Pleasant@Rutgers (11/10/82)
HUMAN-NETS Digest Wednesday, 10 Nov 1982 Volume 5 : Issue 103
Today's Topics:
Technology - WorldNet (3 msgs),
Computers and People - Atari vs "Blue" Games (2 msgs) &
Cable TV and the First Amendment &
Magazines vs. Mailing Lists (2 msgs)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 7 Nov 1982 1102-PST
From: CAULKINS at USC-ECL
Subject: Amateur Packet Radio
I agree with recent HN comment; packet radio is a good vehicle for
WORLDNET. I think that this kind of packet radio should be modeled
after citizen's band and not Amateur Radio; I believe the latter is
too restrictive in requiring a lot of technical expertise not needed
for WORLDNET access.
Anyway, some of the best work I know of in this area is being done
in Canada, fostered and supported by the Canadian equivalent of the
FCC. Some pointers:
The Vancouver Amateur Digital Communications Group
818 Rondeau Street
Coquitlam, B .C.
Canada V3J5Z3
[Digression - note superior design of Canadian zip]
They publish "The Packet", a newsletter - subscription is $10; also
kits for their hardware and floppies with supporting software for
prices ranging from $15 to $150.
In the US:
AMRAD
c/o Dr. William Pala, WB4NFB
5829 Parakeet Drive
Burke, VA 22015
Membership - $15; includes monthly "AMRAD Newsletter" largely
devoted to packet radio. Proceedings of the recent "ARRL Amateur
Radio Computer Networking Conference" available for $8 (repro +
mailing).
------------------------------
Date: 7 November 1982 20:09-EST
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM at MIT-MC>
Subject: Re: Why not AT&T for WorldNet?
AT&T has a fine voice telephone network covering most of North
America, but they don't yet have digital communications that allow
me to connect my microcomputer into the network for hours on end
every day for a charge comparable to rental on a pair of modems and
a mile of twisted pair from my home to the local CO (Central Office)
plus a reasonable charge proportional to the data I send. If and
when they do provide such a network, with all the services I expect
(electronic mail, file transfer, virtual-terminal-circuits (what we
call TELNET)), then I think I'd be glad to use the AT&T network. But
they haven't even started to provide that level of service as far as
I know. Thus we're forced at the present time to do one of two
things:
(1) Use AT&T for the basic long-haul voice-grade circuit but adding
our own modems and software on top of it (PCNET, DIALNET, CSNET,
UUCP)
(2) Lease our own long-haul lines or satellite circuits or radio
channels independent of AT&T and also develop the software (ARPANET,
TYMNET, TELENET, packet radio).
Local networks have different tradeoffs. Leased or owned equipment
being quite practical as an alternative to AT&T (ETHERNET).
Local networks and isolated personal computers/workstations,
connected to each other by some combination of long-haul networks,
seems to be the consensus. Within that basic consensus the debate
continues...
------------------------------
Date: 8 Nov 1982 at 0938-PST
Subject: Re: AT&T
From: chesley.tsca at SRI-Unix
"Everybody hates the phone company."
--From the movie The President's Analyst
------------------------------
Date: 15 Oct 1982 2311-PDT
Subject: "We just couldn't see adults playing with spaceships
Subject: anymore."
From: the tty of Geoffrey S. Goodfellow
Reply-to: Geoff at SRI-CSL
a243 1643 15 Oct 82
AM-Atari-Blue Games,450
Atari Files Suit To Halt Blue Games
SUNNYVALE, Calif. (AP) - Atari Inc., a leading manufacturer of
home video equipment, announced Friday it had taken legal action
against sex-theme games created for use on Atari consoles.
''Atari, like the general public, is outraged by this conduct
and we are taking the initiative by filing this suit,'' said Michael
Moone, president of Atari's consumer electronics division.
Moone didn't give specifics about the legal action in a brief
news release, and Atari spokeswoman Karen Esler declined to
elaborate.
Atari said it was taking action against the manufacturer of the
game cartridges, American Multiple Industries, and the distributor,
Mystique.
''This is the first I've heard of it,'' said Michael Weingart, a
vice president for American Multiple, who otherwise declined to
comment.
The controversial games were unveiled Wednesday by American
Multiple, headquartered in Northridge. The cartridges sell for
$49.95 each.
The release of the games prompted a demonstration Friday in New
York City by about 100 people from a woman's group and a group of
American Indians. One of the three games, ''Custer's Revenge,'' was
on display at an audio-visual show there.
Kristen Reilly of Women Against Pornography said the game, in
which Custer crosses an obstacle course to engage in sex with an
Indian woman, is one of ''attack and rape.''
Michael Bush of the American Indian Community House said the
game provides ''a reinforcement of the stereotyping of American
Indians as something less than human.''
The game's creator, Joel Miller, denied in an interview in New
York that Custer rapes the woman. ''He's seducing her, but she's a
willing participant.''
Stuart Kesten, president of American Multiple, said he does not
consider the games pornographic and won't withdraw them. Reached in
New York before the announcement of the suit but after Atari had
complained about the games, Kesten said, ''We just couldn't see
adults playing with spaceships anymore.''
The games will be available nationally within two weeks, and he
expects a half-million will be sold by Christmas, he said.
Atari, a subsidiary of Warner Communications, said it ''does not
condone or approve of this use of its home video game technology,
which was designed for wholesome family entertainment.''
The games are the first offered by American Multiple, a year-old
company whose only business until recently was the manufacture of
plastic video and audio cassette storage cases.
American Multiple's are the first known adult games created for
use on Atari equipment.
ap-ny-10-15 1936EDT
***************
------------------------------
Date: 18-Oct-82 13:04:20 PDT (Monday)
From: Newman.es at PARC-MAXC
Subject: Re: Racist Atari video games
While I sympathize with the protests of women and Native Americans
against these racist and sexist video games, I fail to understand
the merits of Atari's suit.
What right does a hardware manufacturer have to prevent someone from
selling any kind of software to run on his hardware?
/Ron
------------------------------
Date: 26 October 1982 03:44-EDT
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM at MIT-MC>
Subject: home censoring of television
Ideally a computer should be tied into a network that distributes TV
logs, so the program can match time slot against program name even
when last-hour changes are made due to long sports games or
emergency news broadcasts. The parents can mark which programs are
acceptable and which aren't for their children to watch (or for
themselves too), and whenever a new program not yet marked is listed
in the TV log it shows up in a menu for the parents to mark at the
earliest convenient time. Initially all scheduled programs would be
in the menu, but gradually most of them would become marked as OK or
NOT-OK for the children to watch, leaving only new shows and
specials unmarked and thus in the menu. The children would have
their own menu which showed only those shows marked as
OK-for-children in the parent's menu. If the children were allowed
only a certain number of hours per week viewing, the menu would
allow optimal choice so the children wouldn't miss their favorite
programs due to miscalculating the number of hours accumulated and
consuming their allocation on a less-favorite program. The children
could even have a favorite program recorded automatically if it came
on too late at night or during school or when the family was out
together. This would reduce hassles over "we can't go out tonight
because the children's favorite program is on tonight".
The only major problem (besides the fact that neither the
computer-controlled VCR/tuner nor the TV-guide-network is yet
available for consumers) would be that if parents are away the
children can visit a friend's house to consume their allocation of
TV hours then bring their friends home to consume their own
allocation, and thus get double allocation, or triple, etc., limited
only by the number of children who can fit in a room and want to
watch the same program and the number of hours the parents are away.
------------------------------
Date: 29 October 1982 12:11-EDT
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM at MIT-MC>
Subject: Magazine vs. mailing list
On the Arpanet there's a smooth continuum from free-for-all mailing
list to edited magazine. Mostly the submitter can't tell the
difference. Mail to HUMAN-NETS is edited for spelling and format,
and individual messages are collected and rearranged and released in
coherent subject-specific clumps. Some messages may wait a few weeks
to get published if there aren't enough mates to create an issue (of
the magazine) and the message isn't of crucial importance deserving
immediate distribution. WORK-STATIONS has some editing. SPACE goes
out thru a fully-automated process. Although the mailing list is
private, no human sees the messages before they go out, so it's as
if it were just a mailing list except for the digestification and
nighttime distribution to reduce prime-time network load. INFO-PCNET
is a direct mailing list not even digestified. Some mailing lists
change their status from direct to digestified or back without the
members even being notified ahead of time. Except for the mechanism
involved I don't see a clear distinction between a digestified
mailing list and a magazine. If subscribers to the mailing list pay
for their incoming messages containing issues of the "magazine", and
submitters pay only for their original submission message (this may
be practical if the magazine is via selected retrieval rather than
en masse data, i.e. the subscriber gets the table of contents
automatically and the individual articles only on demand from the
local electronic newsstand), then the same ambiguity between mailing
list and magazine may exist in WorldNet.
------------------------------
Date: 29 Oct 1982 1404-EDT
Subject: Re: Magazine vs. mailing list
From: DDEUTSCH at BBNA
I can't tell if we are agreeing or not. The sender of a message to
a discussion group or edited magazine must know where to send the
message; the recipient of a message from a discussion group or
edited magazine must be allowed to know where it came from. The
difference between a discussion group and a magazine is that the
magazine has an editor who controls what is published, its form, and
when it is published.
Here's the most general diagram I can think of right now:
Writer --> Editor --> Publisher --> Recipients
The Editor may select or edit submissions; the publisher does the
actual fan-out. Sometimes there is no editor; sometimes the editor
is also the publisher. An unmediated discussion group that uses a
mail-forwarder to fan out mail without any screening doesn't have an
editor. MsgGroup is an example of that. If someone fans out his
own submission, there is no editor or publisher. If the writer is
not performing fan-out himself, the only thing he needs to know is
the name of the person or process to which the message should be
sent. That person or process might be an editor, a publisher, or
might switch between the two. It doesn't matter as long as the name
stays the same.
Given that the reader is not actively involved in retrieving
articles or magazines, the question of who pays for the
transmissions initiated by the publisher is dictated by the
agreement between the publisher and the recipient, and the ability
of the relevant protocols to support that agreement. I would be
hesitant to subscribe to a service that would indiscriminately send
me messages for which I would have to pay the communications cost.
If there were an editor, I would be more likely to subscribe under
those conditions. I suggest that if there is no editor, the writer
should pay for sending all the copies; if there is an editor then
the writer should pay for sending one copy to the editor, and who
pays for the final fan-out depends on the nature of the magazine.
Debbie
------------------------------
End of HUMAN-NETS Digest
************************