First you need a connection to the Internet. The InterNet was originally a cold war era concept of communication and data security that pre-supposed that an atomic attack would wipe out a city or two or perhaps several hundreds. To maintain communications and be able to get at data that was centralized in any one place could mean disaster for the US. However, if communications could be routed nearly instantaneously around any "damaged" facilities, and if data was stored in "thousands" of places, the damage by an attack could be minimized. The Defense Department set up the InterNet for this scenario by connecting nearly every University, defense department contractor, and government installation into a network of literally thousands of main frame computers that could route messages between computers in nearly any combination. A message between the University of Houston and Rice University for instance might be routed by the InterNet from U of H to North Dakota, then Maine, Washington DC, California, Wyoming and finally to Rice, by choosing the easiest route with the least amount of traffic. All computer controlled.
The cold war has ended (keep those toes crossed), the military - industrial giant is being downsized, but the InterNet remains. And since national security is no longer at stake, the InterNet was opened to the public. You can still get on it FREE if you are student or faculty at most Universities, or in the government, or you can pay a fee to an InterNet provider if you're just a Joe Blow citizen. It's not limited to the US. Virtually every University in the world is on the InterNet now (in some form or fashion).
The Internet provider may (probably will) charge for giving you that access, and the fee will depend to some extent on what you are being provided. The Internet offers several basic functions. These are file transfers (FTP access), E-mail, message groups, mailing lists, and lately the World Wide Web ((HTTP access). E-mail is the simplest function, and while important it doesn't provide a heck of a lot of "hobby" use. FTP access is more important to the hobbyist as you can download files, but it will probably cost more than just E-mail alone. Message groups and mailing lists sound better than they really are, but you generally get access to those too if you have FTP access. All of that can be done with an Atari and an Internet provider. World Wide Web (HTTP access) requires a SLIP/PPP provider and that is now available for Atari computers too.
The biggest public providers to the Internet are CompuServe, America On-Line, GEnie, Delphi, Prodigy, etc. America On-Line is the fastest growing of that bunch, and many of its users have never been on-line before, so their "on-line manners" were particularly bad at one time (and it became habit forming .. more on that when we get to newsgroups). On the InterNet today, 14.4 kilobaud modems are considered kind of slow, and 2400 baud is stone age. Internet providers can give you a home page, which makes it look like your PC is one of those big Cray's in some University. And some (not all) Internet providers will let you use a "nickname" so you can make a fool of yourself and even your next door neighbor wouldn't recognize it's you (one would hope).
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For 8-bit users, the two best 80 column modem programs are ICE-T and Flickerterm. The report on Flickerterm is that it can reliably log on at 9600 baud. I am not sure if Flickerterm emulates a VT-100 terminal or not. Generally you should have VT-100 emulation for Internet access. ICE-T does have VT-100 emulation. It is considered to be "generally" reliable at 9600 baud, but does admit to some data errors at times at that rate without hardware flow control (I assume that means modem hardware). They're both free for a looksee (they are shareware programs), so get 'em and use 'em.
ST users have a wide range of modem programs available. I use Flash II which has outstanding VT-100 emulation, and is highly recommended. Stalker 3 is another highly recommended program of note. Most shareware terminal programs such as the older VanTerm are more than adequate as well.
Whoever you use for Internet provider, remember you want to get FTP access, not just E-mail. I use Delphi/Internet as my provider and the cost is $23/month, for 20 hours/month ($1/hr for hours over 20/month) of Internet access with E-mail, FTP access, mailing lists and message groups. Delphi is strictly text based, but you can access both HTTP via a shell program the offer called Lynx (no connection with the Atari Lynx video game).
If you have a PC, you can get all kinds of help to
get on the Internet. There must be at least a hundred books and magazines,
and nearly all of them assume you have an MSDOS computer. There are
a few books that are expressly for the Macintosh, but none for the Atari
ST or 8-bit computers. But fortunately there are a couple of books that
specifically describe getting onto the Internet through Delphi as the service
provider. The best of these books in my opinion (the only one I've
read so far, so take that statement for what it's worth) is Internet Slick
Tricks, by Alfred and Emily Glossbrenner. The other book I have that
describes the Delphi interface is Internet Basics by Steve Lambert and
Walt Howe. The first book is very understandably written, while the
second book looks like a two
week read. But either will do if you want to get on the Internet
through Delphi or to simply understand those functions (FTP and E-mail)
that can be accomplished with an Atari.
In the Internet Slick Tricks book, are all the details on how to use the Delphi Internet shell (which means neither Delphi nor the Internet even know what kind of computer you're on). The things you need to do that with an ST is to have a modem (14.4K or faster preferred), a terminal program that can emulate VT-100 (I use Flash II), and the Delphi access.
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FTP sites ending with edu are US or Canadian universities, de stands for Germany, fi is Finland?, fr is France, and se is anyone's guess. .com is a commercial site (US).
FTP sites are a dynamic situation, but there are a lot of stable sites out there yet. The mother of all Atari archives is at the University of Michigan, but you can almost NEVER get in to atari.archive.umich.edu because it has a limit of 30 or so anonymous guests (ie anyone who doesn't go to the University of Michigan). But the Atari archives at U Mich are mirrored (copies exist) at several FTP sites around the world that are easy to get into. These include wuarchive.wustl.edu (Washington Univ, in St Louis), ftp.switch.ch (in Switzerland), etc. The amazing part of the Internet is that you can get downloads from Switzerland or Germany as quickly and easily as if it was just another 7-11 around the corner. Here's how it's done.
OK, you need a server, someone who has access to
the University, government, or commercial mainframes that are linked together
in the Internet. If you don't have student or company access, you
can buy access from a commercial company. Depending on what
your server is (GEnie, Delphi, AOL, university access, company access,
or a private Internet provider), you may or may not have a shell program.
I use Delphi and the Internet shell there has an FTP menu item. You
just pick that item and it asks you where do you want to go (it helps at
that point to have some good FTP addresses or you won't go anywhere).
So let's say I type ftp.cnam.fr for a site in France that I know has Atari
files. The shell asks if you want to go as an anonymous guest (the
default), so I just press RETURN, then it says it will give the FTP site
your Delphi mailing address as the password (so much for anonymity).
If you typed the name right, and the
site is up and running and has space, you're in (in this case, literally
inside some computer in France). The whole thing takes maybe
15 or 20 seconds.
When you get into an FTP site, there are a couple of things to remember about downloading files. BINARY works on both text and binary files. ASCII works only on text files, so the FIRST THING AFTER you're logged onto the FTP site, type BIN, and after the FTP site says it's changed your access mode, just for the heck of it type HASH. HASH turns on hash marks when downloading, so you can see if the download is actually progressing or not. Actually, all of those commands on internet are typed in lower case, so the correct command is bin and hash.
The Atari files aren't right there in the root directory of the computer of course. FTP sites generally support more than one (often ALL) computers. You can change directories on the FTP site computer by typing cd (change directory). Typing cd without anything behind it is the same thing as saying cd up (move up in the directory tree...toward the root directory). To find out where you might want to go (if you don't already know the paths) you should do a dir (read directory) to see the current directory list. Most Atari files are in a pub (public) directory. So cd pub moves to that directory;. If atari is an entry in the pub directory, then cd atari moves to the atari directory. If there is a CAPITAL letter in a directory, or a character other than a to z, then you have to put the directory name in quotes to get to it. ie if the directory of Atari files is in pub, type cd pub. Then to go to Atari, type cd "Atari". To go to CD-rom, type cd "CD-rom". The wording must be exactly right or the FTP site will say that directory does not exist.
In the new directory, dir gives you a list of files again. To actually download a file, type get filename (or if the filename has capital letters or symbols, type get "filename"). It's probably best if the filename is always in quotes. Since these are Unix computers, the filename may be really strange and not suitable for the Atari file system. You can rename the file at the time of download with get "filename" newname where newname is the name you want it changed to. If "filename" is an ok name, then you can omit newname. Some files might be called things like itsybitsylittle_game.zip, which you could download with something like: get "itsybitsylittle_game.zip" tinygame.zip
When you get a directory listing with the dir command, the list generally looks like this:
d=-rwl-ak abunchofgarbageinfo adate maybeasize filename
r-=rlwdar moregarbage
adate mabyeasize filename
d-lkwarra moreandmore ....
The d at the front means it is a directory, while the r means it is a file. Only files can be downloaded with "get", and only directories can be moved into with "cd".
You can leave the FTP site with a command to quit. That should return you to your internet server (in my case back to the Delphi shell).
On Delphi, any files I "get" from an FTP site don't come directly to my computer. They go to my designated "Workspace" on Delphi, and I have to download them from the Workspace to my computer. Sounds complicated, but it's not. And it's fast. A 300 Kilobyte file can be downloaded from Germany to the workspace in maybe 2 minutes or less, and then another 6 minutes or so to get it from Delphi to me (the big computers communicate at 57K or higher, while I communicate with Delphi at 9600 baud). A fast modem helps in this latter step.
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If you are used to the message area on an Atari BBS,
you have a general idea of what a newsgroup on the internet is. One
person leaves a message...either to someone else or just to the public.
Whether it is to someone else or not, the entire public can read it and
can respond to it (private letters are e-mail). The original message
was assigned a topic heading or subject within the newsgroup. In
a newsgroup, that topic will continue in a number of ways. Responses
to the original message or to subsequent messages in the topic are kept
together in a group of similar time lines. Let's say there is a topic
called "HACE And Why I Love It". The first message might be entered on
July 1st, and maybe there were two responses very quickly (within a week
anyhow). Those three messages would be grouped together in that topic.
Then say a response was posted two weeks later. The same topic name
would be used, but it would be stuck in the newsgroup menu of topics maybe
30 or 40 topics away. So as you scan through messages typically left
in the last 14 days, you might run into 2 or 3 topics of the same name,
some with 2 or 3 messages in them, maybe one with 18 messages, some with
only one. The real problem with this is the message two weeks later
is a response to a message located somewhere else. This often (very often)
does not lead to messages making much sense. So folks tend to duplicate
the old message in their message. That's a good idea, except most
folks duplicate THE ENTIRE MESSAGE not just a few pertinent lines, so you
get to read the same thing maybe 5 or 6 (or more) times. The word
for this is BORING. Especially when the response is often no
more than "You're so right!" (or if he's wrong, the wording might be somewhat
stronger). Some folks can't resist trying to spice up the boring
parts. Newsgroups are a particularly fast growing part of the InterNet
consisting of special interest message bases which can be either "moderated"
or not. A moderated message base is where someone might remove a
message with a commercial message (there are other message bases for that)
or foul language or hateful or mean spirited messages that might distress
readers. It could be censorship (if strictly imposed) or it could
just be good manners. An un-moderated newsgroup (usually identified
as ALT SOMETHING OR OTHER, for alternate newsgroup) ... well they
don't have anyone to clean up after them, so it is mostly filled with bad
manners, foul language, etc. They are VERY popular. On most
ALT newsgroups, if someone disagrees with something another person has
written, it is usually brought to the entire newsgroup's attention with
a number of vulgar words, statements, and sometimes entire sentences, before,
during and after the disagreement is mentioned. And if a person really
disagrees, he may send several thousand e-mail messages to another person's
e-mail address in oh, say a two hour period. That usually gets the
recipient in trouble with his InterNet provider, but hey the cold war is
over, right? That is the InterNet today:
Anyhow, I get much more out of the online forums
at Delphi and GEnie and the message bases at the HACE BBS (713-458-9923)
than I do from newsgroups. But I know you've gotta look at 'em yourself
to decide.
Atari related newsgroups include:
1 TOS General Discussion (comp.sys.atari.st)
2 TOS Technical discussions (comp.sys.atari.st.tech)
3 TOS Announcements (Moderated) (comp.sys.atari.announce)
4 TOS Programming discussions (comp.sys.atari.programmer)
5 Flame City (comp.sys.atari.advocacy)
6 German Atari discussions (de.comp.sys.st)
7 French Atari discussions (fr.comp.sys.atari)
8 General Atari Videogames Discussion (rec.games.video.atari)
9 Jaguar Discussion (alt.atari-jaguar.discussion)
10 Lynx Discussion (rec.games.lynx)
11 8-bit General Discussion (comp.sys.atari.8bit)
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