Today, the Internet comes in a box. I hear phrases such as, "Oh yeah, I have Internet," spoken as if this intensely complex system of packet transfers were merely another accessory bundled with your software's calendar and calculator.
Call me old-fashioned. My first experience with a real computer was when I was doing research in graduate school and had to compare values along three different fields. My professor conveyed the good news that the computer department was willing to proces s my data because it had recently developed a three-dimensional comparison program that it was eager to test. I remember carrying bundles of hole-punched cards and waiting a week for several reams of fanfold paper, which somehow contained information that my professor taught me to decipher.
The million-dollar machine examined my database of 30 records and six fields, and with the assistance of four or five professionals, it provided me with the numbers that helped me to construct a 3-D chart. Today, of course, just about any spreadsheet prog ram on the tiniest palm computer could generate all of the above almost instantly.
My first online experience was with a Radio Shack CoCo I at 300 baud. I had palpitations as the first line of utter gibberish filled the screen in an attempt to log on to Delphi. I did know that I had contacted another machine and that it was trying to sa y something to me.
It was reminiscent of my earlier Ham radio days. My Morse code was impossibly slow and my comprehension slower, but I still knew that the remote dits and dahs were somehow directed at me. Back on my CoCo, I hit the enter button and the on-screen garbage s eemed to express an equal puzzlement. I felt as if Delphi and I were earthling and alien trying to say "Hi!" for the first time. Eventually I would get the protocols right and even begin to get antsy with the slowness of my connection, but the memory of t hat first handshake always remains.
Soon afterwards, I was pushed by a rabidly excited friend to open a Unix account on Panix--where I have remained to this day. I must say that despite my fairly sophisticated knowledge of DOS, batch files, QBasic, and even some Assembler and C, I was lost for quite some time. I probably spent my first 10 hours online doing nothing more than changing directories and listing their contents, and even then I still was lost.
I persevered, and once again found new frontiers as I tried the various gateways to the Internet. With each new level of discovery came a new level of floundering. But eventually that other eye does move to the top of your head. You look around, and lo an d behold, you are an Internet guru. Just as it has been said that success is the result of a series of failures, finding your way around the Internet is the result of getting lost enough times to finally figure out where you are.
Like Sisyphus
So now, of course, I have it down, right? Wrong! Last year about this time I began to fiddle with SLIP/PPP. Oh, it's the best for sure. But you don't know a headache until you've tried to set it up. I think this has been somewhat alleviated by more aware installation programs, but then there are still those nasty upgrades.
For some reason, I always have an uncanny urge to install a new version of my SLIP-ware at about the same moment that my host system administrators decide to upgrade their hardware. This often seems to coincide with a major overhaul of the area phone line s, which occasionally is timed perfectly with some Internet-wide disruption. I must be psychic, but not in the sense where I know to hold off. I go through the decompressing, installing, configuring, and--phooey--I connect, but the Domain Name Server fail s every lookup.
You have to be a genius to begin to figure out what went wrong. Sometimes, there are simple fixes. Other times I have uninstalled the whole mess, returned to my original configuration, successfully logged on, and then read the MOTD (Message of the Day) ap ologizing that the system was down for five minutes.
Unplanned Obsolescence
You do realize, don't you, that everything you are learning now will be obsolete in a few years? The advent of interactive cable, video phone lines, PC-to-video, and so on--which, in effect, merges all of these devices and protocols into one thing--may re nder the Internet as a quaint system used by college students and amateurs. The Internet may go the way of the CB radio. How then, do we place the current state of the Internet into its proper perspective?
It is clearly the technological cutting edge of the moment. Corporations are hustling at rapid pace to create an online presence. Publications and other media (radio, TV, film, recording) are migrating, or at least sticking a toe, onto the Net. I have rec eived calls and letters from such diverse entities as an arts council to a vacuum cleaner distributor seeking advice about the Net. Yet in the wings, and primarily known to more technical types, are a variety of technologies that boast higher speed and fa r greater bandwidth. Will these technologies in-corporate the Internet or will they bypass it altogether?
In the arts we have a concept called "content." People who are able to deliver meaningful content in an interesting and effective way are said to have something we call "talent." Artists, musicians, and other creative individuals have been up against the technological wall for quite some time. How, for example, does a drummer compete with the perfectly synchronized beat provided by an electronic oscillator? How does a graphic artist ply a trade when software graphics packages provide precisely drawn lines and come with huge clip art files that enable any user to bend, stretch, or rotate an image to taste?
At present, a great deal of talent, time, and expense is necessary to provide an effective online service. Tomorrow we may see a rather simple server-in-a-box that turns your PC or Mac into a network server with a single click of a mouse. This does, in fa ct, already exist to some degree. How, then, will one site manage to gain the attention of others in this vast sea of networks crying out and hawking their wares?
An Even Playing Field
We see this phenomenon already on the World-Wide Web, the de facto playground/marketplace of the Internet. I love the fact that, in a sense, I am on an equal footing with the big corporations. They can no more dominate the Web than I can. In some ways, I can attract more users to my site because I am not as hung up in a product that I am trying to sell.
On the other hand, despite the incredibly easy access to this global system, getting your particular site noticed is not easy. There are, for instance, such vast numbers of art sites currently online that the best we can all do is mutually network among o urselves to help each other stand out. I am thankful to the arts Gophers that connect to mine, as I hope they appreciate that mine points to theirs.
By the year 2001 you may turn on your TV and use your remote control as a mouse to scroll through a directory of subjects. Under the topic Communications you will find "Internet." Then you might scroll to the category Periodicals, where, naturally, you wi ll see Internet World. Clicking to my column, you'll view an older (and wiser) version of me delivering my monthly video-column. I'll probably do at least one segment talking about the old days in the early to mid-'90s.
Back then, you'll recall, to access a library it was necessary to boot up your computer, open a communications program, dial in to a host service, and open an online program that connected to the remote library catalogs--but only rarely some of the actual literature. My generation may become one of the last to remember the musky sensation that accompanied pulling open a card catalog drawer, and we may be among the last to be taught the Dewey decimal system.
For some, the Internet is the ultimate commodity. The raw materials are readily available and continually replenishable, and the distribution is instantaneously global. For others, it is simply fun. Some find the Internet an anxiety-provoking high-tech in trusion into their lives, while others experience symptoms of withdrawal if they are denied their daily dose of e-mail.
For my two cents, the Internet is destined to have an effect on our society that can be likened to the telephone, TV, and computer. Each of these technologies was transformed seemingly overnight from a niche specialty to a commonplace necessity. The Inter net is now directly in the public eye, newcomers to the Net are increasing geometrically, and the corporate world has started to set up shop. The Internet has reached its second plateau, and there is plenty of room for it to grow.
Kenny Greenberg (kgreenb@panix.com) is a neon artist and owner of Krypton Neon in Long Island City, N.Y. He is a contributing author of Tricks of the Internet Gurus (SAMS Publishing, 1994).