Return to "Mosaic For The Masses," February 1995By Lars Kongshem
Lars Kongshem is editorial assistant and webmaster of Electronic School.
Do you really need to go to the trouble of installing Mosaic and TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) network software on your PC to access the World Wide Web? In a word, No. Although most of the alternatives available today are much less glamorous than Mosaic, they ensure that information on the Web is available to as much of the on-line world as possible.
In the near future, however, you'll be able to take fancy graphical Web browsers for granted. The worlds of internetworking and personal computing are coalescing, and Internet connectivity and Web browsers are already being built into the basic operating systems of PCs. Commercial on-line services also are gearing up to provide graphical Web access for their subscribers. Here, then, is a list of your current and future options for browsing the Web without Mosaic:
Budget browsing. If E-mail is your only link to the Internet, you're at the bottom of the pecking order in cyberspace. Accordingly, you might think the Web is out of your reach. Not true. You can use a bare-bones service called Agora to request to have the text of Web documents sent to you via E-mail -- provided you supply the correct URLs (Uniform Resource Locators). To find out how to use this service, send an E-mail with the command WWW on the first line of the message.
The terminal solution. If you have indirect Internet access -- in which you use a modem to connect your computer as a remote terminal to an Internet service provider's host computer -- then you can use Lynx, a popular text-only Web browser. Depending on how your account is set up, you may be able to select Lynx as a menu option, or you may have to type lynx (all lower-case) at a Unix prompt. If Lynx is not available, you may still be able to run the common TELNET program on your service provider's host computer to log in to another Internet host that offers public access to Lynx. Again, look for this option on a menu-based system, or else type telnet ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu (all lower-case) at a Unix prompt to connect to the University of Kansas; once you're there, type www at the log-in prompt to use Lynx.
Faking Mosaic. If you crave the multimedia look of Mosaic but your sole Web access is through Lynx, you can try out a new shareware program called SlipKnot that fakes Mosaic's graphical features without the need for a direct connection to the Internet. SlipKnot requires only that you use Windows and that you have access to a Unix prompt through dial-up terminal sessions on an Internet host computer. SlipKnot commands Lynx to transfer the individual components of Web documents to the Internet service provider's host computer, whereupon it downloads the pieces to your PC and assembles the entire page for display with text and pictures. The trade-offs for faking it: slower speed and fewer features. SlipKnot is available on the Internet as shareware from the company MicroMind Inc. You can get your copy by using FTP (File Transfer Protocol) to connect to the host oak.oakland.edu and retrieve the file slnot100.zip from the directory /SimTel/win3/internet/.
Warp drive to the Web, Scotty. Ideally, you shouldn't have to install additional software to use a graphical Web browser and enjoy a direct connection to the Internet; these features should already be included in your PC's operating system. IBM's OS/2 Warp, released in the fall of 1994, is the first operating system for PCs to include these features. The 32-bit multitasking operating system has TCP/IP networking software and a full suite of Internet applications built right in -- including IBM's own graphical Web browser, WebExplorer. A simple click activates a SLIP (Serial Line Internet Protocol) modem connection to the Internet using either the IBM Global Network or any other Internet service provider. This is the future of Internet and Web access: quick, easy, and built-in.
Microsoft's Windows 95, due later this year, will include TCP/IP networking software, but not individual Internet applications -- such as a graphical Web browser. Following the release of Windows 95, Microsoft will debut its own commercial on-line service -- originally code-named Marvel, now called The Microsoft Network -- which will be available only to users of Windows 95. The Microsoft Network will begin offering access to the Web nine months to a year after its launch.
If you can't beat 'em . . . . The scope and depth of information and services on the Web are a testament to the efforts and ingenuity of thousands of individuals worldwide, most of whom maintain their own piece of the Web simply for the joy of it. The sheer scale of the Internet ensures that commercial on-line services such as America Online, CompuServe, and Prodigy could never match the Web in terms of content -- which is why all three services plan to offer graphical access to the Web for their subscribers in the near future. (At press time, Prodigy was about to launch Web access for its subscribers, and America Online announced plans to follow suit this winter.) By providing an easy on-ramp to the Internet, commercial on-line services are poised to bring millions of new users to the World Wide Web community.
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