Tutorials 2. Understanding the Internet Page 2 - How does the Internet work?
How does the Internet work?
In Tutorial 1, we said that the Internet was the largest computer network in the
world. These computers are all interconnected with each other, making it
possible for any one computer to talk to any other. But, not every computer on
the Internet is the same. Some run WindowsNT. Others run the MacOS. And, there
are other operating systems run by these computers. There's Unix, Linux, OS/2,
FreeBSD, Apache...the list continues. Most of the computers used on the Internet
run Unix or Linux and are made by Sun Microsystems, Inc.
All of the computers on the Internet must be able to communicate with and
understand each other. That is why the TCP/IP protocol was developed. TCP/IP
stands for Transmission Control Protocol/Internet
Protocol. TCP/IP is the language that computers speak to other
computers. When you surf the Internet and visit a web page, the information
there is sent back to your computer using the TCP/IP. The information on the
server is chopped up into smaller pieces, called packets. These packets
contain information about what data they contain, and how to reassemble the data,
once it has been retrieved. While in transit from the server on the Internet, to
your computer, computers called routers direct the packet traffic flow.
The routers show the packets to the quickest path to the destination computer,
the one that your sitting at. Once the packets are received, they are examined
and reassembled into their original form. Each packet contains a certain amount
of information that tells the computer how big it should be. If this information
is not the same as the packet, then the packet is re-requested to prevent errors. When sending information, the same protocol is used, just in reverse. Your computer will chop up the information into packets and send them to the server.
Software
There is special software that is needed to use the TCP/IP protocol. This is
usually called the TCP/IP stack. In Windows, the TCP/IP stack is usually
the file, winsock.dll. This file is included with most versions of
Windows, and allows your computer to easily communicate with other computers,
using the TCP/IP protocol.
Hardware
If you are using your computer from home, you are probably using a modem to
connect to the Internet. To connect, you will dial up your ISP. Another way to
connect at-home is with an ISDN modem, which is much faster than a standard
modem. Many ISPs will not support ISDN modems, and may not support some of the
faster modems available on the market. Check out
Tutorial 3 for more information about modems. If you are connected to the
Internet at work or school, it is probably through a LAN. Each computer on the
LAN will have a network card installed inside.
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