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O.K. everyone....First, my apologies for the bandwidth! This is a rough draft of the short article I've put together for AquaCorps on Internet & Techdiver. This is part of a larger article which also includes information on CompuServe, Delphi, and GEnie. I'm going to suggest to A/C that they include two sidebars: one on "Proper Netiquette", and the other listing other network sites (WWW sites & the NACD BBS) If anyone has any comments or corrections, I'd love to hear them. Thanks, and Aloha, Rich deepreef@bi*.bi*.ha*.or* ------------------- Diving Into the Net AquaCorps is a magazine for "technical divers", right? And "technical" implies the use of advanced technology. What do you think of when you the hear the word "technology"? If you're like most regular people (and we don't suggest that either as a compliment, or as an insult), computers would probably be somewhere amongst the list of things with which you associate that word. When "divers" and "computers" are both mentioned in the same paragraph, most people start thinking about those little plastic thingies you take underwater; the ones which reassure you that if you wait just another four minutes and thirty-two seconds on your last decompression stop you most certainly will not get bent. Believe it or not, there are other kinds of computers - the big ones with all those little buttons that have letters and numbers on them. You know...that expensive gizmo you bought so you could cut your own mixed-gas tables. Well guess what? That gizmo can do all sorts of really cool things besides calculate decompression schedules. One of the cool things a computer allows you to do is to tap into the various electronic networks. There's lots of them out there, and you might be surprised at the variety of items of interest for technical divers. Here's a sampling: [Stuff on Compuserve from John Crea; Delphi from Rick Williams; GEnie from Phil Sharkey] INTERNET The Internet has been called the "network of networks" and is what most people think of as the "Information Superhighway". It is presently the largest and most widely used electronic network in the world, with an estimated 20 million members (no one really knows for sure). Equally immense is the scope and diversity of electronic resources available on the 'net. One of the best examples of interest to divers is "Aquanaut", sponsored by Open Advisors Limited (Opal), which bills itself as "the Internet's first on-line magazine dedicated to the diving community". Among Aquanaut's many offerings are the NOAA wreck database, and the TechDiver mailing list - an open e-mail discussion group devoted to issues of technical diving. Messages sent to the TechDiver address (techdiver@opal.com) are automatically forwarded to the large, and growing, list of TechDiver subscribers. But before you start sending out all of your thoughts, ideas, and opinions about technical diving to that address, there's a few things you should do. First, you should subscribe to the list yourself (see "Getting There" below). Second, you should send an introductory message briefly describing yourself. Third, you should "lurk" (read other people's messages without responding right away) for a couple of days to get a feeling for what sorts of conversations take place. The TechDiver mailing list receives, on average, about ten to fifteen messages per day. Sometimes several days go by without a single posting; other times upwards of fifty messages can be posted in a single day. Unlike CompuServe, the busiest days are weekdays, with only a few messages posted over weekends. Topics of discussion range from highly technical to broadly philosophical, and include information on medical/physiological aspects of diving, equipment configurations and recommendations, technical diving procedures, training agencies, and moral/ethical dilemmas (i.e., the ethics of salvaging artifacts from wrecks, the merits of solo diving, justifications for deep air diving, etc.). Information is usually top-notch (errors are often amply pointed by many subscribers), and the list includes many extremely knowledgeable individuals from a wide array of backgrounds, and from all over the world. The list also provides nearly instantaneous communication of developments in the technical diving field (for example, subscribers heard the tragic news of Sheck Exley's death only hours after it happened). Aquanaut isn't the only place on Internet of interest to divers. Two other examples include the Hypbar-L mailing list (hypbar-l@te*.te*.ac*.il*) and a cavers' mailing list (cavers@sp*.cs*.ya*.ed*). The former is devoted to discussions of hyperbaric medicine, and the latter to speleology in general (with some discussion on cave diving). Perhaps the most important aspect of TechDiver, like all other electronic network discussion groups, is that it brings people from literally all corners of the world together to communicate information, ideas, and opinions on a nearly instantaneous basis. Friendships are forged, alliances made, and even a few, shall we say, "rivalries" are developed. Kind of like AquaCorps. Getting There Many businesses, universities, and other institutions have direct access to the Internet. Alternatively, anyone with a computer and a modem can access the Internet by subscribing to one of the "big" on-line services (e.g. America On Line, CompuServe, Delphi, GEnie) that provide Internet connectivity, or by subscribing to one of the many other commercial Internet connection services. For more information on how to access the Internet, check out Vol. 13, No 17 (October 11, 1994) of "PC Magazine", or any other magazine devoted to computer networking. The easiest way to access Aquanaut is through OPAL's "Gopher" server. At the Internet prompt, type "gopher opal.com" or "gopher gopher.opal.com" (without the quotes). After making the connection, follow the menu prompts. Alternatively, Aquanaut can be accessed via World Wide Web at http://www.opal.com/aquanaut. To subscribe to the TechDiver mailing list, send a message to "techdiver-request@opal.com" (again, without the quotes) with the word SUBSCRIBE and your name and e-mail address in the body of the message (you don't really need to put your name and e-mail address, but it doesn't hurt). Notice that this address is not the same as the address to which you post messages. You will be notified that your subscription is successful when you receive an introductory message from Aquanaut that explains the purpose of the TechDiver list, and prompts you to send an introductory message to the group. After that, you will receive all messages sent to the TechDiver address, and any message you send to techdiver@opal.com will be distributed to all other subscribers.
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