Scientific computing used to be largely confined to mainframe devices, with all necessary data, operations, and report generation per- formed by a single machine. But with the explosion of personal computer technology that has taken place during the last 10 years, communication between computers has become important, if not a necessity, to many scientists' work. Researchers now can discuss data and concepts via national and international computer networks. A scientist with a personal computer can send the latest draft of a research paper to a colleague in the next room--or the next state. Reams of data are available from faraway labs through online databases. Of course, in order for all these electronic interactions to take place, software is needed to tell the computers how to talk to each other.
Before any communication between computers can occur, the machines must be physically connected in some way. If the computers are at ...
