Welcome to the Cyberspace
Welcome to the Cyberspace
By Zatni Arbi
JAKARTA (JP): Wow! Do you believe it? Cybermania has hit
Indonesia so soon? I have received letters and faxes eagerly
asking for information on access to Internet. That's no surprise,
given the fact that Internet has been featured in Fortune,
Scientific American, PC/Computing, PC World, Byte, and many other
publications in the last few months.
By the way, the best of all these letters came from an
expatriate in Bukittinggi, the lovely little town in West Sumatra
where I was born. In his letter he told me that he had been a
student of the same university where I attended graduate school.
What a small world! Yet the world will become even much, much
smaller when you're already on Internet.
Here's the information I have owed you for some time: In
Indonesia, Internet can be accessed through INDO.GTW, which is
managed by the Center for Computer Science of the University of
Indonesia (PUSILKOM UI), Jakarta.
Unfortunately though, the number of its users has grown so
fast that new individual applicants have to be tightly screened.
Institutions, however, can still join.
The access number of INDO.GTW is (21) 390-7403 (2 channels).
To register, you have to deposit Rp 250,000, which cannot be
refunded in cash when you decide to quit -- just let the manager
know that you're going to terminate membership well in advance,
and the deposit can be used toward payments of your subsequent
monthly charges.
The monthly charge itself will be a multiple of Rp 25,000,
depending on usage. First of all, however, you have to obtain a
registration form from PUSILKOM UI. Here's the contact address:
Network Manager
Mr. R. Prabowo
Universitas Indonesia
Pusat Ilmu Komputer
Jl. Salemba Raya No. 4
P.O. Box 3442, Jakarta 10002
Fax (21) 310-2774
To accommodate individual Internetter wannabes, PUSILKOM UI is
setting up a BBS that they call Kala Warta. The BBS is still in
the beta-testing stage, so I'm still unable to give you its dial-
up numbers. Once it gets off the ground, individuals will also be
able to access Internet. However, the access fees for Kala Warta,
I was told, will be around 30 percent higher than most other
BBSs.
Take heart, though. The management of another BBS in town has
just informed me that they have struck a deal with PT Indosat to
enable them to connect all Cyberspace enthusiasts in Indonesia to
Internet.
If everything works fine, you'll be able to log on to that BBS
next month. So, be patient. I'll furnish you with further
information as I receive it.
Largest network
For the uninitiated, Internet is the largest but largely
unmanned computer network on Earth. One estimate says that more
than 20 million computer users all over the world log on to the
network. There is no way of determining the exact figure since
the network is so decentralized. At any rate, when you're on
Internet, you can exchange messages or even chat with a geologist
in Siberia or a student in Beirut.
Internet was started in 1969, when the U.S. Defense Department
decided to build a network that had no central hub yet a high
degree of redundancy, so that even if nuclear war broke out
communications among military command centers would survive. If
you want to join it, you'll have to have a unique user name and
address, and the vast network has enough intelligence to forward
E-mail to your address.
Who constructed the network? Well, in the beginning, ARPANet
was built on computing centers belonging to universities and
military centers. Today, giant corporations such as IBM have
joined it. Internet will become one of the major components of
the U.S. Information Superhighway, a brainchild of Al Gore and
the Clinton Administration.
What can you do when you're already on the Net? Well, E-mail
is the first thing that comes to mind, naturally. There are
special interest groups in which you can exchange the latest
information. Using the Net, you can also even run programs on a
computer located thousands of miles away. There are virtually an
infinite number of files containing data and information that you
can download, if you wish.
Here's a true story that may illustrate one of the practical
uses of Internet. Once during my time as a student at the
University of Hawaii, I had to purchase an airplane ticket for a
friend of mine who was coming from Jakarta with his bride (the
fare is slightly lower if you buy the ticket in Honolulu instead
of in Jakarta).
He happened to be a staff member of PUSILKOM UI and therefore
had access to Internet. Two days before his departure, Garuda
Indonesia's Honolulu office still had not sent the necessary
telex concerning the ticket to Jakarta, so my friend was unable
to pick it up from Garuda's Jakarta office.
Thanks to Internet, he was able to 'E-mail' me and inform me
of the problem, and I was able to call the Honolulu office in
time. The telex was immediately sent. The beauty of the story was
that it cost this friend of mine virtually nothing to contact me,
especially compared to the cost of the telephone call he would
otherwise have been forced to make.
Well, to round up our brief encounter with Cyberspace and BBSs
today, here's a bonus for those of you out there who always
hunger for more BBSs: USI IBM also runs a BBS that is available
to everybody. You can send private or public E-mail, upload and
download software, shareware, freeware, and fixes for OS/2.
You can ask questions and get answers regarding various
issues, including OS/2. You can even access IBMNet, Big Blue's
network that links their BBSs in other countries. The only
problem is that it is not linked to Internet.
If you're an OS/2 early adopter, this is the BBS you shouldn't
overpass. Set your communication software to 8, N, and 1. To
connect, dial (21) 520-9476 for the maximum speed of 9600 bps, or
(21) 570-0974 for 2400 bps.