Lecture 1: Computer Network Architectures Overview
Administrative Stuff
- The lecturer.
- Phil Scott. See also, tutor, etc... Office hours, phone,
messages, etc. See also, electronic mail
- The subject
- Why has it got three names? When are the lectures? Can the
lecture times be changed? What happens with tutes? What is this
thing with public holidays in 1996?
- Textbooks and references
- In particular, how come there's no text book? What should we
do in relation to buying a book? Are there other sources of
information for this subject?
- Assessment
- The Exam
- Assignments. In particular, what's this first assignment?
Support Services
- Electronic mail. This should be your preferred
method of contacting your lecturer, whose mail address is:
p.scott@latrobe.edu.au
Early in the semester, I will expect you to communicate with
me using email to confirm that my mail alias for this subject
is up-to-date.
- Newsgroup: latrobe.bendigo.comp.dcom - Less important now that
the WWW page is available.
- The World Wide Web (WWW). This is the important one. All students
should have a current userid on the Unix systems, and should be able to
use netscape, xmosaic or lynx or similar to access the
C205 home page.
The Subject Area
Computer Networks are the biggest Big New Thing for decades.
They are now of central importance to all of Information Technology.
With the recent explosive growth of the Internet, they are rapidly
becoming of crucial importance to all of modern society.
It is absolutely certain that you will need to know about networks
and network technology to survive in the IT workplace.
This subject aims to give a solid overview of the technologies
and philosophies that are needed to understand how computer networks
are built, and can be used. It also examines, in part, why some
apparently illogical things are the way they are, and how human
foibles can affect technology.
One crucial aspect of the subject is that it will
not shy away from discussion of the "P" word (politics) where
this is necessary to understand the technology.
This lecture is also available in PostScript format.
There is no tutorial for this lecture.