howff: [scottish] meeting place, shelter, haunt....
howff: [scottish] meeting
place, shelter, haunt....
At its simplest it is a collection of networks of computers that share a common method for moving data between each other. What makes the Internet so popular is that it is relatively simple to pass messages and pictures to other people without worrying about what sort of computer they are using. Unfortunately the Internet can't actually do very much for you on its own, whatever you may think of the Internet it is just another tool, albeit a very powerful one.
The Internet allows you to share thoughts and ideas with others around the globe in a twinkling of few keystrokes. Of course you don't have to be altruistic in all this; the majority of Internet users just take advantage of information and services that others make available. So whether it is train timetables, opera programs, or details of houses for sale, the Internet has something for everyone.
The Internet works in practice because organisations called Internet Service Providers (ISPs) - eg. Howff - link together across the globe to form the backbone of the Internet. Indivduals and companies can then connect to their preferred ISP and thus communicate across the Internet to any other individual or organisation.
There are two sorts of computers connected to the Internet, those that are connected all the time and those that only connect now and again. The fact that the computers were manufactured by different companies and have different operating systems doesn't really count for much on Internet, they can all talk to each other because they all talk the same language.
The simplest and cheapest connection is made using a modem and a standard telephone line. A telephone line is used for passing sounds so it is necessary to turn the signals from the computers into sounds and this is basically what the modem does. Your computer is responsible for making the connection to the Internet and must know the telephone number to dial and some details about which part of the Internet backbone it is going to be connected. With howff this connection is free. Why not contact us for more information? If you can justify the cost then it is possible to connect your computer, or computers, permanently to the Internet using a leased line. Somewhere between the two type of connection is ISDN.
Originally the idea behind the Internet was to allow scientists to share very expensive computer resources by linking many research centres to a few dedicated super- computer centres. This simple system didn't last long once people discovered that they could use the network for other things like passing messages to each other to organise conferences and the like. From these simple beginnings the first simple Email applications emerged from which modern mail packages have evolved.
As was mentioned above the Internet grew out of the need to share resources between academic institutions in the USA. As with all these sort of things soon the academics in every country had their own Internet, in the UK this was known as the Joint Academic NETwork or JANET for short. These various national networks were linked together by various means to form the Internet. In no time at all most major research projects relied upon the Internet to bring together the resources required to make them a success.
The next big step was when commercial organisations started to connect their internal networks to the Internet. Initially commercial networks were connected to allow staff to co-operate with researchers in universities and other research centres, but eventually they started to talk to each other as well. This is in part of the reason for the phenomenal growth of the Internet; each network that is added brings another few thousand computers to the Internet at a stroke.
The shape of the Internet is changing very rapidly, but more importantly it is no longer a network with a focus on research. Today the reasons for using the Internet vary from legal contract negotiation to sharing recipes for bread. More importantly the Internet is becoming an essential business tool for communications between companies.
