The Internet is a giant
network of
computers located all over the world that communicate with each other.
The Internet is an international collection of computer
networks`
that all understand a standard system of addresses and commands,
connected together through backbone systems. It was started in 1969,
when the U.S. Department of Defence established a nationwide network to
connect a handful of universities and contractors. The original idea
was to increase computing capacity that could be shared by users in
many locations and to find out what it would take for computer networks
to survive a nuclear war or other disaster by providing multiple path
between users. People on the ARPNET (as this nationwide network was
originally called) quickly discovered that they could exchange messages
and conduct electronic "conferences" with distant colleagues for
purposes that had nothing to do with the military industrial complex.
If somebody else had something interesting stored on their computer, it
was a simple matter to obtain a copy (assuming the owner did not
protect it).
Over the years, additional networks joined which added access to more
and more computers. The first international connections, to Norway and
England, were added in 1973. Today thousands of networks and millions
of computers are connected to the Internet. It is growing so quickly
that nobody can say exactly how many users "On the Net".
The Internet is the largest repository of information which can
provide very very large network
resources. The network resources can be
divided into network
facilities resources and network information
resources. The network facilities resources provide us the ability of
remote computation and communication. The network information resources
provides us all kinds of information services, such as science,
education, business, history, law, art, and entertainment, etc.
The goal of your use of the Internet is exchanging messages or
obtaining information. What you need to know is that you can exchange
message with other computers on the Internet and use your computer as a
remote terminal on distant computers. But the internal details of the
link are less important, as long as it works. If you connect computers
together on a network, each computer must have a unique address, which
could be either a word or a number. For example, the address of Sam\''s
computer could be Sam, or a number.