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<TITLE>Acorn Internet: Introduction</TITLE>
<META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="Internet Assistant for Microsoft Word 2.04z">
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<TABLE WIDTH=100%>
<TR><TD>
<BODY bgcolor="#ffffff"><A NAME="_Toc401045811"><FONT SIZE=6>1 <A NAME="Introduction">Introduction</A></FONT></A>
</TD><TD ALIGN="RIGHT"><A HREF="prelms"><IMG SRC="MiscImages/PREV" WIDTH="36" HEIGHT="36" BORDER="0"></A><A HREF="../Cover"><IMG SRC="MiscImages/START" WIDTH="36" HEIGHT="36" BORDER="0"></A><A HREF="prelms"><IMG SRC="MiscImages/CONTS" WIDTH="36" HEIGHT="36" BORDER="0"></A><A HREF="setup"><IMG SRC="MiscImages/NEXT" WIDTH="36" HEIGHT="36" BORDER="0"></A>
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<HR>
<H2><A NAME="Acorn">Acorn</A> Internet</H2>
<P>
<FONT SIZE=3>Acorn Internet software gives you everything you
need to browse the World Wide Web, send and receive email, and
read and participate in global newsgroups.</FONT>
<H3>Controlling access and costs</H3>
<P>
<FONT SIZE=3>Acorn Internet software is easy to configure
and to use. Great emphasis has been placed on control and observation,
to ensure that users have access only to approved newsgroups,
email addresses and Web pages. </FONT>
<P>
<FONT SIZE=3>Acorn Internet software also helps you control telephone
line costs, with frequency and length of connection being fully
configurable. Reports on connect times, news and email volume
are available to the user at any time.</FONT>
<P>
<H2>Back<A NAME="Background">ground</A></H2>
<H3>What is the Internet?</H3>
<P>
<FONT SIZE=3>The Internet is a global network of networks, with
tens of millions of users world wide. It covers a wide range of
services - electronic mail (email), bulletin boards, newsgroups,
file transfer, remote logon and the World Wide Web. </FONT>
<P>
<FONT SIZE=3>The World Wide Web is a hypermedia-linked information
server system which can handle `pages' of text, pictures and even
audio. This entire network of pages can be potentially interlinked,
with links on one page bringing related information that's on
another page. Sitting at your computer, you can bring one page
to your computer screen from a computer in Australia, read its
contents, and then by clicking a mouse button, bring more pages
of related information from a computer in Alaska. You traverse
the Internet by moving from one page to another via links - this
is what is meant by <I>surfing the net</I>.</FONT>
<P ALIGN="CENTER">
<IMG SRC="Diagrams/Img00003" WIDTH="560" HEIGHT="332">
<P>
<FONT SIZE=3>Of the range of Internet services, Acorn Internet
software provides the main ones - email, news and a Web `browser'.</FONT>
<H3>The origins of the Internet</H3>
<P>
<FONT SIZE=3>The origins of Internet go back to the mid-seventies,
out of a need to connect together the US Defense Department ARPAnet
and various other radio and satellite networks. With nuclear war
in mind, it had to be as tolerant of network breakdowns as possible,
so was set up as a `peer-to-peer' network - each computer communicating
with every other one as an equal. Data was sent in Internet Protocol
(IP) packets, addressed to the destination machine.</FONT>
<P>
<FONT SIZE=3>The same IP networking software came with Berkeley
UNIX workstations, which proliferated in Local Area Networks in
the eighties. It soon became clear that these local networks could
be connected to the ARPAnet, so that every workstation on a site
could access ARPAnet facilities.</FONT>
<P>
<FONT SIZE=3>In the late eighties, the National Science Foundation
(NSF) set up five supercomputer centres in the United States,
and every university was connected to these centres via its own
regional network. This NSFNET provided the basis of the present-day
Internet network in the US, to which networks in the United Kingdom
and other countries are connected. NSFNET, NASA Science Internet
and other US federal agency networks recently joined forces to
form the National Research and Education Network (NREN).</FONT>
<P>
<FONT SIZE=3>The Internet was originally used by universities,
research establishments, companies and government departments
to communicate with each other and share resources. Increasingly,
though, private subscribers are joining, via a growing number
of service providers.</FONT>
<P>
<FONT SIZE=3>The core of the Internet is a TCP/IP network, but
many other non-IP networks (such as Acorn Econet, BITNET and DECnet)
have found ways to connect to it. This means that almost anyone
with a computer can join it, either via a gateway between their
own network and the Internet, or by leasing an account on a computer
with a full connection to the Internet, and communicating via
that computer, using a modem and telephone line. `The Internet'
has therefore come to mean not just the original TCP/IP network,
but the global community of disparate interconnected computers.</FONT>
<H3>What is the World Wide Web?</H3>
<P>
<FONT SIZE=3>The World Wide Web (also known as WWW, W3 or simply
"the Web") attempts to organise information on the Internet
as a set of hypertext or hypermedia documents. </FONT>
<P>
<FONT SIZE=3>In a hypertext document, if you want more information
about a particular subject mentioned, you just click your mouse
button over a highlighted word or picture to bring another, linked
page of information to your screen. Hypermedia links will not
only bring you a page to read but also bring images, and play
video and sound clips - all at the click of your mouse button.
Most pages on the World Wide Web provide these built-in links
to other pages.</FONT>
<P>
<FONT SIZE=3>If all the early running in developing the Internet
was made in the United States, the development of the World Wide
Web has been a truly international phenomenon. It began as a networked
information project of Englishman Tim Berners-Lee at CERN (the
European Laboratory for Particle Physics in Switzerland) in 1989.
The aim was to build a distributed hypermedia system, that is,
a system where information of interest to the scientific research
community and in different file formats- text, pictures, movies,
and so on - was stored across many different computers in different
locations, and which could be accessed by pointing and clicking.
</FONT>
<P>
<FONT SIZE=3>Once a graphical interface for the Web, Mosaic, was
developed by the National Centre for Supercomputing Applications
(NCSA) in Illinois, the project rapidly grew to cover more and
more resources, computers and users across the Internet. In January
1993, there were just 50 World Wide Web servers world-wide: by
October 1993 this number had grown to 500. Currently, there are
over 1000 World Wide Web servers in the UK alone. </FONT>
<H3>Who controls the Internet?</H3>
<P>
<FONT SIZE=3>The Internet is not run by one company, although
some corporate networks that form part of it may be. There is
a voluntary body, called the Internet Society (or ISOC), which
appoints a council of elders responsible for the technical management
and direction of the Internet. But generally speaking the Internet
is an informal, self-governing community. As in any social group,
if members behave badly, the others shun them or let them know
what they think about it. </FONT>
<P>
<FONT SIZE=3>Your company or school may have its own Internet
rules. Find out what they are, and be sure to follow them.</FONT>
<P>
<FONT SIZE=3>There are a few general rules, however, that you
should be aware of:</FONT>
<H4>Commercial use</H4>
<P>
<FONT SIZE=3>When you join the Internet, you may be asked if your
intended use is Commercial, or Research and Education. If the
latter, your calls may be routed in the US over subsidised federal
NSFNET routes, rather than more expensive commercial ones. Research
and Education users, therefore, should not subsequently engage
in commercial activities over the Internet.</FONT>
<P>
<FONT SIZE=3>Even amongst company users, there is still a lot
of feeling against blatant commercialism on the Internet. The
ability to find out about commercial products is a good thing,
and World Wide Web pages are particularly useful for this purpose,
but most users do not want to be bombarded with unsolicited promotions.</FONT>
<H4>Legal issues</H4>
<P>
<FONT SIZE=3>Through the Internet you can have access to information
and products which are the result of personal, public or commercial
research and development. Before you use these for your own purposes,
make sure that you obtain any necessary permissions to do so.</FONT>
<P>
<FONT SIZE=3>The Internet is international, so anything you send
could go anywhere in the world. Sending data to another country
is considered to be exporting. Exporting any restricted information
or product, or granting access to a supercomputer or sensitive
database over the Internet may require an export licence. Usually,
information that is available to the general public is not considered
to be restricted, but information available in universities, government
departments and companies may be. If in doubt, seek legal advice.</FONT>
<H3>Network ethics and `Netiquette'</H3>
<P>
<FONT SIZE=3>Because the Internet is so open and comparatively
unfettered, it is also open to abuse. The main threats to the
Internet are</FONT>
<UL>
<LI><FONT SIZE=3>excessive use for unintended purposes</FONT>
<LI><FONT SIZE=3>political pressures.</FONT>
</UL>
<P>
<FONT SIZE=3>The two are linked. If your employer or school is
paying for your Internet connection, they will not take kindly
to you participating in an all-day multi-user computer game over
the Internet. Even if you are paying for your own connection,
parts of the Internet (NSFNET, for example) are state-subsidised,
and should not be abused in this way. If they are, there will
be political pressure to cut the subsidy. </FONT>
<P>
<FONT SIZE=3>The same goes for personal attacks and rude and antisocial
behaviour, and making obscene files available over the Internet.
If this happens too often, those who pay for Internet will either
withdraw funding, or impose restrictive controls on the network
which reduce its effectiveness and ease of use.</FONT>
<P>
<FONT SIZE=3>If these very reasonable restrictions are borne in
mind, the Internet is a very liberal environment, where individualism
and self-expression are encouraged. </FONT>
<P>
<FONT SIZE=3>Once you are connected to the Internet, you can get
some useful guidance on Internet behaviour from the newsgroup
news.announce.newusers, including Frequently-Asked Questions (FAQs).
(See the appendix <A HREF="appxa" >Acronyms and Smilies</A> for more information on net-speak.)</FONT>
<H2>How do I get an Internet <A NAME="How">connection?</A></H2>
<P>
<FONT SIZE=3>You should contact one of the Internet service providers.
For a fee (usually a monthly payment) they provide a connection
to the Internet, via a UK telephone number which your computer
dials up using a modem. Many of the service providers offer local
rate calls, so that you can communicate over Internet anywhere
in the world, and still pay local charges.</FONT>
<P>
<FONT SIZE=3>When you are connected to the Internet, you can send
and receive electronic mail and access news on bulletin boards.</FONT>
<H3>Internet service providers</H3>
<P>
<FONT SIZE=3>These are some of the best-known service providers
for the home and education user at the time of writing:</FONT>
<H4>Demon Internet</H4>
<P>
<FONT SIZE=3>Telephone: 0181 371 1234</FONT>
<P>
<FONT SIZE=3>Local access nation-wide (including IoW and IoM)</FONT>
<P>
<FONT SIZE=3>Email address: enquiries@demon.net</FONT>
<P>
<FONT SIZE=3>Web: <A HREF="http://www.demon.net/"> http://www.demon.net/</A></FONT>
<H4>Pipex (UUNET UK)</H4>
<P>
<FONT SIZE=3>Telephone: 01223 250120</FONT>
<P>
<FONT SIZE=3>Local access in most areas</FONT>
<P>
<FONT SIZE=3>Email address: sales@uk.uu.net</FONT>
<P>
<FONT SIZE=3>Web:<A HREF="http://www.pipex.com/"> http://www.pipex.com/</A></FONT>
<H4>Zynet</H4>
<P>
<FONT SIZE=3>Telephone: 01392 209500</FONT>
<P>
<FONT SIZE=3>Local access in most areas</FONT>
<P>
<FONT SIZE=3>Email address: sales@zynet.net</FONT>
<P>
<FONT SIZE=3>Web: <A HREF="http://www.zynet.co.uk/"> http://www.zynet.co.uk/</A></FONT>
<P>
<FONT SIZE=3>Many of these organisations are growing, and may
have more access points (`points of presence') by the time you
read this.</FONT>
<P>
<FONT SIZE=3>Other providers supported by Acorn Internet software
at the time of writing are:</FONT>
<UL>
<LI><FONT SIZE=3>Aladdin</FONT>
<LI><FONT SIZE=3>Argonet</FONT>
<LI><FONT SIZE=3>Bournemouth</FONT>
<LI><FONT SIZE=3>Colloquium</FONT>
<LI><FONT SIZE=3>Dorset</FONT>
<LI><FONT SIZE=3>Dungeon</FONT>
<LI><FONT SIZE=3>Frontier</FONT>
<LI><FONT SIZE=3>Pavilion</FONT>
<LI><FONT SIZE=3>Poptel</FONT>
<LI><FONT SIZE=3>Power</FONT>
<LI><FONT SIZE=3>Pronet</FONT>
<LI><FONT SIZE=3>RM plc.</FONT>
</UL>
<H3>What you should get</H3>
<P>
<FONT SIZE=3>Your service provider acts as a gateway between you
and the Internet, and may also offer additional facilities that
you can make use of, such as security, censorship or even separate
on-line services.</FONT>
<P>
<FONT SIZE=3>Your provider will probably be able to offer you
a choice of options and services, so that you can choose the type
of account that suits you best. Some of these choices may be:</FONT>
<H4>ISDN or telephone connection</H4>
<P>
<FONT SIZE=3>ISDN is more costly, but gives better response, and
is a serious option for a medium to large networked site. You
will need to purchase an ISDN router. If you have one of these,
you will be allocated a static IP address, so you can take advantage
of SMTP mail delivery (see below).</FONT>
<H4>SLIP or PPP</H4>
<P>
<FONT SIZE=3>These are means of communicating down a telephone
line to provide a connection between the provider and your server
machine. SLIP is simple, but rather outdated; PPP is more secure
and can be faster. SLIP software is not provided with Acorn Internet, but can be obtained from Gnome Computers if required.</FONT>
<H4>SMTP or POP3</H4>
<P>
<FONT SIZE=3>SMTP and POP are means of downloading mail stored
temporarily by your provider. SMTP allows the mail for a whole
site to be downloaded into the mail server machine in one go.
POP3 is intended for single users and mail is read directly from
your provider. </FONT>
<P>
<FONT SIZE=3>SMTP requires a static IP address to be allocated
to you, and these are becoming increasingly difficult to obtain.</FONT>
<H4>Static or dynamic IP address allocation</H4>
<P>
<FONT SIZE=3>If you wish to serve web pages from your site (see
<A HREF="wpages#Serving" >Serving pages</A>), you will need
to purchase a service that gives you a static address, so that
others outside know how to find you. Otherwise, a dynamically-allocated
address is adequate. This means that every time you dial up, you
will be allocated a temporary IP address for that session. As
mentioned earlier, you can only make use of SMTP delivery if you
have a static IP address.</FONT>
<H4><FONT SIZE=3>Name server</FONT></H4>
<P>
<FONT SIZE=3>For web access, you should use a 'name server' that
can translate web requests from the web-server name to its equivalent
IP address. Your local provider should be able to provide details
of this service.</FONT>
<H4><FONT SIZE=3>Web cache</FONT></H4>
<P>
<FONT SIZE=3>Web pages tend to contain a lot of data, so take
a comparatively long time to load. There is consequently a benefit
to `cache' (store) frequently-used web pages locally, to cut down
access times and net traffic. Acorn Internet software provides
a cache for your server machine, and service providers may also
offer caches on their servers, known as proxy caches, to which
you can direct your own cache - to give an even better Web response.</FONT>
<H4><FONT SIZE=3>PoP</FONT></H4>
<P>
<FONT SIZE=3>When you have chosen the type of service appropriate
for your needs, your provider will then advise you of the nearest
PoP (point of presence) which should be a local charge number.</FONT>
<H4><FONT SIZE=3>Hostname</FONT></H4>
<P>
<FONT SIZE=3>You will agree with your provider a unique host name
and password for your account.</FONT>
<P>
<FONT SIZE=3>The host name, or Internet address, that people will
use to send mail to you, takes the form of</FONT>
<P>
<TT><FONT FACE="Courier">username@hostname.service_provider_address</FONT></TT>
<P>
<FONT SIZE=3>for example:<BR>
</FONT>
<P>
<TABLE WIDTH=100%>
<TR><TD WIDTH=73><TT><FONT FACE="Courier">plug</FONT></TT>
</TD><TD WIDTH=104><TT><FONT FACE="Courier">@bashstrt.</FONT></TT>
</TD><TD WIDTH=180><TT><FONT FACE="Courier">demon.co.uk</FONT></TT>
</TD></TR>
<TR><TD WIDTH=73><TT>user</TT></TD><TD WIDTH=104><TT>Host name</TT>
</TD><TD WIDTH=180><TT>service provider</TT></TD></TR>
</TABLE>
<P>
<FONT SIZE=3>You can fill in details of your chosen provider in
the table below for quick reference:<BR>
</FONT>
<P>
<TABLE BORDER=1>
<TR><TD WIDTH=140><FONT SIZE=3>Service provider name</FONT></TD>
<TD WIDTH=236></TD></TR>
<TR><TD WIDTH=140><FONT SIZE=3>Location</FONT></TD><TD WIDTH=236>
</TD></TR>
<TR><TD WIDTH=140><FONT SIZE=3>Telephone number</FONT></TD><TD WIDTH=236>
</TD></TR>
<TR><TD WIDTH=140><FONT SIZE=3>SMTP / POP3</FONT></TD><TD WIDTH=236>
</TD></TR>
<TR><TD WIDTH=140><FONT SIZE=3>Hostname</FONT></TD><TD WIDTH=236>
</TD></TR>
<TR><TD WIDTH=140><FONT SIZE=3>Password</FONT></TD><TD WIDTH=236>
</TD></TR>
<TR><TD WIDTH=140><FONT SIZE=3>Web proxy address</FONT></TD><TD WIDTH=236>
</TD></TR>
<TR><TD WIDTH=140><FONT SIZE=3>Nameserver</FONT></TD><TD WIDTH=236>
</TD></TR>
<TR><TD WIDTH=140><FONT SIZE=3>Static / dynamic IP</FONT></TD>
<TD WIDTH=236></TD></TR>
<TR><TD WIDTH=140><FONT SIZE=3>SLIP / PPP / ISDN</FONT></TD><TD WIDTH=236>
</TD></TR>
</TABLE>
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