NWG/ RFC #371 Robert Kahn NIC 11020 BBN 12 July 1972 DEMONSTRATION AT INTERNATIONAL COMPUTER COMMUNICATIONS CONFERENCE The International Computer Communications Conference, scheduled for 24-26 October 1972 at the Washington, D.C. Hilton Hotel, is a newly organized conference intended to address a broad set of issues in the Computer Communications field. Approximately 17 sessions are currently planned for the conference. The social implications of this field are a matter of widespread interest that reaches society in almost all walks of life; education, medicine, research, business and government. All these areas will be affected as the field develops. I am organizing a computer communication network demonstration to run in parallel with the sessions. This demonstration will provide attendees with the opportunity to gain first hand experience in the use of a computer network. The theme of the demonstration will be on the value of computer communication networks, emphasizing topics such as data base retrieval, combined use of several machines, real-time data access, interactive cooperation, simulation systems, simplified hard copy techniques, and so forth. I am hoping to present a broad sampling of computer based resources that will provide attendees with some perspective on the utility of computer communication networks. Terminal equipment has already been offered by many different manufacturers and we are beginning to home in on the application areas. The plan is to deliver a TIP to the Hilton and to connect it into the ARPANET. All terminals at the Hilton will then be connected directly to the TIP. Software resources on the ARPANET as well as resources in other nets that can be temporarily connected to the ARPANET and made available for the purpose of demonstration will be available. In most cases it is possible to arrange for terminal access via the ARPANET to non ARPANET sites without hardware or software development on their part. A significant amount of preparation by ourselves, the NIC, and others is being devoted to making it convenient for naive users to sit down at a terminal and effectively use "selected" resources without assistance. This involves the generation of "explicit" documentation in easy to understand terms -- a non-trivial task. However, we hope this effort will also be useful for other application in the long run. [Page 1] NWG/RFC# 371 REK2 12-JUL-72 9:28 11020 Demonstration at International Computer Communications Conference We need the help of sites in the network community to pitch in and lend a hand. This is a large undertaking and much too big to be pulled off without a large committment in time and energy between now and October. Many of you are already active in planning for ICCC. For those of you who may not yet be involved, someone will be contacting or will have contacted your technical liaison in the next few days. We hope you will join us in this effort. If you have suggestions about the demo or if you want particular information about it, please send me a message via the NIC (ident REK2) or get in touch with me at BBN (617) 491-1850 x 3401. [ This RFC was put into machine readable form for entry ] [ into the online RFC archives by BBN Corp. under the ] [ direction of Alex McKenzie. 1/97 ] [Page 2] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ NWG/RFC #372 Richard W. Watson NIC 11022 (SRI-ARC) 12-JUL-72 NOTES ON A CONVERSATION WITH BOB KAHN ON THE ICCC I called Bob Kahn and had a good chat with him about some aspects of the ICCC meeting demonstration. The points discussed and his answers were the following. What is the physical environment going to be like? Bob has arranged for the Georgetown Ballroom of the Hilton Hotel; it has 3000 square feet probably about 75x40 (exact dimensions are not known to Bob at this time). A carpeted false floor is to be installed and there will be a partition for an area to show a movie on resource sharing which will run more or less continuously. There will not be booths in the normal sense but details are not yet worked out. Bob expects to have tables arranged around the room holding 1 or 2 terminals and low 4 ft. partitions to break up the space. Who will man the booths? Bob presently expects many terminals to be unmanned, although manufcturers could have a sales rep. There will probably be people from net sites at some of them from time to time to demonstrate their programs. We discussed the need for lots of experts from the network around who can answer questions and help people. Bob is in favor of such a thing but has not had time yet to pull such a group together and there is some uncertainty if enough people will volunteer, his initial approach to people yielded lots of people interested but with other things to do. When will the equipment be on the floor and available to try there? [Page 1] NWG/RFC# 372 RWW 12-JUL-72 9:39 11022 Notes on a Conversation with Bob Kahn on the ICCC The conference is tues-thurs oct 24-26 and at the moment the room is only going to be available from the 22nd. This seems to be a short time to install floor, TIP, terminals, phone lines, etc and Bob is going to try to get the room the previous Wed or Fri, but doesn't know yet. Bob would like to have working demo with terminals, resources at BBN in Aug. What resources are presently committed? UCLA Klinerock will have some network measurement stuff to demonstrate. Stanford AI has indicated they will have some programs to demone. Utah Tony Hearn will have his Reduce program to demo, Berry Wessler plans to demo something, Harvey Greenfield has some sort of mdical program. RAND before recent sakeup indicated iterest, status now not known. SDC will have some natural language programs and their data management systems. MIT Vezza and Kahn are looking into having some hardcopy device such as Photon attached to a GE TS system. Al has some other things to demo. Bob has contacted a number of non net sources such as the NY Times (data base), Eastern Airlines etc., but has no definite commitments yet. We at ARC will of course have a number of things to demonstrate. This ARPANET demo is the only show at the conference. Larry Roberts has invited the ASIS people over for Thurs afternoon. [Page 2] NWG/RFC# 372 RWW 12-JUL-72 9:39 11022 Notes on a Conversation with Bob Kahn on the ICCC The TIP has at this time never been tested with 64 terminals, but they are going to be putting as many terminal on as possible during July and testing the terminal to be supplied ford the conference. Starting about AUg 1 he expects to start testing to see what terminals work with what resources and what glitches exist. I asked Bob if we could have enough space for a ARC NIC booth with an IMLAC TI and room for people to watch our demo's. Bob saw no problem there; IMLAC has committed 2 terminals and we can have one. TI has not indicated they plan to loan terminal for the show. Hiram French is the man from IMLAC who is supposed to call us. If there are more than 64 terminal or the TIP can't support all, then they will have to schedule terminal connections to the TIP. Bob is not sure who will be at the conference, its theme is networks and their impact on soceity, implications for regulation etc. so ther should be a broad spectrum of people; will send me a program. We talked about what kind of documentation help, signs etc will be around to help people connect and use resources and generally understand wha the deomo is allabout. Bob's present picture is some large 2x3 signs in the lobby outside the main lecture room directing people to the demo and then some signs inside explaining what's happening, a card with some TIP commands,resources, a brochure with actual scenerios of resource usage, the movie and some people as the main on the floor sources of help. We talked about the need to coordinate all this with NIC documentation and our desire to help design all this. Bob and I are tentatively planning to get together the weekend of July 7 here to plan this. We need to have thoughtcthrough ahead of time what we think should be done. ARPA except for Bob does not seem to have set up any budget for this show except what their contractors are essentially willing to give as part of their ongoing research, therefore he has a very difficult job of pulling off such a large show without more help than he seems to have gotten so far (these are my conclusions not satements of his). [Page 3] [ This RFC was put into machine readable form for entry ] [ into the online RFC archives by BBN Corp. under the ] [ direction of Alex McKenzie. 1/97 ] [Page 4]