RFC 420
CCA ICCC weather demo
CCA ICCC WEATHER DEMO 🎀
okay bestie, this is RFC 420 💖 written by H. Murray from the Computer Corporation of America (CCA). it's NIC 12764 and it's dated 04 January 1973. the header doesn't list a category, and it doesn't obsolete or update anything 🫶
the weather demo that was originally made for the ICCC show is now generally available 🌸 and it's giving main character network demo energy, bc it really can/does run on two machines 💅
this demo is two independent programs that team up to answer english questions about the weather ✨ like, 'did it rain in boston on october 7?' the natural language half is written in LISP 🧚 and it's a modification of a system developed by T. Winograd at MIT. the other half is a primitive datacomputer 🦋 that provides network datamanagement facilities and will incorporate the trillion-bit UNICON currently being installed at AMES.
the two programs talk to each other via DATALANGUAGE over the NET 💜
'WEATHER' now uses HOST '37' as the location of the datacomputer 💅 which fixes the old 'CCA' NOT IN THE HOST TABLES bug 🙈
keep in mind this is an evolving system 🌈 we plan to improve 'WEATHER' and the datacomputer it uses, so things that work one day may get broken the next 💀
AVAILABILITY 🌸
'WEATHER' (the LISP half) is a real machine user, both CPU and core 💻 we would obviously prefer that you run it on your own machine 🫶 but if we are really empty (which frequently happens at 3 AM) feel free to run it on ours 🌙 since our system has no drum, and WEATHER takes all of core, please check with somebody at CCA before running WEATHER if we are doing anything at all 😭 it is really a major load on our machine.
since the datacomputer is less of a load, the system will be more available if you can run 'WEATHER' on your machine 💖 we will try to run the datacomputer during non-prime time 🌙 it can be thought of as the server half of this combo. prime time here is 1 to 5 PM Eastern Time, but the morning is frequently quite busy too 😅 so please DO NOT use the datacomputer during this time 🙏 it saves us the effort of turning it off. currently, only ONE user at a time can run it, which is a limitation of the datacomputer that will go away someday 🧚
if you want to run a demo (not just play around) we will probably be able to cooperate 🤝 please call to make arrangements well in advance 📞 we STRONGLY RECOMMEND that you DO NOT try to give an important demo unless you have used BOTH versions of the systems that will be used for the demo 😬 even we get in trouble when we forget to rehearse things a bit 🙈
wednesday morning is scheduled preventive maintenance time 🔧 our machine will not be up between 9 and 12, but it frequently is down past noon 💀
MORE INFORMATION 📚
for the latest information, look at *.TXT in <WDB-DEMO> at CCA 💅 in particular, MESSAGE.TXT SHOULD BE a quick summary of any other interesting TXT files. the latest version of this file (in RUNOFF format) is <HGM-MEMOS>ANNOUNCE.RNO.
the latest version of the LISP program will be in <WDB-DEMO> as WEATHER.SAV 📦 normal FTP can be used to copy it, and it is 400+ PAGES 📖 it takes 6 MIN to transfer it to ourselves (1.5 MIN of CPU, 22KBAUD) when the machine is very lightly loaded 🐢 be sure to set the byte size to 36 ('TENEX' COMMAND TO FTP) since this is a save file 🧠
PROBLEMS 🚨
if you find any problems with the LISP half, please use SNDMSG to send things to JEFF HILL. he is JMH@CCA 💌 we are interested in examples which look like they SHOULD work but don't 👀 if you have any comments about general operations glitches (like the datacomputer is not up), complain to me at HGM@CCA 😤 CCA is host 31 decimal, 37 octal 🔢
to be continued in part 2 ✨
DESCRIPTIONS ✨
Okay so, this is what the file looks like once it's stored in the DATACOMPUTER 💾
CREATE WEATHER FILE LIST
STATION STRUCT
BSN STR(6), I=D
CITY STR(22), I=D
REGION STR(22), I=D
WORLD STR(22)
OBS LIST (31)
OBSERVATION STRUCT
DATE STR(3)
TEMPERATURE STRUCT
MIN STR(4)
MAX STR(4)
END TEMPERATURE STRUCT
PRECIP STR(4)
WINDS STRUCT
SPEED STR(4)
GUSTS STR(4)
DIRECTION STR(4)
END WINDS STRUCT
VISIBILITY STR(4)
CLOUDS STR(4)
GENERAL STR(4)
PRESSURE
END OBSERVATION STRUCT
END STATION STRUCT
END WEATHER FILENext up, the port descriptions 🦋 WEATHER uses these to retrieve data from the DATACOMPUTER, so they're basically the request and answer forms it fills in. Check first:
CREATE CHECK PORT LIST
PLACE STRUCT
LP1 STR (1)
CITY STR (22)
RP1 STR (1)
BSN STR (6)
LP2 STR (1)
REGION STR (22)
RP2 STR (1)
END PLACE STRUCT
END CREATE CHECKAnd then the answer port:
CREATE ANSWER PORT LIST
ANS STRUCT
LP1 STR (1)
CITY STR (22)
RP1 STR (1)
DATE STR (3)
LP2 STR (1)
DATA STR (4)
DATA1 STR (4)
DATA2 STR (4)
RP2 STR (1)
END ANS STRUCT
END CREATE ANSWERSAMPLE RECORD 🎀
Here's the sample record, the very first one in the file 🧚 In the DATACOMPUTER it's stored without the carriage returns that make it print neatly, so what you see below is the neat version.
010100ANDOYA NORWAY EUROPE
275
276 278 279 0 2 0 12 9 758883023
277 279 283 4 23 52 11 8 788882982
278
279 274 281 0 23 42 12 9 788882976
280 268 270 4 14 0 9 19 627772983
281 276 283 0 28 69 7 9 688882986
282 269 273 4 10 0 9 22 727772975
283 278 284 0 13 37 9 7 766882972
284 0 28 0 5 1 80006 0
285 276 280 0 9 0 3 12 666682936
286 273 275 0 15 0 3 7 877782960
287 278 282 0 13 28 11 14 626662981
288 269 271 28 30 0 6 7 888882908
289 275 281 0 21 45 7 9 688882976
290 268 269 0 20 0 8 22 622782960
291 283 283 0 11 0 7 47 100013002
292 274 274 0 11 0 1 47 500012996
293
294 272 272 0 5 0 7 47 400012949
295
296
297 273 273 0 0 0 1 6 80007 0
298 273 273 0 0 0 1 2 80007 0
299 275 275 0 6 0 7 31 30000 0
300
301
302
303
304
305[This RFC was put into machine readable form for entry] [into the online RFC archives by Helene Morin, Via Genie, 12/99] 💜
📦 where this page comes from
- ietf: rfc420 1973-01
- 💖 girlified by claude-haiku-5-5 on : a language model's rewrite of the original, under its terms