An internet is connected set of networks. Its origin is ARPANET. In 1957 USSR launches Sputnik, first artificial earth satellite. In response, US forms the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) within the Department of Defense (DoD) to establish US lead in science and technology applicable to the military. In 1969 ARPANET (ARPA network ) was commissioned by DoD for research in networking.

The demonstration of communication between 40 machines on ARPANET was shown in 1972, in International Conference on Computer Communications (ICCC) at the Washington. First computer to computer chat takes place during this conference. An International Network Working Group (INWG) was also formed in this conference, in order to study the networking technologies.

In 1973 Bob Metacalf's introduce the idea of Ethernet in his Ph. D. thesis. Ethernet provides a comprehensive and accurate source of information on the entire Ethernet system in a single book. Includes 10 Mbps, 100 Mbps, and Gigabit Ethernet, as well as repeaters, switching hubs, full-duplex Ethernet, specifications for all media systems, structured cabling systems for twisted-pair cabling, network management, troubleshooting, and more.

Bob Kahn introduce the idea to start internetting research program at ARPA, in 1973. Vinton Cerf sketches gateway architecture in on back of envelope. Cerf and Kahn present basic Internet ideas at INWG in September at Univ. of Sussex, Brighton, UK. Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn, in 1974 publish "A Protocol for Packet Network Interconnection" which specified in detail the design of a Transmission Control Program (TCP).

First public packet data service called Telnet was open by Bolt Beranek and Newman, Inc. (BBN) in 1974 (a commercial version of ARPANET). First ARPANET mailing list, MsgGroup, is created by Steve Walker. Einar Stefferud soon took over as moderator as the list was not automated at first. in 1975, John Vittal develops MSG, the first all-inclusive email program providing replying, forwarding, and filing capabilities.

in 1976, UUCP (Unix-to-Unix CoPy) was developed at AT&T Bell Labs. UUCP allows to copy files form remote computer on network. Later UUCP was distributed with UNIX. Later UP network becomes a powerful and cost effective network for electronic mail. In 1978 TCP split into TCP (Transmission Protocol) and IP (Internet Protocol). In 1979, USENET established using UUCP between Duke and UNC by Tom Truscott, Jim Ellis, and Steve Bellovin.

In 1981, BITNET, the "Because It's Time NETwork" was started as a cooperative network at university of New York. BITNET uses electronic mail systems and mechanism called a "listserv" to distribute information. A list server distribute the message to subscribers. A message send to a BITNET list results in that message being replicated and sent to all of the subscribers of that list. Persons may subscribe or unsubscribe to a list automatically by sending a message to a particular address.

In same period CSNET (Computer Science NETwork) was built by a collaboration of computer scientists. This was funded by NSF to provide networking services (especially email) to university scientists which don't have access to ARPANET. CSNET later becomes known as the Computer and Science Network.

TCP/IP protocol suite was developed by DCA and ARPA in 1982. TCP/IP protocol consists Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and Internet Protocol (IP). DoD declares TCP/IP suite to be standard for DoD and shift from NCP to TCP/IP. This TCP/IP become the one of the first definitions of an "internet" as a connected set of networks, specifically those using TCP/IP, and "Internet" as connected TCP/IP internets.

A name server was developed to provide a name to each system so that user can connect the computer by its name rather than its IP address. This was followed by development of domain name server (DNS). By 1984, the number of systems cross the figure of 1000. During this period number of networks were started which includes i) Japan UNIX Network called JUNET was established using UUCP; ii) JANET (Joint Academic Network) established in the UK using the Coloured Book protocols; iii) Kremvax message announcing USSR connectivity to USENET. Moderated newsgroups introduced on USENET. In 1986 Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP) designed to enhance, Usenet news performance over TCP/IP. By 1987 the number of hosts on network become more than 10,000.

In 1988, a self-replicating program was released upon the Internet (1) This program (a worm) invaded VAX and Sun-3 computers running versions of Berkeley UNIX, and used their resources to attack still more computers (2). Within the space of hours this program

had spread across the U.S., infecting hundreds or thousands of computers and making many of them unusable due to the burden of its activity.

By 1989 the number of hosts on network become more than 100,000. CSNET (Computer Science NETwork) and BITNET (Because it's Time NETwork) were merged in one network called Corporation for Research and Education Networking (CREN) In 1990 ARPANET ceases to exist.

Tim Berners-Lee propose World Wide Web, in 1989. Before that, Tim Berners-Lee writes a notebook program "Enquire-Within-Upon-Everything" in 1980, which allows links to be made between to computers on network. Each node had a title, a type, and a list of bi-directional typed links. In 1989, Tim Berners-Lee send a proposal called "Information Management: A Proposal" for comment to CERN, which produce a paper " "HyperText and CERN". He develop hypertext GUI browser+editor using the NeXTStep in 1990, the name of his program was World Wide Web. He writes the first Web browser and server in 1990.

A "line mode" browser by student Nicola Pellow was developed in 1990, which could be run on almost any computer. The specifications URL, HyperText Markup Language (HTML) and HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) published on the first server in order to promote wide adoption and discussion. Between the summers of 1991 and 1994, the load on the first Web server ("info.cern.ch") rose steadily by a factor of 10 every year. The well-known web browsers like Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer were developed, which are used by the vast majority today.

No organization, corporation or government owns or runs the Internet. One may say internet is for people by people. Instead, many people and organizations voluntarily participate in task force groups who meet to develop standards for the many various technical needs of running the Internet. Decisions are made by consensus among all who choose to participate, and every point of view is heard in the long process of hashing out decisions and setting new standards.

The Internet provide number of facilities including I) communicate in various ways; ii) to share resources; iii) find things that interest for user; and iv) exchange information and files. The most common things you can do are:

Internet is playing vital role in communication. One can send and receive email with people all over the world. Almost as fast as the telephone, there is never a busy signal, and you never play phone tag. It allow to join discussion groups about a common subject with Usenet Newsgroups (Electronic bulletin Board) and email discussion lists using listserver. One can access the information available on remote computer using mailservers.

• Get or exchange software and files with the File Transfer Protocol (FTP). User can obtain files or software from remote host on internet. As well as user can put the files or programs on remote system.

• User can use any computer in the world from his desk. One can log into and use any computers around the world using Telnet. Telnet lets you use the resources on a remote computer such as games, databases, library catalogs, and many more interesting things.

• It allow to connect to thousands of different computers using gopher menu systems, which make navigation from one site to another site without any problem.

• Explore the World Wide Web, which can use all of the above, and adds easy links to other resources and adds multimedia--graphics, sound, and video capabilities.

• Talk by keyboard with Internet Relay Chat (IRC), which lets small groups of users meet in conference to "talk" to each other by typing on their keyboards.

In present time Internet become a powerful source of information. More than 36 million computers and 200 million users are on Internet (survey of June 1998). The resources on Internet are available in different form and can be access by number of ways. Read EFF's guide to the Internet for detail description about Internet and its resources. Programs frequently used to access the Internet are described below.

FTP: FTP stand for "File-transfer protocol" and is a means of accessing files that are stored on remote computer system (called sites). On the internet their are number of anonymous FTP sites which allows to access their resources via FTP. The user can login in these sites by using 'FTP' or 'anonymous' as a username and email as password. The commands for transferring a file a.dat from account of raghava on remote system lion.imtech.ernet.in is given below (you should know the username and password of account)

User (lion.imtech.ernet.in): raghava

Password: *******

ftp> get a.dat (To receive file a.dat)

ftp> help (to display all commands)

ftp> help get (for help on command get)

ftp>bin (make file transfer in binary mode)

ftp>cd example (change directory on remote system to expample)

ftp>!dir (See directory on local machine)

ftp>dir (See directory on remote machine)

ftp> bye (for exit from ftp)

TELNET: The Telnet command allow communicate with computer using Telnet protocol. This allow user to work on remote computer. It allow to login and to

work on remote computer. You can connect remote system by giving simple

command given below where user raghava login in remote system lion.imtech.ernet.in

Telnet ftp lion.imtech.ernet.in

User (lion.imtech.ernet.in): raghava

Password: *******

$ ls (for directory listing)

$ ^D (for logout)

$exit (for logout)

RLOGIN: The rlogin (remote login) command allow to log into remote computer and connect your local terminal to remote computer. This allow user to work on remote

computer. For detail see Telnet.

RCP: The rcp command allow to copy file from remote to local or between two remote hosts.

Lynx: An easy-to-use interface for the World-Wide Web information resource. This is particularly useful when system does not support graphics. User can start by simply typing ‘lynx’ at command prompt.

Netscape, Mosaic & Microsoft Internet Explorer: Netscape, Mosaic and Microsoft Internet Explorer are powerful web browser which allow to access the World-Wide

Web information resources (Web server). These programs provides the graphics interface.

WAIS: Wide-area Information Server; a program that can search dozens of databases in one search.

Gopher: A program that gives you easy access to dozens of other on-line databases and services by making selections on a menu. You'll also be able to use these to copy text files and some programs to your mailbox.

Their are number of sites in the world which is not still directly connected on internet or have access for limited time or are very slow. Its very difficult for the users of these sites to get the information from internet. A number of sites are available now on internet which allow to access internet resources via email. How can we access the internet via email is given below. For detail see EFF's Internet guide. In order to assist these users

FTP BY E-MAIL: Using ftp by Email is very similar to FTP, except that the desired site is reached through a special "ftpmail server" which logs into remote site and returns the requested files to you in response to a set of commands in an email message. In . In other word "ftpmail server" provides a interface between your site and remote site where it communicate with your site by email.

Few Ftpmail servers:

ftpmail@sunsite.unc.edu ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com

bitftp@pucc.princeton.edu ftpmail@census.gov

bitftp@vm.gmd.de ftpmail@ftp.uni-stuttgart.de

ftpmail@ftp.luth.se ftpmail@src.doc.ic.ac.uk

ARCHIE BY E-MAIL: Archie servers can be thought of as a database of all the anonymous FTP sites in the world, allowing you to find the site and/or name of a file to be retrieved. For example the sites which have 'uuencode' can be search by sending following email to archie@archie.rutgers.edu

Help

set maxhit 20

find uuencode

User will got the result in email from above site something like below

Host ftp.clarkson.edu (128.153.4.2)

GOPHER BY E-MAIL: Gopher systems are menu-based, and provide a user-friendly front end to Internet resources, searches and information retrieval. gophermail@calvin.edu

WORLD-WIDE WEB BY E-MAIL: The World-Wide Web is touted as the future of Internet navigational tools. It's a hypertext and multimedia system that lets you hop around the Net, read documents, and access images & sounds linked to a source. WWW documents by e-mail using an Agora WWW-mail server.

Internet have millions web server, its not possible to visit all web site to search the needed web site. Search engines allow to search the web pages by keywords, phrases, or

question, so that user may got the requested web page. The search engines display the list of web pages with link which contain your query string or related topics. Their are number of search engines, few popular search engines are given below.

1. www.yahoo.com
1. www.lycos.com
1. www.infoseek.com
1. www.excite.com
1. www.netscape.com
1. www.altavista.digital.com
1. www.webcrawler.com

Hyper text markup language (HTML) is used to create the web page. Its difficult for user to develop the web page in HTML. In order to provide easy way number of software package which allow to create web pages. Here we have provided a listing of some popular software programs used for creating web sites. Different programs suit the needs of different users. Everyone has their own preference in software, some people like to use an HTML text editor while others prefer a WYSIWYG program where they never have to look at the HTML code.

WYSIWYG editors are programs that let you create Web pages without going to the trouble of hand-coding them in HTML. (WYSIWYG stands for "What You See Is What You Get" and is pronounced "wizeewig.") These editors let you put your Web pages together by dragging images around a page, typing in regular text, choosing background colors from a palette, etc. You can easily lay out your page the way you want, and the program translates it into HTML for you. Some even help you add cutting-edge features like dynamic HTML animation's.

Microsoft World97 support the HTML. So the user who have their document in world can directly transfer to HTML document (web page). It also allow to edit the HTML document. I feel its very powerful and user friendly package which allow to create/edit web pages.

Netscape editor also allow to edit the HTML documents so the user who have web browser netscape can create their web pages. Their are number of other software packages which allow to edit HTML document like i) HotDog ii) HotMetal Pro iii) BBEdit iv) Homesite.