Pleasant@Rutgers (12/21/82)
HUMAN-NETS Digest Tuesday, 21 Dec 1982 Volume 5 : Issue 110
Today's Topics:
Technology - WorldNet &
Combinations of Telephones and Terminals &
Looming Technology (2 msgs),
Computers and People - Human Memory Capacity (5 msgs),
Queries - Studies on Window Usage,
News Article - Audio Response System
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Date: 29 November 1982 01:14-EST
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM at MIT-MC>
Subject: The changing face of Micro-computing/effects on WorldNet
I think when PCNET or other World-Net type of thing becomes
established, suddenly permitting FTP between all these incompatible
systems, there'll suddenly be a market to convert files from private
obscure cretinous formats (RSX-11M Files-11, IBM EBCDIC RECFM=FB,
and many others), and even some private good formats (NLS,
Hypertext/XANADU), various compressed forms of data (WYLBUR, Huffman
codes, my IRSM-encodings, etc.) and special-purpose data formats
(BASIC sourcefile, Scribe&TEX documents, etc.), into the standard
form (probably ANSI-ASCII making full use of
alternate-characterset-escape capabilities, or NBS/Postel structured
multimedia text/data). Somebody'll make a bundle writing all this
conversion software, then more money will be made modifying
operating systems to use the standard-format files directly instead
of requiring format-conversion. Eventually most computers will be
able to exchange files efficiently.
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Date: 1 Dec 82 2:54:41-EST (Wed)
From: Ron Natalie <ron@BRL>
Subject: Touchtones
It isn't TouchTone (TM) if it isn't the standard dual tones that the
Genuine Bell stuff makes. Therefore you are limited to the 12 (or
16 in some specs) dual-tone combinations. However most phones allow
you hold two buttons down in the same row or column and get only the
common tone transmitted. This allows up to 19 (or 24 on 16 button
encoders) different one and two tone combinations. Holding down
more than two buttons or two buttons not in the same row or column
generates no tone. However, some phones, including the Bell Exeter
(available at your phone center) and some of the other Touchtone
Style (NOT GTE) phones from other manufactures ORs all the tones
together for all buttons held down simultaneously. All the possible
one and two button combinations would therefore yield 88
combinations, which would be usable for most of ASCII, and you could
use three button sequences for less used ones. Decoding is slightly
tricky, but cheaper to implement than having a different tone on
each key, cause you would only need 7 tone decoders rather than 12.
Don't forget in your design to allow for the fact that multiple
buttons will not be depressed and released simultaneously.
If all you want is letters and numbers, and just a few symbols there
are gizmos out to do this. I saw one designed by a grad student at
Johns Hopkins that used two button sequences to encode the letters.
The user on the other end could use a small device that either
output (switch selectable) either ASCII, 5-Bit code for Deaf TTYs,
or Morse Code. The thing was small enough that a deaf person who
new morse code could carry the thing around with him and use it with
any phone, not requiring the other party to know morse (the tone
sequences involved the location of the letters on the phones, with
the Q and Z imaginarily placed on the "1" button).
-Ron
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Date: 20 Dec 1982 0930-PST
From: LAWS at SRI-AI
Subject: Computers and Weaving (yes, really!)
Karen Huff at Kansas State University developed a drawdown simulator
back in the very early 70's. Her minicomputer was an IBM 360, and
the plots came out on a CalComp.
-- Ken Laws
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Date: Monday, 20 Dec 1982 12:35-PST
Subject: Looming technology
From: mike at RAND-UNIX
Its not so surprising that weavers should use computers to control
their looms. History fans will recall the impact that steam and
mechanical looms had in England during the industrial revolution.
Patterns were encoded in various mechanical ways for those devices,
now they probably use floppy disks.
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Date: 18 Dec 1982 1458-EST
From: DANNY at MIT-OZ
Subject: Human Memory Capacity
Does anyone out there know of any estimates of human memory
capacity? That is, how many facts (or better yet bits) are stored in
the average human?
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Date: 19 December 1982 0101-EST (Sunday)
From: Hans Moravec at CMU-CS-A (R110HM60)
Subject: Re: Human Memory Capacity
My amateur researches agree with the 10 trillion bits/human brain
figure. A survey article "The Molecular basis of Memory" by
Kandel&Schwartz, Science 29 Oct 1982 reviews the increasingly
conclusive evidence that all memory and learning, short and long
term, indeed takes place in the synapses. Short term memory is
mediated by varying concentration of a small molecule (tentatively
identified) in the synapse, that dissipates in time; long term by
migration of a large protein that stays lodged once it arrives.
There are great redundancies - I bet an efficient program could
make like a human with only one trillion bits. -- Hans
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Date: Sunday, 19 December 1982 02:19-EST
From: MINSKY at MIT-MC
Subject: Human Memory Capacity
It might be good to ask Chase, at CMU. He's been doing that stuff
on people learning to remember long sequences (like 100 digits). My
impression is that he thinks these people can deposit "chunks" in
LTM at a rate of about 1 every three seconds or so.
This is impressive, but still within the old scale of fairly
conservative size: if you did 50,000 of them for 20,000 days you'd
get a billion.
By the way, "chunks" ought to be like address-connections. Instead
of bits, they might be routings or something.
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Date: Sunday, 19 December 1982 13:50-EST
From: DANNY at MIT-MC
Subject: Human Memory Capacity
Here are some other interesting estimates I have collected over the
years:
Minsky (In Semantic Information Processing) estimates you use
100,000 to a 1,000,000 facts "for ordinary things". (Do you still
believe this Marvin?)
Von Neumann: 10^15 bits, he claims this comes from counting "the
impressions which a human being gets in life" or "other factors".
Luria: (in Mind of a Mnensist) claims the capacity of his subject
was "infinite".
-danny
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Date: 19 Dec 1982 1427-PST
Subject: Re: Human Memory Capacity
From: ISAACSON at USC-ISI
Oh, well, if you actually collect these things, here is another one:
"The storage capacity of the human brain, namely a theoretical
maximum of a thousand million bits in a lifetime.... though there
can be few men who fill their memory to capacity..." [Source:
Intelligence Came First, E. Lester Smith (ed.), at p. 56. P.S. at
p.59-60 there is an interesting citation from an old paper by M.
Minsky]
-- JDI
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From: "METOO::MILLER c/o" <DEC-HNT at DEC-MARLBORO>
Date: 6 DEC 1982 1347-EST
Subject: Studies on Window Usage
I would appreciate hearing from anyone on human-nets who is aware of
any on-going studies which are attempting to look at the following
(types of) questions:
1. Optimal arrangments of screen windows
by function being performed and relationships
among the information in the various
windows.
2. Optimal window sizes and structures.
3. Optimal number of co-existing windows.
4. Color relationships among co-existing
windows.
Written replies can be sent to:
Peter Miller
Digital Equipment Corporation
110 Spit Brook Road
Nashua, N.H. 03062
M/S: ZKO2-3/N30
Thanks,
--Peter
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Date: 23 Nov 1982 0449-PST
Subject: Computer Operator.
From: the tty of Geoffrey S. Goodfellow
Reply-to: Geoff at SRI-CSL
a017 2328 22 Nov 82
PM-Computer Operator, Bjt,450
That Information Operator Is Inhuman
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) - Telephone users who don't let their
fingers do the walking can hear a computer do the talking when they
call directory assistance here.
Northwestern Bell's new system lets a human operator take a
call, search a computer for the number requested and then hit a
button, putting the computer on line to read the area code and
number in a slow, female voice.
The electronic voice will then repeat the number and advise
callers to stay on the line if they have a question or need more
assistance.
Bell officials say the system, now handling 70 percent of the
information requests in Iowa, Nebraska and Indiana, saves about 5
seconds a call. In Iowa alone, Bell averages 150,000
directory-assistance calls a day.
Operators, who continue to handle emergency requests, say it
saves their voices.
''I like it,'' one operator in Iowa, where the system has been
used since Sept. 1, said Monday.
''I think it's all right myself,'' said another. ''It's no extra
work.'' The operators said they were not allowed to give their names
while on duty.
A supervisor, Joyce Lutz of Des Moines, said the system helps
operators because they ''don't have to talk quite as much. It's a
lot speedier.''
The computer voice, more formally known as the Audio Response
System, will be used in other states as soon as the equipment can
installed, said Ed Mattix, Northwestern Bell's media relations
manager.
''Only a very few have complained they can't understand the
voice,'' he said. ''Some people say they'd rather talk to a live
operator rather than a computer and I guess that's to be expected.
''Some people think computers are coming along and replacing
people, but you still have to have people servicing those computers,
working with them.''
He said operators can handle more calls more efficiently. ''The
most tedious part of their job was the repetition of the numbers.
This way, they can keep going and take more calls. They stay busier
and the time goes faster,'' he said.
Many people think the computer's voice, which Mattix described
as ''very understandable,'' comes from a tape recording. But it's
straight from a computer where it's generated by silicon chips.
Phone company policy allows callers to get two phone numbers
from directory assistance for each call. After receiving the first
number from the computer, the caller stays on the line and is
automatically referred back to an operator where the process is
repeated.
Mattix said the use of computer voice technology has only begun.
''We've just scratched the surface,'' he said. ''Next thing, we'll
be able to talk to computers rather than sitting at a computer
keyboard like we do now. It's really amazing.''
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End of HUMAN-NETS Digest
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