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1995-05-15
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Copyright @ 1995 MSM Systems Ltd. 9802 W. Bell Rd., P.O Box 1184
Sun City, Arizona 85372. Reproduction or translation of any part of
this work beyond that permitted by section 107 or 108 of the Untied States
Copyright Act without the permission of the copyright owner is unlawful.
INTERNET WORLD WIDE WEB
This is an introduction to the World Wide Web project, describing the
concepts, software and access methods. It is aimed at people who know
a little about navigating the Internet, but want to know more about
WWW specifically.What are WWW, hypertext and hypermedia?
WWW stands for "World Wide Web". The WWW project, started by CERN (the
European Laboratory for Particle Physics), seeks to build a
distributed hypermedia system.
The advantage of hypertext is that in a hypertext document, if you
want more information about a particular subject mentioned, you can
usually "just click on it" to read further detail. In fact, documents
can be and often are linked to other documents by completely different
authors -- much like footnoting, but you can get the referenced
document instantly!
To access the web, you run a browser program. The browser reads
documents, and can fetch documents from other sources. Information
providers set up hypermedia servers which browsers can get documents
from.
The browsers can, in addition, access files by FTP, NNTP (the Internet
news protocol), gopher and an ever-increasing range of other methods.
On top of these, if the server has search capabilities, the browsers
will permit searches of documents and databases.
The documents that the browsers display are hypertext documents.
Hypertext is text with pointers to other text. The browsers let you
deal with the pointers in a transparent way -- select the pointer, and
you are presented with the text that is pointed to.
Hypermedia is a superset of hypertext -- it is any medium with
pointers to other media. This means that browsers might not display a
text file, but might display images or sound or animations.
What is a URL?
URL stands for "Uniform Resource Locator". It is a draft standard for
specifying an object on the Internet, such as a file or newsgroup.
URLs look like this:
* file://wuarchive.wustl.edu/mirrors/msdos/graphics/gifkit.zip
* file://wuarchive.wustl.edu/mirrors
* http://info.cern.ch:80/default.html
* news:alt.hypertext
* telnet://dra.com
The first part of the URL, before the colon, specifies the access
method. The part of the URL after the colon is interpreted specific to
the access method. In general, two slashes after the colon indicate a
machine name (machine:port is also valid).
In this document, you will often see URLs surrounded by angle
brackets. This is done because some newsreaders (I am told) can
recognize them and treat them as "buttons". Do not enter the angle
brackets when entering a URL by hand to your web browser.
When you are told to "check out this URL", what to do next depends on
your browser; please check the help for your particular browser. For
the line-mode browser at CERN, which you will quite possibly use first
via telnet, the command to try a URL is "GO URL" (substitute the
actual URL of course). In Lynx you just select the "GO" link on the
first page you see; in graphical browsers, there's usually an "Open
URL" option in the menus.
How can I access the web?
You have two options either use a browser that can be telnetted to,
or use a browser on your machine.
BROWSERS ACCESSIBLE BY TELNET
An up-to-date list of these is available on the Web as
http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/FAQ/Bootstrap.html and should be
regarded as an authoritative list.
info.cern.ch
No password is required. This is in Switzerland, so continental
US users might be better off using a closer browser.
ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
A full screen browser "Lynx" which requires a vt100 terminal.
Log in as www.
www.njit.edu
(or telnet 128.235.163.2) Log in as www. A full-screen browser
in New Jersey Institute of Technology. USA.
vms.huji.ac.il
(IP address 128.139.4.3). A dual-language Hebrew/English
database, with links to the rest of the world. The line mode
browser, plus extra features. Log in as www. Hebrew University
of Jerusalem, Israel.
sun.uakom.cs
Slovakia. Has a slow link, only use from nearby.
info.funet.fi
(or telnet 128.214.6.102). Log in as info. Not working.
fserv.kfki.hu
Hungary. Has slow link, use from nearby. Login is as www.
OBTAINING BROWSERS
The preferred method of access of the Web is to run a browser
yourself. Browsers are available for many platforms, both in source
and executable forms. Here is a list generated from the authoritative
list, http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/Clients.html.
Terminal based browsers
Line Mode Browser
This program gives W3 readership to anyone with a dumb
terminal. A general purpose information retrieval tool.
Available by anonymous ftp from info.cern.ch in the directory
/pub/www/src.
"Lynx" full screen browser
This is a hypertext browser for vt100s using full screen, arrow
keys, highlighting, etc. Available by anonymous FTP from
ftp2.cc.ukans.edu.
Tom Fine's perlWWW
A tty-based browser written in perl. Available by anonymous FTP
from archive.cis.ohio-state.edu in the directory pub/w3browser
as the file w3browser-0.1.shar.
For VMS
Dudu Rashty's full screen client based on VMS's SMG screen
management routines. Available by anonymous FTP from
vms.huji.ac.il in the directory www/www_client.
Emacs w3-mode
W3 browse mode for emacs. Uses multiple fonts when used with
Lemacs or Epoch. See the documentation. Available by anonymous
FTP from moose.cs.indiana.edu in the directory pub/elisp/w3 as
the files w3.tar.Z and extras.tar.Z.
PC Running Windows
NOTE: both of these browsers require that you have SLIP, PPP or other
TCP/IP networking on your PC. SLIP or PPP can be accomplished
over phone lines, but only with the active cooperation of your
network provider or educational institution. If you only have
normal dialup shell access, your best option at this time is to
run Lynx on the system you call.
Cello Browser from Cornell LII. Available by anonymous FTP from
fatty.law.cornell.edu in the directory /pub/LII/cello.
Mosaic for Windows
From NCSA. Available by anonymous FTP from ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu in
the directory PC/Mosaic.
PC Running DOS
There are NO MSDOS-based browsers at this time. See the section above
for Windows browsers. An MSDOS-based version of Lynx (with a built-in
image viewer, although images can't appear inline) is on its way; when
it is available, an announcement will appear in comp.infosystems.www.
There is no need to post looking for one.
Macintosh
NOTE: all of these browsers require that you have SLIP, PPP or other
TCP/IP networking on your PC. SLIP and PPP can be accomplished
over phone lines, but only with the active cooperation of your
network provider or educational institution. If you only have
normal dialup shell access, your best option at this time is to
run Lynx on the system you call.
Mosaic for Macintosh
From NCSA. Full featured. Available by anonymous FTP from
ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu in the directory Mac/Mosaic.
Samba From CERN. Basic. Available by anonymous FTP from info.cern.ch
in the directory /ftp/pub/www/bin as the file mac.
VMS Systems Running Xwindows
NCSA Mosaic for VMS Browser using X11/DecWindows/Motif. Multimedia
magic. Full http 1.0 support including PUT-method forms, image maps,
etc. Recommended if you can run it. Available by anonymous FTP from
ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu in the directory Mosaic.
Unix Systems Running Xwindows
NCSA Mosaic for X
Browser using X11/Motif. Multimedia magic. Full http 1.0
support including PUT-method forms, image maps, etc.
Recommended if you can run it. Available by anonymous FTP from
ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu in the directory Mosaic.
tkWWW Browser/Editor for X11
Browser/Editor for X11. (Beta test version.) Available for
anonymous ftp from export.lcs.mit.edu in the directory contrib
as tkWWW-0.10.tar.Z. (Note: this document may not be up to
date, so you may prefer to ftp to this site by hand and look
for an even newer version rather than using the link above.)
MidasWWW Browser
From Tony Johnson. (Beta, works well.)
Viola for X (Beta)
Two versions for X: one using Motif, one using Xlib (no Motif).
Handles HTML+ forms and tables. Has extensions for multiple
columning, collapsible/expandable list, client-side document
include. Available by anonymous FTP from ora.com in
/pub/www/viola. More information available at the URL
<http://xcf.berkeley.edu/ht/projects/viola/README>.
Chimera
Browser using Athena (doesn't require Motif). Supports forms,
inline images, etc.; closest to Mosaic in feel of the non-Motif
X11 browsers. Available for anonymous FTP from ftp.cs.unlv.edu
in the directory /pub/chimera.
NeXTStep
Browser-Editor on the NeXT
A browser/editor for NeXTStep. Allows wysiwyg hypertext
editing. Requires NeXTStep 3.0. Available for anonymous FTP
from info.cern.ch in the directory /pub/www/src.
Batch Mode
Batch mode browser
A batch-mode "browser", url_get, which is available through the
URL <http://wwwhost.cc.utexas.edu/test/zippy/url_get.html>. (I
am not aware of an anonymous FTP site for the same package at
present.) This package is intended for use in cron jobs and
other settings in which fetching a page in a command-line
fashion is useful.
Unreleased or Unsupported
Browser on CERNVM
A full-screen browser for VM. Nonexistent. Use the line mode
www. Might arrive suddenly one day.
Erwise
X-windows early browser. Unsupported, now of historical
interest only.
NJIT's Browser
Assumes a character-grid terminal with cursor addressing, and
provides a full-screen interface to the web.3.5: How does WWW
compare to gopher and WAIS?
While all of these information presentation systems are client-server
based, they differ in terms of their model of data. In gopher, data is
either a menu, a document, an index or a telnet connection. In WAIS,
everything is an index and everything that is returned from the index
is a document. In WWW, everything is a (possibly) hypertext document
which may be searchable.
In practice, this means that WWW can represent the gopher (a menu is a
list of links, a gopher document is a hypertext document without links,
searches are the same, telnet sessions are the same) and WAIS (a WAIS
index is a searchable page, returning a document with no links) data
models as well as providing extra functionality.
The principal difference between the systems, it turns out, is
deployment. WWW does not have as large a user base as gopher, mainly
because of the small number of WWW browsers that are out. This is
changing as WWW reaches critical mass (usage of the server at CERN
doubles every 4 months -- twice the rate of Internet expansion).
MSM Systems, Ltd.