This page contains a series of lecture notes and Java applets that I have developed to illustrate some of the key concepts in the design of computer networks. The intended audience is undergraduates who are not majoring in Computer Science. My viewpoint is that some of the key ideas in any subfield of Computer Science can be presented in a manner that is accessible to the non-major student. The hope is that the student will realize that Computer Science is an academic discipline with interesting and substantial intellectual foundations. The subfield I chose is computer networks with a focus on the Internet as the prime example. The rationale for this choice is that computer networks (and the Internet) is a part of Computer Science that is highly visible to the lay person. This motivates the material and makes the material more likely to have practical use for the student once the course is over.
Though developed with the non-major student in mind, these notes and applets would also be a useful supplement for a computer networks course for Computer Science majors.
HTTP: The Protocol Used by the Web
Media Access in Ethernet (translation into French by Dr. Herve Gilibert)
Acknowledgements and Developer Information
Current Version Date: February 2004
Copyright notice (C) Mark A. Holliday. All rights reserved.