The Online World by Odd De Presno
Chapter 2: The online world
386 words | Chapter 24
===========================
This chapter is about the structure and contents of the online
world. You will read about Bulletin Board systems, discussion
lists, conferencing systems, online data bases, packet data
services, and network services like FidoNet, i-Com, Infonet,
and the Internet.
From papyrus to bits and bytes
------------------------------
Around 1500 B.C., the world's first library was established in Tell
el Amaran, Egypt. Eight hundred years later, the first public
library opened in Athens, Greece.
It took another two thousand years for the computer to be
invented. The first known mention of a possible future online
information service was printed in the Atlantic Monthly magazine in
1945.
Nine years later, the Naval Ordinance Test Station opened their
online search service in California (U.S.A.) The first full-text
database came six years later. MEDLARS was a bibliographic database
containing references to medical literature. From now on, things
started to roll at a faster pace:
* In 1972, DIALOG (U.S.A.) opened their Educational Resources
Information Center and National Technical Information Service
databases for online searching. (Appendix 1 contains infor-
mation about the major online services referred to in this
book.)
* In 1974, Dow Jones News/Retrieval (U.S.A.) launched a
financial information service for stock brokers.
* In 1978, the first bulletin board was put into operation in
Chicago (U.S.A.).
* CompuServe (U.S.A.) launched a service for home users in
1979.
The online world was born in the United States. Little happened in
the rest of the world until the late 1980s. American companies and
users still dominate, but they are no longer alone.
Today, we can access over 5,000 public databases. They are
available from more than 500,000 online systems ("host computers")
all over the world.
With so many online services, it is difficult to find our way
through the maze of offerings. This book therefore starts with a
map of the online world.
The structure and contents of the online world
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The online world can be described as a cake with multiple layers,
where the information sources are the bottom layer. You - the user
- are the marzipan figure on the top. The online world contains the
following tiers:
(1) Database producers and information providers
(2) Online service companies
(3) Gateways and networks
(4) The services
(5) The user interface
(6) The data transport services
(7) The User.
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