computers, this network of networks spread rapidly worldwide.  This phenomenon of expanding networks became known as the Internet.

Today, the Internet exists globally.

What is the World Wide Web?

The World Wide Web, also known as the Web, is an architectural framework for accessing hypertext documents spread out over millions of computers all over the world. Historically, the Web started in 1989 at CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics. At this lab, large teams of scientists had worked together to carry out research on particle physics. These teams' members were located all over the European countries. Because of the need to share scientific documents and data, the Web was borned.

Tim Berners-Lee, the founder of the Web, proposed to link the hypertext documents for this lab in March 1989. In December 1991, a public demonstration of the Web was given at the Hypertext '91 conference in San Antonio, Texas. In February 1993, the first graphical interface browser, Mosaic was released.

More information can be found in the World Wide Web Consortium, www.w3.org/WWW/.

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ListServ and ChatRoom

What is a ListServ?

A ListServ is an electronic mailing list. By subscribing to a ListServ, you will be in touch with others having similar interests. ListServ provides a forum for discussion. 

The Internet provides thousands of discussion groups via e-mail by allowing users to place themselves on electronic mailing lists.  These mailing lists are maintained by software such as LISTSERV or Majordomo. The software automatically distributes an e-mail message from one member of a list to all other members on that list.

When you subscribe to a list, your name and e-mail address is automatically added to the list. You will receive a standard letter of welcome (via e-mail) telling you about the list. From that time on, you will receive all mail (postings) sent to the list by its members. You may follow the discussions or join in on them. If you respond, you can send your response to all members of the list or to an individual on the list. You can signoff (unsubscribe) from a list at any time. You can also get a listing of all the members of a list and their e-mail addresses.

What is a ChatRoom?

See: http://www.otn.net/chatroom/help.html

 

PLEASE HELP US KEEP THIS SITE CURRENT. To be effective, this site, as well as sites it refers to, must be updated frequently. We hope you, the users, will help us in this task. If you feel something here has not helped you, or that you have found a site elsewhere that covers the instructional material better, please let us know.

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Last updated (bc) 12/06/99

 

Last updated (bc) 8/30/98