"Online 101"

"Online Focus" - The Big Idea - May/June 1995
by Bayard Saunders

Reading about the on-line world is like listening to a group of visually challenged individuals describe an elephant: "It's very large." "No, the part I've touched is long and thin." "C'mon, I can feel it's rough and wrinkled!" Actually, no part of the Internet is wrinkled, but it is difficult to understand unless you have experienced the on-line universe yourself. If you have, you know that this new medium is a great teacher of literacy and patience - literacy, because reading and writing is currently the basis of on-line communication, and patience, which we ask you proficient "net surfers" to exercise here during this "On-Line 101" session, because in the on-line world, fast is never fast enough. Like Vince Lombardi, the famous coach, who used to start every season saying to his players, "This is a football," we begin this story of life on-line at the beginning.

"On-line" refers to computers connected to other computers, and has evolved to suggest communications via these computers. The connections have come to be known as networks: closed networks, those without connections to other computers, and open networks connected to other computers or other networks.

The Internet is an open network of open networks. It began as a military solution to the problem of sending launch signals to nuclear missiles via computer. Even if one or more of the computers or connections involved had been destroyed, this ultimate decentralized system (a very closed network) would deliver the launch command. Then the military opened the network to connect computers used by defense contractor companies and government researchers at universities during the cold war. The connections are maintained over a "backbone" of dedicated telephone lines which now circle the globe.

About the same time as the invention of the "personal" computer, universities opened their computer networks to their students, and businesses began to use their networks for e-mail, opening them to the general workforce. Students who graduated, and employees who left those companies, found themselves suffering from on-line withdrawal symptoms without access to an e-mail account or large computers. They began their own "networks." Closed at first, and called "electronic bulletin board systems," they were the predecessors of the proprietary commercial on-line services we know today as CompuServe, Prodigy, America Online, GEnie, e-World, ImagiNation, etc. Today, you can connect to this "world" through an on-line service or electronic bulletin board, or through an Internet access provider.

CompuServe initially provided a service connecting software and hardware companies with users to answer technical questions via e-mail or posted on "bulletin boards," a software version of real bulletin boards where no messages are private. They were the first to offer international access to their service, and are still primarily "text-based," using very few graphics. Prodigy, a joint project between IBM and Sears, was conceived as the "everyman's on-line service." It was built for easy access from the least powerful home computers and priced and designed to encourage usage by all members of the family.

America Online, a relatively late-bloomer in the industry, was designed to take advantage of the graphics capability of newer platforms and operating systems such as the Macintosh and Windows, and is now the fastest-growing and most popular service. Also primarily graphic in nature, the relative newcomer e-World, designed specifically for Apple computers, has had problems attracting both content providers and new users. GEnie and ImagiNation, the oldest and newest multiplayer services respectively, offer on-line real-time game playing with other subscribers. And realizing that the value of a network increases in direct proportion to the number of other networks it is connected to, all of the on-line proprietary services are planning to institute full Internet access (including the popular graphical World Wide Web browsers like Mosaic) by the end of this year.

Other companies, such as Delphi, Netcom, Portal and PSI are considered "internet service providers," and connect you to the resources of the internet, but provide little or no proprietary content. The Internet Network Information Center (InterNIC) reports some 160 registered around the country. Many smaller companies (Observer & Eccentric Newspaper), university alumni associations (Wayne State University and Oakland University), community-based non-profit groups (Greater Detroit Freenet) and even some libraries (Rochester, Farmington, etc.) offer various levels of these "connections." The connections can be "text-only" or may have graphics, depending on the software involved, your modem speed and the provider's outgoing connection to the Internet backbone.

Under ten dollars per month is the subscription cost most providers are struggling to offer now. Commercially, America Online was the first to break the barrier at $9.95 per month for five hours, plus $2.95 per hour after that. Prodigy matched this almost immediately, and CompuServe ($9.60 per hour) and the others continue to announce new pricing plans every few weeks. Internet Service Providers, and the other providers mentioned above, average between $30 per month and free access. But the price wars of 1994 will pale in comparison to what is ahead. The Microsoft Network, debuting with the new Windows '95 operating system, is rumored to be free of access charges. Similar speculation abounds about the new networkMCI and AT&T Networks (which I'll believe when the phone bill comes). So stay tuned.

Future On-line columns will focus on etiquette for using e-mail, joining newsgroups and ongoing discussions about your favorite topics, transferring free software to your computer, designing creative for advertising and marketing on-line, searching databases around the world, conducting real-time live on-line discussions or even focus groups, legislative issues concerning on-line communications, smart agents, freelancing on-line or "Virtual Creative Shops," and the convergence of on-line and interactive television technology.

If you are already on-line...

Fun with E-mail: 
To get notices about new "listserv" e-mail discussion groups to join!
	Send E-mail to: listserv@vm1.nodak.edu
	Subject: Subscribe
	Message: SUBSCRIBE new-list (Your First Name) (Your Last Name)
For a one-time notice of existing groups, change the Message text to: LIST GLOBAL

Fun with FTP:
To get Scott Yanoff's infamous "Internet Sevices List!"
	FTP (anonymous) csd4.csd.uwm.edu
	/pub/inet.services.txt

Fun with Gopher:
If you think "Reading is FUNdamental," try the mother of all Gophers at U. of Minnesota!
	Gopher to gopher.tc.umn.edu

Fun with World Wide Web:
Surf is up on these way-cool URLs (Uniform Resource Locators)!
	http://www.hotwired.com - Wired Magazine non-magazine on-line: a new paradigm!
	http://www.cad.ucla.edu/repository/useful/tarot.html - Have your Tarot Cards read!
	http://www.mistral.enst.fr/~pioch/louvre - Tour the Louvre in Paris from your desktop!
	http://www.sunsite.unc.edu/ianc - Well-curated underground Music archive!
	http://www.playboy.com - Playboy's Digital Showroom: shopping, no peeking!
	http://www.shopping2000.com - More shopping: try the San Fran Music Box Co.!

The only thing growing faster than the on-line world is the volume of books published about it. Although most of this information is available free on-line somewhere, curling up in front of the fire with a good laptop is not an option for everyone. Each of the commercial service providers offers how-to books about using their systems, but the systems are designed to be self-explanatory, and the books are more of a safety blanket than useful resource. Books about the Internet are a different story. The Internet is not as confusing as the popular media makes it out to be, but to really take advantage of its resources requires some learning. These are good places to start:

• The Whole Internet User's Guide and Catalog (O'Reilly & Associates)
• New Riders Official Internet Yellow Pages (New Riders, Indianapolis, 1994)
• Navigating the Internet (Smith & Gibbs, Sams Publishing, 1994)

Also, many local bookmongers now have sections of their stores devoted to computers and on-line services. But be wary of overpriced tomes promising to deliver the Internet to your doorstep - it just doesn't work that way.

To get on-line call:

• America Online - (800) 827-6364
• CompuServe - (800) 848-8199
• Prodigy - (800) 776-3449
• Delphi - (800) 695-4005
• Netcom - (800) 501-8649
• Greater Detroit Freenet - (810) 691-7077