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Article: Breaking the code. (the UUENCODE/UUDECODE process) (PC Monitor)(Column)
- Article from:
- Online
- Article date:
- September 1, 1995
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1995 Information Today, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The modem. The fax machine. Star Trek's transporter. These are three very different devices that do essentially the same thing--reliably transmit information across great distances through a potentially hostile medium. Though they're not often thought of together, all three use the same approach--they take information (the bytes in a computer file, the words on a printed page, the molecules in a person's body), change it into a different form (sounds, energy), transmit it to a remote location, and reassemble the item, hopefully in its original format, at the destination. Each device provides a way of sending the item that is faster or more efficient than the alternatives ...