15. What Are Newsgroups? Part 2. 1307

The messages in newsgroups are stored on news servers owned by universities, companies and other large entities all over the world. Most news servers keep only the more recent posts; they'd soon run out of storage space otherwise.

What happens if you can't find a newsgroup that covers your favorite topic? Well, you could create a new newsgroup--but not without a little effort. If you want your group to be a standard Usenet newsgroup (those whose names begin with comp, misc, news, rec, soc, sci, and talk), you must submit a highly bureaucratic document, called a Request For Discussion (RFD).The group then organizes a straw vote where anybody who wants to can vote on your proposal.

The alt newsgroup hierarchy was created because many people felt it was too difficult to create an ordinary newsgroup. (Contrary to popular belief, alt does not mean "alternative topics"; it means "alternative newsgroup management structure.")

If you want to create a newsgroup without all the hassle, you post a suggestion in the alt.config newsgroup and leave it up to the news administrators--the ones who make the ultimate decision about carrying new alt newsgroups.

There are also such things as local and private newsgroups. A discussion group created on a corporate intranet is an example of a private newsgroup.

16. Input Devices. 1400

There are several devices used for inputting information into the computer: a keyboard, some coordinate input devices, such as manipulators (a mouse, a track ball), touch panels and graphical plotting tables, scanners, digital cameras, TV tuners, sound cards etc.

First the most common device used to transfer information from the user to the computer was the keyboard. It enabled inputting numerical and text data. A standard keyboard has 104 keys and three more ones informing about the operating mode of light indicators in the upper right corner.

Later with the development of advanced graphics users found that a keyboard did not provide the design capabilities of graphics and text representation on the display. There appeared manipulators, a mouse and a track ball usually used while operating with graphical interface.

The mouse is an optic-mechanical input device with two or three buttons which control the cursor moving the mouse across the screen thus simplifying users’ orientation on the display. By moving across the screen the mouse helps users to draw, point and select images on the computer display.

Pressing the buttons or double-clicking them users issue changes in commands or erase images. The ball located on the bottom side of the mouse turns two rollers. One is tracking the mouse's vertical movements, the other - horizontal. The rotating ball glides easily, giving the user good control over the textual and graphical images.