Aucbvax.1416
fa.human-nets
utzoo!duke!decvax!ucbvax!DERWAY@MIT-ML
Tue May 26 01:54:31 1981
HUMAN-NETS Digest V3 #107
HUMAN-NETS AM Digest Tuesday, 26 May 1981 Volume 3 : Issue 107
Today's Topics:
Queries - Fiber Optics & EtherNet & Xerox STAR,
Query Replies - Xerox Star & Holographic Printer & CompuFiction,
Communicating via Network - Polling Large Lists & Impacts on Language
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 19 May 1981 0024-EDT
From: Hobbit <AWALKER AT RUTGERS>
Subject: Lines and things
Has anyone investigated the possibility of getting a lightwave 'cable'
run from here to there? Of course you would eliminate capacitive
*and* inductive loading, and your bandwith would be tremendous. Down
here in Jersey there is supposed to be a new lightwave system being
put in between Newark and New Brunswick, and the blurb says something
about it will carry voice and data communications. Any ideas? Has
anybody asked the phone co. about it?
_H*
------------------------------
Date: 14 May 1981 09:52:54-PDT
From: Greg Woodbury (mhtsa!hocsr!ggw) via <CSVAX.UPSTILL BERKELEY AT>
Subject: ETHERNET query
Can anyone on the net provide some hard information on the
methods that Xerox uses to interface terminals, CPUs, printers, etc..
to the Ethernet? In particular, are ther figures available that tell
the overhead that an interface device (e.g. Xerox 8000) incurs in
talking to the ethernet? I seem to remember hearing that up to 30% of
available computing power could be taken up by the interface. Is this
true? Does a terminal have to have an 8000 or something similar to
connect to the Ethernet? Many Thanks for the info.
--wolfe
[Please reply directly to Greg via Steve Upstill,
(CSVAX.upstill at Berkeley), who has volunteered to act as a
Human-Nets gateway for the UUCP net recipients. --DE]
------------------------------
Date: 20 May 1981 2108-EDT (Wednesday)
From: Lawrence Butcher at CMU-10A (X335LB50)
Subject: Xerox Star workstation
I have before me an article from the April 27, 1981 issue of the
Seybold Report titled "Xerox's 'Star'". Inside there is a picture of
the Star's keyboard. The keyboard contains no "control" key. Can
someone who actually uses the machine tell me what trick Xerox uses to
replace the control key?? The software described in the article runs
on the Star, and doesn't seem to need a control key. When the machine
is being used as a terminal accessing some other resource on the
Ethernet, that other machine might want to see for instance Ctrl C's.
How do you type a Ctrl C to MAXC??
Butcher
------------------------------
Date: 25 May 1981 13:34-EDT
From: J. Noel Chiappa <JNC MIT-MC AT>
Subject: Xerox STAR misconceptions
I don't know what you people know about STAR, but you must
have been reading ComputerWorld or something. A 'gateway' is a machine
that can connect two (or more) networks. The Xerox EtherNet is a bus
network, not a star, but what makes you think that makes any
difference? I fail to understand the significance of its not being
able to assume cretinous configurations. As far as the user/server/
network stuff, I don't know what you supposed they were going to run
on STARs, but given the tools (not toys) PARC has had running on
things like Altos for years (far in advance of ALL university research
labs, which are now running flat out to try and catch them) I would be
grossed out if they offered anything BUT network based stuff. The fact
that they are selling gateways, file servers and printer servers
(which were announced BEFORE STAR) seems indicative. As to the cost,
the cost of the servers (although high) isn't that bad because a large
number of stations will share one set, so the avarage cost is much
lower. It wasn't intended for home computer use, but for an office (or
somesuch) where you have a whole slew of workstations sharing servers.
As a general comment (from a network/network system expert, on
the other side of the Contintal Divide, who doesn't and never did work
for a commercial computer outfit) Xerox has forgotten more about
advanced network stuff and network based tools and systems than the
rest of the commercial opposition put together ever knew. If I were
you, I'd investigate a little more closely before badmouthing their
stuff.
"He who laughs last..."
------------------------------
Date: 25 May 1981 13:32 PDT
From: Frisbie.EOS at PARC-MAXC
Subject: $4,000 Laser Printer
The ads for the General Optronics Laser printer got several of us here
at Xerox rather excited and naturally we checked up on it. The story
I got from my boss was that it was at least two years away from any
real production. The real kicker is that the first customer is going
to have to come up with over $200,000 in development costs to get it
off the ground. Note: This is NOT an official Xerox statement, just
what some of us who work with laser printers have been told by our
boss.
Alan Frisbie
------------------------------
Date: 24 May 1981 12:36-EDT
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM MIT-MC AT>
Subject: "Compu-fiction"
My method is the same as the chess network. At all branch points,
stubs are put in. When a stub is hit, electronic mail is sent to a
human who will fill in the structure below that level, putting new
stubs at all the branch points within it. Thus you have at all times
a sparce tree, with new structure being filled in on an as-needed
basis. Commonly-used branches are filled in already and get instance
response when the reader (or the player, in the case of chess or other
game) selects them, while branches not before explored require the
reader (player) to wait while an expert is consulted to fill in the
not-yet-extant information. Thus a book with many alternate
scenerios, or a dynamic Modern Chess Openings, can grow over the years
to immensity. Maybe this can even be used for DELPHI predictions of
the future. The player picks which branch to explore where a single
decision can make a difference (to release PCNET now or wait until
next year, to shoot Reagan again or not, to write a letter to the
editor or not), while the concensus of the DELPHI poll determines the
course of the model in cases where it looks like things are stable,
where the future can be predicted and individual choice dosn't
significantly change the results. Imagine a DELPHI dynabook where
anyone can explore any of millions of different possible futures in
this way.
------------------------------
Date: 24 May 1981 1039-PDT
From: Zellich at OFFICE-3 (Rich Zellich)
Subject: Re: Compu-fiction
I don't have any ideas along those lines myself, but thought I'd
mention some of the things I've seen/heard of. There is, of course,
the recent interactive TV (QUBE, I think) experiment with a soap; at
the NY World's Fair (1964), one of the soviet-satellite countries
(maybe Czech's) had a movie theater with yes/no audience-reaction/
participation buttons in each right-hand seat arm, and a movie (sort
of a short soap) that was periodically interrupted by a narrator who
asked the audience if a particular course of action should follow or
not - they had it rigged so that all the branching plot-lines came
down to the identical ending - even letting the audience back up and
try one of the decision-points a second time after the ending had been
reached; I also remember reading either in Human-Nets or SFL some
mention of a juvenile book that had a similar setup - the reader would
turn to the next page or to page x depending on plot decision made.
Cheers,
Rich
------------------------------
Date: 20 May 1981 (Wednesday) 1033-EDT
From: SHRAGE at WHARTON-10 (Jeffrey Shrager)
Subject: Polling by digest
One of the later designs for our local bboard provided special "query"
keys. The author would put a line such as:
Q:[filename]"What do you think about foo?"
and the bboard processor would ask the question and append the answer
to the named file. This never was implemented due to lack of interest
and I think that there would be advanced trouble doing so over the
ARPAnet.
------------------------------
Date: 20 May 1981 13:53 cdt
From: VaughanW at HI-Multics (Bill Vaughan)
Subject: influencing the language
It would be nice if some of the MIT community (who seem at times to
dominate these lists) would recall that there are indeed members of
the lists who do not use such terms as foo, hack, frob, moby and mung
in their everyday language; that those people probably have their own
jargon (many folk seem to use "fred" where an MIT'er would use "foo");
but particularly that some parts of the MIT jargon (I have in mind
"win" and "lose") are also in the standard language with different
semantics and are therefore likely to be misinterpreted by the rest of
us.
(A word to the wise: "to hack" and its derivatives have strongly
different semantics in most of the world than at MIT, such that one
would not willingly admit to being a hacker - especially not on an
interview! In industry, the practice we call "hackery" is the
antithesis of good design.)
------------------------------
Date: 20 May 1981 1441-EDT
From: Steven J. Zeve <ZEVE AT RUTGERS>
Subject: Language, influencing it and the death of english
It is possible to influence another person's language, I have
done it unintentionally. I believe that slang is transmitted that
way, you hear someone say something often enough and you pick up the
context. Once you pick up the context of the word, you start to use
it (I spread the term MUNG that way at my last job).
The "death of the English language" is being announced somewhat
prematurely, but it may well be inevitable; assuming of course that
what you mean when you say "English" is English as we currently
speak/write it. For example, compare current American, or British,
English with the English of 1600, there are some serious differences.
Better yet, compare current English with the English that Chaucer or
Mallory spoke/wrote! As anyone studying linguistics will tell you,
languages evolve (or devolve depending on your point of view.
The French system tries to defy this evolution, but I think they
are pushing a lost cause. When the general population decides it
needs a new word, it will get a new word. That is why the fashionable
English words like "hot-dog", "weekend", and many others are creeping
into French.
The real problems in American English, as I see the situation,
are 1) the loss of clarity and preciseness caused general misuse of
certain words, 2) the loss of understandability caused by poor grammer
and incorrect spelling. For instance, what is the difference between
libel and slander? or between comprise and compose? I find both of
these pairs of words misused fairly consistently, so consistently that
the language may well lose their difference. Although this won't be a
disaster, it will create some confusion until new words are created to
maintain the more precise definitions.
If you think that spelling and grammer aren't important, try
reading something where the spelling is really bad, or where the
grammer is really wrong. After spending a long time figuring out what
the writer meant to say, you will realize how much more quickly you
would have gotten the meaning if the grammer and spelling had been
better.
L. Sprague DeCamp wrote a very readable article on the subject of
language evolution. He was describing what factors to consider if you
wanted to use a "realistic" future English in a science fiction story.
He also showed examples of how modern English differed from older
"versions".
steve z.
p.s. Left to my own devices, I would guess that "poisoness" is a word
used to describe a woman who feeds you poisonous, or maybe a dangerous
ESS system. I figured that one out from context, but context isn't
always available. Sometimes the context itself depends on the word
that is incorrect, or on a poorly worded/constructed piece of a
sentence.
p.p.s. If I don't quit now, I'll spend all day trying to fix my
spelling, wording, and grammer.
------------------------------
End of HUMAN-NETS Digest
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