What you need

Hardware

If you already have a computer, per haps one with an Intel 80386 proces sor, don’t rush out and upgrade, just to go on the Net.

If, however, you’re about to buy a computer, buy one with the fastest pro cessor you can afford. You’ll also need plenty of random access memory, or RAM, which is where your computer keeps information that you’re currently using. Eight megabytes (a measure of memory) is probably minimum.

Windows or DOS? If you use a Macintosh computer, this isn’t a question you have to address. IBM and clone users, however, are faced with this issue.

Depending on your Internet provider, you may not have a choice. You may be required to use Windows (the graphic “operating environment” that sits on top of DOS, the operating system that runs IBM PCs and clones), or alternatively your provider may not give you the advantage of the wonderful graphics on the Net even if you do use windows.

Before you make any changes to your computing environment find out what your provider requires or can handle.

You’ll need a modem. The modem (contraction of modulator/demodulator, which describes what has to happen to computer signals to send them over phone wires) is attached to - or inside your computer and plugged into a normal telephone line. If the phone line nearest your computer already has a phone in it, you may be able to use a little gadget that plugs into the jack and allows you to place two phone plugs into it. While actively using the modem, you cannot receive or make phone calls. If you’re buying your first modem, again go for speed, but with one warning: Your modem can’t receive and transmit any faster than the modem at the other end can receive or transmit. If your service

provider can handle modem speeds only

up to 14.4 bps (that’s 14,400 bits per sec ond, a measure of the speed with which the modem handles computer-generated data), there’s no point in getting a modem that’s faster than that. All modems, how ever, can adjust to lower speeds. Because sometimes a modem is not compatible with the rest of your hardware and soft ware, be sure you can return one that does not work with your system.

Software

You’ll need communications software

By Ruth Blau

to run the modem. (“Software” is the gen eral term for instructions that tell comput ers what to do.) Some modems and most Internet packages come with the appro

priate software.

Internet Providers

Worldwide, there are many. Internet providers. The question becomes - who serves my Island? To find out, ask friends who have computers or check at a com puter store. Computer Science depart ments at a university or college may have some information, and your local phone book may provide some phone listings.

One type of service which has grown up in the US Mainland and may be avail able either now or in the near future in some Islands goes under the general name of “community freenets”. They are a very low-cost way of getting onto the Internet and are government and/or foun dation sponsored. But it may not be graphic and may have limited reach.

It is important to find a provider with a modem dialup that is a local phone call.

If, in addition to monthly fees and extra online time fees, you must pay long-dis tance telephone rates you will soon find yourself running up huge phone bills.

Whats On The Net

All Internet services provide you with electronic mail (E-mail). Using E-mail, you can exchange correspondence with anyone whose E-mail address you have.

You send a ‘letter’ and it arrives in the E mail box of the recipient within minutes at most - within seconds if all the con nections are smooth. Perhaps the second most desired aspect of the Net is access to the World Wide Web. The Web can be roughly defined as a graphic interface between the user and the mass of data out there in the Net world. Home pages are part of the Web. To use the Web, you need what is called a “web browser”, software that allows you to view home pages whose address you know or search by topic for other home pages. Among the best known and most widely used web browsers is the Netscape. This, or some other browser, may come packaged with your communications or online software provided by your Internet service.

An Internet Session

Let me walk you through a typical Net

session at my computer. I turn on the computer and the modem. My computer comes up automatically in DOS because most of my programmes are DOS based.

However, my Net connection requires Windows, so I activate it.

My service provider is a local comput er club, which gives me the Internet soft ware that I need, but it’s in bits and pieces. I have to use different pro grammes to do different things. The first task is to connect to the host computer.

For this, I use a dialling programme.

When I am connected, I ‘minimise’ (a Windows term meaning reduce the pro gramme while it’s still running back into its tiny icon form) the dialler and open Eudora, my E-mail programme. After I give my password, Eudora downloads all my mail to my computer. I can at that point disconnect from the host and read my mail. Generally, I stay connected because I have a generous allotment of online time each day (five hours per day included in my SUSI3-per-month fee).

Perhaps a correspondent has requested

a copy of a list I am currently maintaining for an Internet weavers and spinners group I participate in. I minimise Eudora and open the small word-processing pro gramme that comes with Windows. I copy the list to the clipboard, restore Eudora to a full window, and paste the list to an E-mail message. With a click of the “Send” button, it’s on its way to the per son who requested it.

When I have finished reading my mail, I want to do some research into an eye condition (macula degeneration) that

is rapidly pushing my 88-year-old father

into sightlessness. I close Eudora and open Netscape, where I select one of the search engines available, say Yahoo. (A “search engine” allows you specify to your web browser what to look for.) I type in “macula degeneration”, and Yahoo sets to work finding as many ref erences on the Net as it can to my topic.

When it’s through searching, it tells me how many ‘hits’ I got and displays a list of the first 10, in the order that it thinks are relevant to what I asked for. I can read the articles online, download them to my computer, or print them immediately.

I can then ask to look at the next 10, and so on. By this time, more than an hour will have passed and I am starting to feel guilty about other things that need doing.

I close Netscape, restore the dialler to full screen and tell it to log off the host. It hangs up the modem, and I go about my other tasks. ■