Glossary

Archie

A network service that searches FTP sites for files.

browser

Software that provides an interface to the World-Wide Web, or to another information service. See also `client.'

CERN

The European collective of high-energy physics researchers (European Organization for Nuclear Research).

chat

A program that allows a group of people to communicate interactively, often over a network. Every line they type is echoed on the screens of each of the participants (cf. `talk')

client

A computer or program requests a service of another computer or program.

client-server model

A structure in which programs use and provide distributed services.

CSO

Central Services Organization. A service which facilitates user and address lookup in databases.

CWIS

Campus-Wide Information System. A repository for information that is of interest to people at some institution, also offering a way to connect to information elsewhere.

finger

A service that responds to queries and retrieves user information remotely.

FTP

File Transfer Protocol. A common method of transferring files across networks.

Gateway

A program, running on some machine that accepts incoming requests in one protocols and passes them on in another.

Gopher

A versatile menu-driven information service.

HTML+

The latest version of HTML.

Hyper-g

A distributed hypertext system mostly popular in Europe.

HyperCard

A personal hypermedia/multimedia creation system for use on Apple Computers.

hyperlinks

Connections between hypermedia or hypertext documents and other media.

hypermedia

Hypertext that includes or links to other forms of media.

hypertext

Text that, when selected, has the ability to present connected documents.

HyperText Markup Language (HTML)

The standard language used for creating hypermedia documents within the World-Wide Web.

HyperText Transmission Protocol (HTTP)

The standard language that World-Wide Web clients and servers use to communicate.

Internet

The global collective of computer networks.

Listserv

A program that watches for incoming mail on a certain mailbox file and forwards all messages to a list of addresses.

MIME

(Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions.) A standard format to allow multimedia in mail messages.

Mosaic

A mouse-driven interface to the World-Wide Web developed by the NCSA.

National Center for Supercomputing Applications

(NCSA) A federally-funded organization in the USA whose mission is to develop and research high-technology resources for the scientific community.

Ted Nelson

The inventor of many common ideas related to hypertext, including the word `hypertext' itself.

NNTP

News Network Transfer Protocol. A common method by which articles over Usenet are transferred. The document RFC1036 defines the protocol.

PostScript

A page description language, accepted by many printers.

server

A program which provides a service to other client programs.

SGML

Standard Generalized Markup Language. A generic language for representing documents.

Serial Line Internet Protocol (SLIP)

A protocol that allows Internet connections over serial (i.e., modem) lines.

Software Design Group

The group within NCSA that is responsible for designing computer applications.

talk

A program that allows two people to write messages directly to each others screens, over a network (cf. `chat'.

techinfo

A common campus-wide information system developed at MIT.

Text Encoding Initiative (TEI)

An effort to create a large, flexible SGML DTD for coding various types written texts.

telnet

A program which allows users to remotely use computers across networks.

Tim Berners-Lee

The inventor of the World-Wide Web.

Uniform Resource Locators (URLs)

Standardized formatted entities within HTML documents which specify a network service or document to link to.

Usenet

The global news-reading network.

Vannevar Bush

Originator of the concept of hypertext.

Veronica

A network service that allows users to search Gopher systems for documents.

WAIS

Wide-Area Information Service. A service which allows users to intelligently search for information among databases distributed throughout the Internet.

whois

A name lookup service.

World-Wide Web

The initiative to create a universal, hypermedia-based method of access to information.

X.500

A standard which defines electronic mail directory services. Mostly used in Europe.