10.1. Understanding Networking Principles

Stand-alone personal computers, first introduced in the late 1970s, gave users the ability to create documents, spreadsheets, and other types of data and save them for future use. For the small-business user or home-computer enthusiast, this was great. For larger companies, however, it was not enough. Larger companies had greater needs to share information between offices and sometimes over great distances. Stand-alone computers were insufficient for the following reasons:

  • Their small hard-drive capacities were insufficient.

  • To print, each computer required a printer attached locally.

  • Sharing documents was cumbersome. People grew tired of having to save to a floppy and then take that disk to the recipient. ...

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