The Online World resources handbook

Your first trip online. Typical pitfalls and simple solutions http://home.eunet.no/~presno/bok/v3.html
local disk."
You are downloading, when you call a bulletin board to retrieve a program.
When you, overwhelmed by gratitude, send one of your favorite programs back TO the
bulletin board, we call it uploading.
Data can be many things. It may be news from the Washington Post, a digital picture, an
executable program, a pile of invoices, a piece of music, a voice file, an animated
sequence of pictures and music, or compressed library files.
Downloading "plain text" (also called "plain ASCII" or "DOS text" on MS DOS
machines) is relatively easy. Such text usually only contains characters between number
32 (space character) and 126 (the ~ character) in the ASCII table.
Characters with lower numbers have special functions (like the control characters
ESCape and CTRL+C). These may not even be displayed on your screen. Characters
with higher numbers are used for graphics, special national characters, and other
applications.
Special transfer methods are often required, when your data contains text with
characters outside ASCII number 32 through 126. Read under "Protocol transfers"
below for more information about how to do this.
Downloading text
Most communication programs require that you begin by opening a file. They ask you to
enter a file name. From this point and onwards all incoming text will be stored in this file
until you say stop.
Communication programs do this in different ways. Some let incoming data flow through
a temporary storage area using the principle first in, first out. When you open a file, it
starts storing data from the beginning of the temporary storage area, though this text
may have scrolled off your screen some time ago.
Most communication programs start storing data from NOW. Procomm works this way.
You start downloading of text by pressing the PgDn key. A window will appear on your
screen giving you a choice between various methods. Select ASCII.
In another window, you are asked to enter a file name. When done, storage of incoming
data starts. You stop the process by pressing the ESC key.
Procomm has another method called "file logging." You start this by pressing ALT F1.
Procomm requests the file name, and the storage process starts. (Read under "Strip"
about the difference between these methods.)
If you forget to tell Procomm to store incoming data, then you will most
probably lose this data for ever.
Do not waste time and money by forgetting to store what you receive!
The term "append"
When downloading text or anything you must know whether you are appending
information to an existing file, or overwriting it (that is, destroying the old text).
Most communication programs complain with an audible signal, when you try to
overwrite an existing file. They will ask you if you really want to delete it, or append the
current data.
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