Basic Internet Concepts

Basic Internet Concepts

What is the Internet?

The Internet is a global network of networks connecting millions of users worldwide via many computer networks using a simple standard common addressing system and basic communications protocol called TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol). This allows messages sent over the Internet to be broken into small pieces, called packets, which travel over many different routes between source and destination computers.

Clients and Servers

Internet resources -- information and services -- are provided through host computers, known as servers. The server is the computer system that contains information such as electronic mail, database information, or text files. As a customer, or client, you access those resources via client programs (applications) which use TCP/IP to deliver the information to your screen in the appropriate format for your computer.

One important kind of client program is called a browser, which is used to search through information provided by a specific type of server. A browser helps you view and navigate through information on the Internet. Today's most popular browsers, including Mosaic(R), Netscape(TM) Navigator, and the Microsoft Internet Explorer offer a graphical interface to the World Wide Web.

Client/Server Operation

A client/server system works something like this:

Hypertext Documents

The WWW makes extensive use of hypertext documents which contain

HTTP

HTML

Hypertext documents are represented using a specialised markup language called HTML (HyperText Markup Language).
History HTML
[Sat Sep 25 13:00:10 1999]