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]
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