The Internet provides many very useful functions for the Apple II users: 1) e-mail. This allows to send and receive letters to/from another net user. Just type "mail " followed by a message and your contact will see the message when he performs a login. "mail < " puts the output from a file into the mail. (This works only with plain ASCII files, otherwise use uuencode to encode it first). 2) ftp. This allows to transfer Apple files from a foreign server (see gs/info/about/file.servers) to your computer. To perform this: 1) Type "ftp ". The server should ask you now for your login name. 2) Type "anonymous". This works on most servers. Most servers will ask now for your e-mail adress. 3) Type your full e-mail adress. Usually, your login name immediately followed by @ will be accepted, too. 4) You should be now in the foreign directory. Use ls, cd as usual, until you are in an interesting subdirectory (usually in /pub/apple2/gs... or so) 5) If you find an interesting file, type "bin" (for BINARY, not needed for an ASCII file) and "hash" (optional). 6) Type "get " and the transfer should begin. 7) To get an entire directory type "mget *.*". Ftp will prompt for each file unless you type "prompt off". 8) To perform things in your working directory, type "!". You are now in UNIX. Press CTRL-D and you are back in ftp. 9) Press CTRL-D to exit ftp. Of course, you will have to get your files in PRODOS format. If you have a Mac hooked up to the net, this is easy. Otherwise you will have to convert the files using a GS with a SuperDrive controller or the FileConverter on a Mac. The last step will be to unpack the programs. For this archive, you should need only one program: ShrinkItGS. Other archives may use other archivers (see gs/info/about/archivers). 3) world wide web browsing. You will need a graphic terminal for this service. Type "netscape" and you are in (Sometimes "mosaic" is used instead). To escape from the title page, just click "Open Location" from the file menu and enter the www adress of your favorite AppleII file server (see gs/info/about/file.servers). A nice page to begin with is "http://www.liii.com/~moxie/a2ftp.html". From there, you can hop from page to page, only with clicks of your mouse. Sometimes you can use e-mail or ftp from within the web. Hold the shift key down when you click on a program to download it. On the Apple II, you can surf the net using Lynx (text browser) from your shell account. You can also buy Seven Hill's Spectrum Internet Suite. 4) Newsgroups. If you have a newsreader program like 'tin' or 'nn' you can visit comp.sys.apple2 where you will find a lot of information. You may read the postings there and post your own ones, too. Most of the people on comp.sys.apple2 are nice and always help you with technical answers. 5) On-Line chats. If you have an 'irc' frontend program you can enter the chat channels and have real-time discussion with other users. All what you type appears on the other's screen. Special commands must be preceded by '/'. Type '/server irc.hypermall.com' and '/join #appleii' to get on Jawaid Bazyar's chat channel where new Apple II users are always welcomed. There is also the #appleiigs channel on irc.funet.fi but I can't recommend this due to the rather hostile attitude towards new users. Useful commands are /msg to send text only to specific persons, /help and /quit. __=== ===__ / =\ /= \ | = \/ = | Apple II | = /\ = | infinitum! \___=/ \=___/ === ===