e-mail Paul Lewis on paul@deadline.demon.co.uk
So what is this Internet? And why is it so important? These questions might have been asked a hundred years ago about the telephone. One American mayor is reported as saying then 'yes it's very interesting, I can see the time when every town will have one'. Now, in the developed world at least, practically every household has a telephone or access to one. Many have two or even three separate lines. In the hundred and twenty years since its invention the telephone has transformed our business and social lives. Like the telephone at the end of the nineteenth century, the Internet is a new means of communication for the end of the twentieth. And it will transform our children's and grandchildren's lives as the telephone has transformed ours - but much more quickly.
The Internet - often abbreviated to the Net - is simply a worldwide communications network for computers. It uses existing telephone links together with extra, high-speed connections between large companies, universities, and other organisations. At the heart of it are powerful computers which store and pass on information. Joining this network is easy. Get a home computer, connect it to your domestic telephone line, join an Internet service, and your window on the world of cyberspace is open. And what is cyberspace? It is where the Internet happens.
What can I do with it?
Just as you can use the phone to chat, to send a fax, or to talk to an answering machine, so you can use the Internet in a number of different ways. The oldest, and easiest to understand, is electronic mail, or e-mail. It's a mixture between a letter and a phone call. Sitting at your computer you type a message to someone. Your computer then connects to the telephone system, sends the message to a central computer which passes it on to a computer near to the other person. Next time they connect their computer to the telephone system, they get the message. And whether they are in Newhaven or New Zealand, all it costs is the price of a local phone call. Dozens of messages can be sent in a few seconds, so the cost of each can be a fraction of a penny. It is the cheapest way of communicating over long distances.
Of course, you can only send e-mail to someone else who has it, just as you can only telephone someone who is on the phone. But even if you think you do not know anyone on the Net, you probably do. If you have relatives or friends who work or study at a university or a large company the chances are they will have an e-mail address and you will be able to send them messages wherever they - or you - are in the world. Estimates of the number of individuals on the Internet vary, though in the UK it is certainly in the hundreds of thousands. One thing everyone agrees on is that the number is growing rapidly.
Apart from people you know, you can easily make new friends through the Internet - without using dating agencies though they are certainly there if you want them! There are around 70,000 worldwide discussion groups with subjects ranging from pigeon racing to knitting, and from astronomy to Volkswagens. Discussion groups come in two forms - e-mail groups and Newsgroups but both work much the same. Every message that is sent to the group's address is automatically forwarded by their computer to everyone else in the group - that could be a few dozen or several thousand. You can just read the messages or join in if you want. You can ask questions, start topics off, or simply enjoy exchanging views with people all over the world who share your interest. If you do make new friends then you can e-mail them privately so the rest of the group do not see your correspondence. You are not limited to words - you can send pictures, numbers, sounds, software - anything that a computer can handle.
One of my interests is Victorian literature. Through a group I belong to I have found people in Australia, Korea, France, and the United States of America with whom I can chat and share information. I have got hold of articles on subjects that interest me, and tracked down books in overseas bookshops. These are things I could not do in any other way.
Magazines and pictures
The most recent use of the Internet - and the one which has propelled it to such public prominence - is the world wide web, often known simply as the Web. If e-mail is the computer equivalent of letters, then the world wide web is a vast electronic magazine on every subject under the sun. The Web enables you to find information on thousands of topics and bring it to your home computer screen in full colour, illustrated pages. Some even have sound or moving pictures, though not all computers can make full use of these.
There are far more Web pages than one human being can ever take in - over 30 million at the last count. Fortunately, there are organisations which index the Web and let you search it. And, like most other things on the Internet, these indexes are free. You type in what interests you and within a few seconds the computer will list all the pages where those key words are found. You can then visit those pages and see if they have the information you want. Once you have found pages that interest you they will have connections to other pages on related topics. That is why it is called the Web, each part is connected to other parts and you can move through it in lots of different directions following the thread of what interests you. And your computer will remember every step you take so you can find your way back to things you passed on your journey.
Who is on the web?
Web pages can be put up by anybody. Most companies which connect you to the Net will let you have a few pages of your own free. So you can have your own Web site and tell the world what about yourself and your beliefs (a Web site is a collection of Web pages put there by one person or organisation). You can include photos of yourself, your grandchildren, or your cat! And you can share information about your hobbies. Anyone on the Net can see them from anywhere in the world at any time of the day or night.
There are also thousands of professional Web sites - financial services, car companies, Government departments, organisations for older people, newspapers, the BBC, weather maps, photographs from the space shuttle, movie databases, museum exhibitions, ecology campaigns, genealogy information, almost every subject you can think of.
The Internet is transforming the lives of those who have access to it. It is spreading out to affect us all. In many ways it is too complex to describe and too big to imagine. But it is really quite simple to use.
What does it cost?
Once you have a computer, using the Internet is not expensive, but the computer you need to do it will cost a lot. You can reckon to spend £1000 or more on a suitable machine and a few years from now someone will tell you it is out of date and has to be replaced. Once you have the machine you need to pay for five other things.
e-mail Paul Lewis on paul@deadline.demon.co.uk