These two terms are relative. In Unix an exclamation mark can be used to go out to your shell and run a program while you are in the midst of running another program, such as ftp. In Unix, and some other operating systems, the pipe is used when you want the output of one commmand to be the input of another command. Local host has an Archie client. Local host is running Unix.
Local host has the less command on it.
Articles, especially FAQs, often contain pointers to ftp sites. Read books about the Internet. In these examples I use the -t flag which orders the results inverted by date. Be sure you are in the correct directory on both the local and remote hosts. If you want to transfer a file from your local host to your desktop computer you need to use your communications software.