Story of the Internet

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Story of the Internet

• Presented by
• George Jor

TESOL PCI 24 "Success on the Net for
beginners" Tuesday, March 9, 1999, 8 am-12 noon
at Columbia University TESOL'99 at New York City
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Outline

• A short video segment to introduce the Net and
  the Web
• What is the Internet?
• How did it originate?
• How do you get there?
• What are the major types of Internet resources?
• What are Internet Service Providers (ISP)?
• What should you know about safety on the Internet?

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A short video segment to introduce the Net and
the Web

• In this Pre-Conference Institute, we'll give
  audience a user-friendly introduction to the
  Internet and the World Wide Web beginning with a
  short video segment featuring Vint Cerf, a
  pioneering architect of the Internet, and Tim
  Bernard Lee, inventor of the Web.

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What is the Internet?

• A huge network of computer networks known as the
  "information superhighway"
• Not owned by any one institution, or government.
  No CEO. Sometimes it is known as "the most
  successful anarchy in history

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Some facts of the Net according to Network
Wizards Internet Domain Survey

• Estimated some 43.23 million Internet hosts (as
  of January, 1999)
• Host Count Graph (1991-1999) http//www.nw.com/zon
  e/hosts.gif
• Host Count Graph (1991-1999) http//www.nw.com/zon
  e/hosts.gif
• Web Growth Summary - exponential, double every 3
  - 6 months since 1993.http//www.mit.edu/people/m
  kgray/net/web-growth-summary.htmlaccessible in
  over 100 countries, more than 1,000,000 Web
  servers worldwide (as of January, 1998)the
  average Web user is 35.2 years old and access
  primarily from home.
• Internet Trends (nice graphs) http//www.genmagic.
  com/Internet/Trends/index.html14 slides showing
  Internet growth provided by Tony Rutkowski
  General Magic. Start with slide 3 - Internet
  Hosts 1989-1997 - to get an idea of the
  exponential growth of the Internet.
  http//www.nw.com/zone/WWW/top.html

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How did it originate?Grew out of academic,
governmental and military communities

• 1969 Department of Defense, ARPAnet (Advanced
  Research Project Agency)
• 1971 Linked 2 dozen sites including MIT and
  Harvard.
• 1980s NSFnet own network (National Science
  Foundation Network)
• 1991 Senator Al Gore proposed NSFnet be expanded
  to NREN (National Research and Educational
  Network)
• 1992 World Wide Web software released first
  graphical user interface (GUI)
• 1994 Netscape Communications released Netscape
  Navigator browser
• 1995 Microsoft released Internet Explorer
• 1997 The two browsers competed for a place on
  each Internet user's computer.
• 1998 The browser war continued.

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How do you get there?

• Hardware
• Macintosh (with a CPU of 60480 or higher)
• PC (with a CPU of 80486 or higher)
• At least 4MB RAM (8 is recommended)
• A 250 MB hard drive
• Software
• E-mail software (Eudora, PINE Program for
  Internet News E-mail, etc.)
  
• World Wide Web browsers (such as Netscape
  Navigator, etc.)
• File Transfer Protocol (Fetch for Macintosh,
  WS_FTP for Window)
• Connectivity
• Dai-up with Modem (28.8 Kbps or 56.6KKbps) to a
  server
• Dedicated high speed network T1 (10 Mbps) and T3
  (100 Mbps), etc.

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What are the major types of Internet resources?

• Email listservs (or mailservs)
• World Wide Web (WWW) e.g. TESOL'99
  http//www.tesol.edu/conv/t99.html
• Conferences and threaded discussion
• File Transfer Protocol (FTP)
• Telnet
• Discussion or Usenet newsgroups
• Gopher
• Chat. E.g. with AOL Instant Messenger, ICQ, etc.
• MUDs and their many variants (MOO, MUSH, etc.)

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What are Internet Service Providers (ISP)?

• America Online (AOL) http//www.aol.com/
• CompuServe http//www.compuserve.com
• Prodigy http//www.prodigy.com
• List of Internet Service Providers
  http//thelist.internet.com/

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What should you know about safety on the Internet?

• The internet has no governing body through which
  laws and policies are enforced. The
  responsibility for safety and security on the
  Internet rests with those who use it.
  
• Communications Decency Acts (CDA), Feb. 8 ,1996
  In July, 1997, the US Supreme Court ruled 7-2
  that the CDA was a violation of the First
  Amendment and thus unconstitutional. Common
  sense dictates some basic rules of conduct.
• Student Safety on the Net http//spot.colorado.edu
  /blackl/admin/childsafety.html( Cyber Patrol,
  CYBERsitter, Net Nanny, SurfWatch, etc.)

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Thank you for your interest

• Contact e-mail address
• george-jor_at_cuhk.edu.hk
• http//www.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/cmc/instruction/tesol
  pci99.html