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Internet Software
We all know the Internet is made up of countless computers around the world. Obviously, computers use software, but how many of us actually know anything about the software that makes the Internet run?
Today the Internet is a vast network of computers. These computers are networked by means of telephone lines, radio transmission facilities, fiber optic cable and satellite communications. Many different manufacturers' computers using many operating systems. The common thing about the Internet is that all the computers communicate using as TCP/IP as the common elements. (Telecommunication Communications Protocol/ Internet Protocol). A computer protocol is much like a language--a way of communicating using terms that are understood by all who use them. TCP and IP are different protocols and have different responsibilities for providing end to end communications. However, they must work together or no end to end communications can take place. IP is the protocol by which data is sent to the Internet. When a message is transmitted, it gets divided into small chunks called packets, which only contains a part of the total message plus both the sender's and the recipient's internet address. An individual packet is transmitted from intermediate computer to intermediate computer on its journey across the Internet. Since traffic loads vary on the Internet and individual transmission lines can fail, all packets of a particular message are not necessarily sent via the same route, and consequently the packets can arrive at the destination at different times. Simplistically, TCP is responsible for ensuring that the packets get across the Internet and putting them together in the proper sequence once they arrive. IP is responsible for delivering the total message to the recipient. HTML, Web Browsers and Web Pages Now that we have the network in place and can transmit information across the series of computers that make up the Internet, how does the rest of it work? A web page is, in reality, a text page that contains not only text, but a series of “tags” that tell a program that can interpret them how to display the information on the page. The series of tags is basically “HTML”, Hypertext Markup Language – a computer language that describes how a page should be displayed. This can include plain text, graphics, colors, movement and sound. A web browser – such as Internet Explorer, Firefox or Mozilla -- is actually a computer program that has a couple of functions. It can connect to the Internet and to web servers to request a particular web page. In addition to its communication function, it knows how to interpret HTML and display the web page as was designed. A web server is a computer that stores web pages in its memory and will deliver them on request from a web browser. All of these diverse pieces of software need to work together for the Internet as we know it to function.
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