Zen and the Art of the Internet
Copyright (c) 1992 Brendan P. Kehoe
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Zen and the Art of the Internet
A Beginner's Guide to the Internet
First Edition
January 1992
by Brendan P. Kehoe
This is revision 1.0 of February 2, 1992.
Copyright (c) 1992 Brendan P. Kehoe
The composition of this booklet was originally started because the
Computer Science department at Widener University was in desperate
need of documentation describing the capabilities of this "great new
Internet link" we obtained.
It's since grown into an effort to acquaint the reader with much ofwhat's currently available over the Internet. Aimed at the noviceuser, it attempts to remain operating system "neutral"—-littleinformation herein is specific to Unix, VMS, or any otherenvironment. This booklet will, hopefully, be usable by nearlyanyone.
A user's session is usually offset from the rest of the paragraph, assuch:
prompt> commandThe results are usually displayed here.
The purpose of this booklet is two-fold: first, it's intended toserve as a reference piece, which someone can easily grab on the flyand look something up. Also, it forms a foundation from which peoplecan explore the vast expanse of the Internet. Zen and the Art of theInternet doesn't spend a significant amount of time on any one point;rather, it provides enough for people to learn the specifics of whathis or her local system offers.
One warning is perhaps in order—-this territory we are entering canbecome a fantastic time-sink. Hours can slip by, people can come andgo, and you'll be locked into Cyberspace. Remember to do your work!
With that, I welcome you, the new user, to The Net.
brendan@cs.widener.edu Chester, PA
Acknowledgements
Certain sections in this booklet are not my original work—-rather,they are derived from documents that were available on the Internetand already aptly stated their areas of concentration. The chapteron Usenet is, in large part, made up of what's posted monthly tonews.announce.newusers, with some editing and rewriting. Also, themain section on archie was derived from whatis.archie by PeterDeutsch of the McGill University Computing Centre. It's availablevia anonymous FTP from archie.mcgill.ca. Much of what's in thetelnet section came from an impressive introductory document puttogether by SuraNet. Some definitions in the one are from anexcellent glossary put together by Colorado State University.
This guide would not be the same without the aid of many people on TheNet, and the providers of resources that are already out there. I'dlike to thank the folks who gave this a read-through a