Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, January 25, 1994 TAG: 9401250012
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: STEPHEN FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Just what can the thing do, I wonder. Where can it take me? What can I learn? To whom can I talk?
So I boot up and start knocking on doors - using the Gopher software system headings to search for particular things. Those doors lead to more doors. Then more doors. I grow weary; all this knocking and not getting in gets frustrating.
Finally, I find an open door.
Behind it is beer.
I'm in the right place.
I am, by definition, a novice at this thing.
The Electronic Village and the Internet - the worldwide network of computer networks - that the village is linked with, are daunting.
There are plenty of frustrations, too. The system works by routing queries through a Hewlett-Packard HP9000 computer on the Virginia Tech campus, then sending them out to computers around the world. If, along the line, the query runs into a computer that is down for whatever reason, the connection will fail. It happens often.
Or it may take too long for the connection to link up. A built-in timer in the software gives the computer less than a minute before it gives up and you have to start over. It happens often.
Not to mention that there's a hefty amount of computer jargon and abbreviations and passwords and just plain-old knowledge you need to glean or you'll be stuck wondering what to do next. It happens often.
Frankly, I feel completely lost starting out.
But along with that bewilderment comes an awe-inspiring amount of information and a weird sense of connectedness.
Twenty million people are tuning into the Internet to look at the same things I'm seeing. Many are conversing with each other. There are all kinds of things to read.
Here's a list of presidential adviser George Stephanopoulos' briefings. School closings for tomorrow. A story about a man-eating grizzly bear somewhere near Alaska. Four files on the Rolling Stones.
But let's just talk beer, here.
After using the Veronica - Very Easy Rodent-Oriented Net-Wide Index to Computerized Archives - method to search for all items dealing with beer, a seemingly unending list of files pops up.
There's a wealth of beer information here: quality considerations of a new Samuel Adams brew; sightings of Bill Clinton quaffing a Pilsener; the great Beer vs. Cucumber debate.
(On one side, "Beer bottles don't shrivel up and grow moldy if you leave them in the fridge for a month." On the flip side, "You can eat as many cucumbers as you like, and drive home later.")
Someone wanted information on the best pubs in Atlanta. Another wanted tips on how to make his own beer. A third began a raging debate on what constituted "beer snobbery." An offshoot query was posed later on whether Clinton is a beer snob. And file after file of replies to these important questions.
Each file is set up by someone, somewhere. I can imagine another just like myself, hunkering over his computer, popping the top on a cold one and just fooling around, looking to see what his Internet comrades are saying about a favorite topic.
It's bar talk at a very big bar. And no worry about a brawl.
I think I'll become a regular.
by CNB