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.