Hi,

I would be very happy if someone could help me please. I am relatively new to UNIX, and still learning.

My understanding of things are:
Say I have a PC running Windows. This machine has a name. If I have 10 PC's, then I have 10 names, one for each PC. Each PC is independent of the other. It is a separate entity. Each has it's own file system, CPU, RAM, harddrive etc...

Now, considering UNIX...
At university there are about 50 machines in the lab. Each is a box, with a label on it stating its hostname e.g abc.def.ac.uk.
So I am assuming that each is a machine in its own right, yes? i.e. if we were to open the box, inside each machine will have its own CPU, own RAM, own motherboard etc. Is this correct?
Now how does the UNIX bit come in? It says that UNIX is supposed to be "multi user, multi tasking, time sharing". Does this simply mean that some other user too can remotely log into that box and use it to do their work?

Now for the other question. If I sit at machine 1, and create a file, and then I log out, and log in on machine 5, then that file is visible. Does this mean that when I created that file, it was not created on the harddrive of machine 1, but rather on a big hard drive inside the server room?

So, I am very confused here. There seem to be many directory structures, one somewhere in a server room which stores everything, and one on each box where the UNIX O/S is stored.

Someone please address what I am asking using simple, laymen terms.

Thanks a lot.

A