The Internet is a network of millions of computers all over the world that are connected with each other and work together. It started in the USA in the 1970s and 1980s as a government project. The World Wide Web , which came up in the middle of the 1990s , made the Internet easy to use for everybody.

Education , business, entertainment and government are changing as the Internet moves into the lives of more and more people.

 

Networks
A network is a group of computers that are connected to each other by cables or telephone lines. Most networks have one or more servers, more powerful computers that hold programmes and other data. A group of computers that are in the same room or building is usually called a LAN (Local Area Network). A Wide Area Network (WAN) connects computers that are far apart.

 

How the Internet Works
All computers that are connected to the Internet must speak the same language. It is called TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/ Internet Protocol). and makes sure that information sent by one computer arrives at a certain destination.

Every computer on the Internet has an IP address. It is made up of 4 groups of up to 3 numbers, separated by a dot. For example : 207.46.230.219 . Such an IP number can only occur once in the whole world. Because such numbers are difficult to remember, computers have names, like “ www.news.at” or “ www.cnn.com” . If we want to get information from a certain computer we must type in its name. Special computers on the net have the job of turning names into numbers which computers can understand. Such computers are called Domain Name Servers (DNS).