Hardware Module

Part 4 -- Computer Networks

Computer Networks offer several advantages to schools and businesses. The high cost of equipment can be reduced by sharing resources such as printers, software and modems. Instead of buying a printer for each user, you can share printers among several user saving the cost of the additional printers and their maintenance. Networks offer the ability to share programs cutting down the cost of software (Network site licenses are cheaper than buying single copies for each user) and labor to install and maintain the software on each machine. Another advantage of networking is the users ability to communicate to each other through E-mail and data sharing. Communicating across networks is getting easier and is quickly becoming an essential skill. Local area networks (LANs) are created when you connect two or more computers together in the same area.

Local Area Network (LAN)
Wide Area Networks (WAN) are extensions of local area networks. An example of a wide area network is ASUNET at Arizona State University. Networks at the Computer Commons (ASU's main computing site) are connected to the computers at the Student Computing Lab at the College of Education by ASU's network backbone. Only two of the four LANs in the Student Computing Lab are connected to ASU's WAN. The two LANs not connected to the WAN can share information amongst themselves but not the rest of the campus.

The most famous WAN is the Internet. The Internet is a world wide WAN or nations networked together.

We will let the Internet describe itself to you. The NCSA NSFNET movie (requires QuickTime) Because of its size, (5.2 Mb) it will take several minutes to download the complete movie.
Originally a place where only computer experts dare venture, Netscape and other user friendly tools provided easy access to "The Net" for even the novice.