Telnet to BBS.OIT.UNC.EDU or 152.2.22.80. Type launch at the login message. It's a must. Not only can you read Usenet Newsfeeds, but you can use LibTel, a scripted telnet gateway to access both US and international libraries plus such things as Data Research Associates Library of Congress catalog, the Ham Radio Call Book, the National Science Foundation, the Weather Server, Webster's dictionary and thesaurus, and more.
Remote Access to Files (FTP)
FTP or File Transfer Protocol is what to use to retrieve a text file, software, or other item from a remote host. Normal practice is to ftp to the host you want and login as "anonymous". Some sites use the password "guest" while others require that you put in your network address as the password. Some popular ftp sites follow:
SUMEX-AIM
This archive at Stanford (sumex-aim.stanford.edu or 36.44.0.6) houses a plethora of Macintosh applications, utilities, graphics and sound files.
SIMTEL20
(simtel20.army.mil or 192.88.110.20) at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico contains a similar archive software for MS-DOS computers.
An FTP visit to the Network Service Center at nnsc.nsf.net (128.89.1.178) is a gold mine of documents and training materials on net use. See further information on this in the "Resources for Learning More" section of this article.
Project Gutenberg
The primary goal of Project Gutenberg is to encourage the creation and distribution of electronic text. They hope to get ten thousand titles to one hundred million users for a trillion etexts in distribution by the end of 2001.