IRC or Chat
Internet Relay Chat
A method of "talking" to one or more people through
the Internet using channels. You pick a channel and are able to write messages
to everyone else who is on that particular channel. IRC was developed in 1988
by Jarkko Oikarinen in Finland and has become of the the most popular Internet
resources.
WAIS
Wide Area Information Service
WAIS is a lot like Gopher except that when using
WAIS you type in a subject and WAIS will search in the indexes and give you
the information. You don't have to search the card catalog like when using Gopher.
WAIS is also a text based system, no pictures.
Gopher
Gopher is a tool that is a lot like the Web, only
gopher doesn't have any graphic. Gopher allows you to search the entire internet
(not the web) using menus. It's a little like using a library card catalog only
when you find the card you want, gopher gives you the book as well. Basically
you look down the list until you find the topic you need and then gopher will
give you the information. Gopher got its name from the University of Minnesota,
home of the Golden Gophers. Since its main purpose was to "go fer" things, the
name gopher stuck.
USENET News
This lets you read and post messages to public
"newsgroups" or "bulletin boards" as they are sometimes called. These are large
discussion groups that cover all sorts of topics.
Email
Electronic Mail
Electronic mail is a letter or document composed,
mailed, received, and read by using computers. Email is generally used through
the Internet, but there are a few commercial online service that provide email
without Internet access.
Archie
Archie is a whole bunch of computers (called servers)
spread throughout the Internet that are designed to help people find computers
that allow FTP. When you need to find a FTP file or directory, you tell Archie
what you want and it'll go find it for you. Archie got its name because it sound
a lot like archive, which is what it searches.
FTP
File Transfer Protocol
This is a method of downloading a file from someone
else's computer without having an account on that computer. FTP is often called
anonymous FTP because anyone can download information.
Telnet
Is used to log into other computers on the internet.
Telnet allows you access to someone else's information that they have stored
on their computer. One of the most common uses is to give people access to a
library card catalog.
