Description

This article is from the Amiga Networking FAQ, by Richard Norman with numerous contributions by others.

13 modem to modem

This is basically the poor man's network, but it works well.  Usenet uses this
method. Since there is some overlap between usenet and the  internet you can gain
some access to the internet such as mail or news which do not require immediate
response (i.e. messages are usually only sent once a day).
To get on the Usenet you have to either know someone who is already on it and
daisy chain from them. Or you can access a BBS which offers usenet access. User
groups and BBS are also good places to ask for usenet access. Also you can check
the  UUCP FAQ   UUCP FAQ   for information.
If you can get a modem connection to a machine on the internet, then you can use
it as an intermediate host to access most of the internet by using command line
utilities such as ftp or telnet.  Because of this restriction to command line mode
this style of connection is often referred to as a _shell account_. Since your
machine is acting as just a terminal to the intermediate host, this type of
connection requires a two step process to download a file to your machine. First
you must FTP it to the intermediate host, and then you will need a file transfer
program (such as xmodem or kermit) to transfer from the intermediate machine to
your machine.
There are several ways around the two step. For Shell accounts you can ask your
provider about   TIA   or mlink which is on Aminet. Also, two recent protocols have
evolved called   SLIP   and   PPP   which  make the intermediate system  transparent
and provide full TCP/IP connectivity over a modem.  In fact the intermediate
system need be  nothing more than a terminal server which supports SLIP or PPP.
Both SLIP and PPP allow your computer to have an address so that TCP/IP
applications can talk directly to your node. (i.e. your machine becomes a node,
not a terminal).  PPP can support other protocols than TCP/IP.
Some universities and public access programs such as FREEnet offer free dial up
shell accounts. If you can't find one of these or USEnet access, then you will
need to try
option  B   modem to commercial services, or
option  C   direct to WAN or ISP provider.

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