












The Internet Menu

                                                 The Internet Menu Manual
                                                            Date: 1/12/94



















Vinit S. Carpenter

carpenterv@vms.csd.mu.edu


























Copyright (c) 1993 Vinit S. Carpenter
All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use in any forms, with or without modification, are permitted
provided that the following conditions are met:

        Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of
        conditions and the following disclaimer. 

        Redistributions in any other form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this
        list of  conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other
        materials provided with the distribution.


This software is provided ``as is'' and any express or implied warranties, including, but
not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular
purpose are disclaimed.  No CHANGES are to be made to this document  without the
author's written consent.
Preface:

We are truly in an information society.  Now more that ever, moving vast amounts of
information quickly across great distances is one of our most pressing needs.  From
small one-person entrepreneurial efforts, to the largest of corporations, more and more
professional people are discovering that the only way to be succesful in the 90's and
beyond is to realize that technology is advancing at a break-neck pace-and they must
somehow keep up.  Likewise, researchers from all corners ofthe earth are finding that
their work thrives in a networked environment.  Immediate access to the work of
colleagues and a "virtual" library of millions of volumes and thousands of papers
affords them the ability to encorporate a body of knowledge heretofore unthinkable.

The largest problem people face when first using the Internet is grasping all that's
available.  Even sesoned users find themselves suprised when they discover a new
service of feature that they'd never known even existed.  This is when the INTERNET
menu comes in:


What is the INTERNET MENU?

INTERNET.COM is a menu program that is basically a front-end menu to the Internet. 
This menu is supposed to provide a user with limited knowledge of VMS or the Internet
to use the resources of the Internet.  I feel this menu will also be very useful to even the
expert Internet travelers..  To access this menu, add this line in your login.com or
system login.com file.

         $ INT*ERNET :== @USER$DISK:[USER]INTERNET.COM

I feel that the easier we make access to information, the  more the user will get out of it,
which is ultimately better for everyone.  

To start up the menu in your own account, execute SETUP.COM that is included in this
archive.  SETUP.COM will define INT*ERNET as a symbol for your current session.
To access the menu, type in INT or INTERNET as your DCL '$' prompt

         $ INTERNET <return>

This will start the executution of INTERNET.COM.  The first thing you will see will be
the introductory credit screen.  Hit RETURN at that point to get to the main menu. 
Once you're placed in the main menu, you will have 12 differerent options in front of
you.  To access any of the sub-menu's, pick the number or letter corresponding to your
option and enter it at the prompt followd by hitting the RETURN key.  Since DCL is self-
documenting (no, really :-) ), I am not going to go into any more details about the inner
working of the program at this point.  I will briefly discuss some of the major items and
protocols that the menu will utilize.
 

TELNET:

         Telnet is a program that lets you use the power of the Internet to connect you to
databases, library catalogs, and other information resources around the world.  Want to
see what the weather's like in Vermont? Check on crop conditions in Azerbaijan? Get
more information about somebody whose name you've seen online? Telnet lets you do
this, and more.

         Most telnet sites are fairly easy to use and have online help systems. Most also
work best (and in some cases, only) with VT100 emulation.

FILE TRANSFER PROTOCOL(FTP):


         Hundreds of systems connected to Internet have file libraries, or archives,
accessible to the public. Much of this consists of free or low-cost shareware programs
for virtually every make of computer.  If you want a different communications program
for your IBM, or feel like playing a new game on your Amiga, you'll be able to get it from
the Net.
         But there are also libraries of documents as well.  If you want a copy of a recent
U.S. Supreme Court decision, you can find it on the Net.  Copies of historical
documents, from the Magna Carta to the Declaration of Independence are also yours
for the asking, along with a translation of a telegram from Lenin ordering the execution
of rebellious peasants.  You can also find song lyrics, poems, even summaries of every
"Lost in Space" episode ever made.  You can also find extensive files detailing
everything you could ever possibly want to know about the Net itself.  Starting ftp is as
easy as using telnet. At your host system's command line, type

         ftp site.name

and hit enter, where "site.name" is the address of the ftp site you want to reach.  One
major difference between telnet and ftp is that it is considered bad form to connect to
most ftp sites during their business hours (generally 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. local time).  This is
because transferring files across the network takes up considerable computing power,
which during the day is likely to be needed for whatever the computer's main function
is.  There are some ftp sites that are accessible to the public 24 hours a day, though. 
You'll find these noted in the list of ftp sites.

GOPHERS

gopher  n.    1. Any of various short tailed, burrowing mammals of  the family
              Geomyidae, of North America.  
         2. (Amer. colloq.)  Native or inhabitant of Minnesota: the Gopher State.   
         3. (Amer. colloq.) One who runs errands, does odd-jobs, fetches  or
         delivers documents for office staff.  
         4. (computer tech.) Software following a simple protocol for tunneling
         through a TCP/IP  internet.

The Internet Gopher client/server provides a distributed information delivery system
around which a world/campus-wide information system (CWIS) can readily be
constructed.   While providing a delivery vehicle for local information, Gopher facilitates
access to other Gopher and information servers throughout the world.


This is an excerpt from the Request For Comment (RFC # 1462) written by Ed Krol  at
the University of Illonois.  Ed Krol is also the author of The Whole Internet User's Guide
and Catalog.


Introduction

A commonly asked question is "What is the Internet?" The reason such a question gets
asked so often is because there's no agreed upon answer that neatly sums up the
Internet. The Internet can be thought about in relation to its common protocols, as a
physical collection of routers and circuits, as a set of shared resources, or even as an
attitude about interconnecting and intercommunication. Some common definitions given
in the past include:

        a network of networks based on the TCP/IP protocols, 

        a community of people who use and develop those networks, 

        a collection of resources that can be reached from those networks.


Today's Internet is a global resource connecting millions of users that began as an
experiment over 20 years ago by the U.S.  Department of Defense. While the networks
that make up the Internet are based on a standard set of protocols (a mutually agreed
upon method of communication between parties), the Internet also has gateways to
networks and services that are based on other protocols. The Internet was born about
20 years ago, trying to connect together a U.S. Defense Department network called the
ARPAnet and various other radio and satellite networks. The ARPAnet was an
experimental network designed to support military research--in particular, research
about how to build networks that could withstand partial outages (like bomb attacks)
and still function.  (Think about this when I describe how the network works; it may give
you some insight into the design of the Internet.) In the ARPAnet model, communication
always occurs between a source and a destination computer. The network itself is
assumed to be unreliable; any portion of the network could disappear at any moment
(pick your favorite catastrophe--these days backhoes cutting cables are more of a
threat than bombs). It was designed to require the minimum of information from the
computer clients. To send a message on the network, a computer only had to put its
data in an envelope, called an Internet Protocol
(IP) packet, and "address" the packets correctly. The communicating computers--not
the network itself--were also given the responsibility to ensure that the communication
was accomplished. The philosophy was that every computer on the network could talk,
as a peer, with any other computer.

What Makes Up the Internet?

What comprises the Internet is a difficult question; the answer changes over time. Five
years ago the answer would have been easy: "All the networks, using the IP protocol,
which cooperate to form a seamless network for their collective users." This would
include various federal networks, a set of regional networks, campus networks, and
some foreign networks.

More recently, some non-IP-based networks saw that the Internet was good. They
wanted to provide its services to their clientele. So they developed methods of
connecting these "strange" networks (e.g., Bitnet, DECnets, etc.) to the Internet. At first
these connections, called "gateways", merely served to transfer electronic mail
between the two networks. Some, however, have grown to translate other services
between the networks as well. Are they part of the Internet? Maybe yes and maybe no.
It depends on whether, in their hearts, they want to be. If this sounds strange, read
on--it gets stranger.

Who Governs the Internet?

In many ways the Internet is like a church: it has its council of elders, every member
has an opinion about how things should work, and you can either take part or not. It's
your choice. The Internet has no president, chief operating officer, or Pope. The
constituent networks may have presidents and CEO's, but that's a different issue;
there's no single authority figure for the Internet
as a whole.


The council of elders is a group of invited volunteers called the Internet Architecture
Board, or the IAB. The IAB meets regularly to "bless" standards and allocate resources,
like addresses. The Internet works because there are standard ways for computers and
software applications to talk to each other. This allows computers from different
vendors to communicate without problems.
It's not an IBM-only or Sun-only or Macintosh-only network. The IAB is responsible for
these standards; it decides when a standard is necessary, and what the standard
should be. When a standard is required, it considers the problem, adopts a standard,
and announces it via the network. (You were expecting stone tablets?) The IAB also
keeps track of various numbers (and
other things) that must remain unique. For example, each computer on the Internet has
a unique 32- bit address; no other computer has the same address. How does this
address get assigned? The IAB worries about these kinds of problems. It doesn't
actually assign the addresses, but it makes the rules about how to assign addresses.



International Connections

The Internet has been an international network for a long time, but it only extended to
the United States' allies and overseas military bases. Now, with the less paranoid world
environment, the Internet is spreading everywhere. It's currently in over 50 countries,
and the number is rapidly increasing. Eastern European countries longing for western
scientific ties have wanted to participate for a long time, but were excluded by
government regulation. This ban has been relaxed. Third world countries that formerly
didn't have the means to participate now view the Internet as a way to raise their
education and technology levels.

Release Notes:


v1.0     This was the first version of the menu.  The menu had 5 selection that
         included NEWS, FINGER, TELNET/FTP, INTERNET INFO and HELP.

v1.5     Started using escape sequences to make the menu for attractive.

v2.0     Added a lot more option in the menu.  I also started working on converting
         this DCL code to C.  I used SMG routines in C to simulate the menu and it
         worked great, but I wanted to make the code user configurable and so I
         decided to stick with DCL.  Besides, in some of the tests that I conducted,
         I found the DCL version to be a little faster than its C counterpart.

v3.0     The menu used a lot of external files which managing the menu a lot more
         work as you had to deal with file protections, read/write/execute
         priviledges to certain files and directories.  I included all the external text
                  files internally make the menu more portable.Bibliography

Certain sections of this manual are not my original work-rather, they are derived from
documents that are available on the Internet.  This manual was put together in a few
hours and so it's still a little rough around the edges.

1) Adam Giffin (1993) The Big Dummy's Guide to the Internet

2) University of Minnesota (1993) The Gopher-FAQ

3) Ed Krol (1989) Request for Comments (RFC 1462)

4) Brendan P. Kehoe (1992) Zen and the Art of the Internet



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