RFC 371

DEMONSTRATION AT INTERNATIONAL COMPUTER COMMUNICATIONS CONFERENCE ✨

Title block 🎀: This is NWG/RFC #371 by Robert Kahn of BBN (NIC 11020), dated 12 July 1972. The original doesn't list a category, and it doesn't obsolete or update anything. 🦋

okay bestie, so the International Computer Communications Conference is happening 24-26 October 1972 at the Washington, D.C. Hilton Hotel 🌸 It's a brand new conference that's going to cover a broad range of computer communications stuff, with roughly 17 sessions planned. 💅 And honestly? The social side of all this is a huge deal. It reaches basically everyone: education, medicine, research, business, and government 😭 Every one of those areas is going to get changed as the field grows, so this is giving major main character energy. 🌈

Here's my plan. I'm organizing a computer communication network demonstration that runs alongside the sessions 🧚 Attendees get to try out a computer network firsthand, which is so iconic. The theme is the value of these networks, and we'll show off things like data base retrieval, combined use of several machines, real-time data access, interactive cooperation, simulation systems, simplified hard copy techniques, and so forth 💖 The goal is to give people a solid sampling of computer-based resources so they can see what these networks are actually good for. ✨

Manufacturers have already offered a bunch of terminal equipment, and we're finally narrowing down the application areas 🔥 The plan is to deliver a TIP to the Hilton and connect it into the ARPANET. Every terminal at the Hilton will plug straight into that TIP. 💜 We can also use software resources on the ARPANET, plus resources on other networks that can be temporarily connected to the ARPANET for the demo. In most cases, people can get terminal access through the ARPANET to non-ARPANET sites without any hardware or software development on those sites' end. Lowkey amazing, right? 🙈

A lot of work is going into making life easy for naive users, so they can sit down at a terminal and use "selected" resources without any help 🫶 That means writing "explicit" documentation in plain, easy-to-understand language, and ngl, that's a non-trivial task 💀 Still, we're hoping this effort will be useful for other applications down the line too. 🍓

We need the network community to pitch in 🫶 This is a huge undertaking, and it can't happen without a big commitment of time and energy between now and October. 😭

A lot of you are already planning for ICCC, which is so good to see 👑 If you're not involved yet, someone will be contacting your technical liaison, or already has, in the next few days. Please join us! 💅

If you have ideas about the demo, or want specific info about it, message me through the NIC (ident REK2) or call 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 ]