The Online World, Odd de Presno [simple ebook reader txt] 📗

What they offer, varies from provider to provider. The next chapters will focus on the contents of the offerings. Appendix 1 has details about how to access the major service providers. Small online services often have interesting offerings in specialized areas, and especially when they are based on local phenomena or events. They tend to be more personal. They often present their 'wares' in a local language, and offer very large collections of free software. The large online services have hundreds of thousands of users. The activity is often high. They usually attract interesting (and competent) participants to their conferences and forums, have more programs available for download and more news sources and databases to search. They generally give you a wider choice. We will focus on the large international services. These are available from anywhere without too much effort, and using them comes surprisingly cheap. Therefore, please remember that this book just covers the top of the iceberg. Cheaper services may be found elsewhere, and they may even be better tuned to your particular areas of interest.

Locating game software

The fastest, easiest and cheapest is to call an online service to download game programs. You'll find an overwhelming number of programs for all types of microcomputers.

Many games are free. We call them "Public Domain" or "Freeware" programs. Others are distributed free. You do not have to pay to get them and try them out. If you want to use them, however, the copyright owner expects you to pay a fee. We call them "shareware" or "user supported" programs. When the game has been transferred to your personal computer, you can play without worries about communications costs, or the busy signal on your phone line. My favorite game is shareware. The name is Arachnid. It is an MS Windows solitaire game (patience) made by SP Services, P.O. Box 456, Southampton, SO9 7XG, England. The desired registration fee is UKP 15.00 (English pounds). You can download the program from my board as WINCARD.EXE. The file is 106 kilobytes large. WINCARD.EXE is a special distribution file, which contains three games and all supporting files. The EXE extension may fool you into thinking that it is a program, and in a way it is. The file is a self-extract file, meaning that you just enter "WINCARD" on an MS-DOS computer to extract the game files from the "package." Games are usually distributed in such distribution files. All files used by a game (or several games) is put into one file by special software, and compressed in size. This makes retrieval of programs easier and cheaper. You do not have to download many related files individually. The transfer takes less time. (Read about how to extract programs from distribution files in appendix

3).

You will find some of the largest collections of games on the North American services CompuServe and EXEC-PC BBS. You will also find many throughout the Internet.

| TRICKLE is a large collection of public domain and shareware |

| programs for MS-DOS, CPM, and other computers. For information |

| about how to use TRICKLE, send a message through Internet to |

| |

| LISTSERV@VM1.NODAK.EDU |

| |

| In the TEXT of the message write |

| |

| /pdget pd:simtel20.inf |

| |

| An information file will be sent to your electronic mailbox. |

| (Read the chapter about electronic mail and appendix 1 for |

| more information.) |

| |

| If TRICKLE is not enough, try Archie. It is the Internet |

| archive server listing service. The Archie database maintains |

| a list of roughly 1.5 million files containing 100 Giga- |

| bytes (that is, 100,000,000,000 bytes) of information |

| available from over 800 anonymous FTP archive sites. |

| You can search this database by email to find where files |

| are located. Some Archie systems maintain a list of libraries |

| all over the world, while others concentrate on a more limited |

| geographical area. |

| Once Archie has told you where desired programs and files |

| are located, you can retrieve them by telnet, anonymous FTP, |

| of FTPmail. Read "File transfers through the Internet" in |

| chapter 12 for details. |

| For information about using Archie, send mail to one of the|

| following addresses (see appendix 4 for more options): |

| |

| archie@cs.mcgill.ca (Canada) |

| archie@nic.funet.fi (Finland) |

| archie@plaza.aarnet.edu.au (Australia) |

| |

| Put the word HELP in the body of the mail |

| |

| Getting programs by email is a three-step process: |

| (1) Use Archie to find file names and where they are stored, |

| (2) Send a message to ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com to have them |

| retrieved and forwarded to you by email, and |

| (3) Use a utility program to convert the file to a useful |

| format. (See chapter 12.) |

| |

| Check out JVArcServ for an Archie-alike service on FidoNet. |

Chances are that online services in your area also have many programs to offer. Most free bulletin boards have more software than you'll ever get around to try.

Usually, there is a natural specialization between boards. Those using the Unix operating system, have the largest number of programs for such machines. Those running on MS-DOS computers,