crunch@well.UUCP (John Draper) (11/23/88)
Here is the first (of many) interesting things to come out of the
Soviet Union that are of interest to UseNet readers.
In December, a new computer club will be forming in the Soviet Union
called the International Computer Club. It is a non-profit organization
sponsored by Soviet Software companies. They are looking for American
Software organizations to sponsor the American side of the Club.
The Club is a Joint Venture arrangement between a Marin County
organization or Chapter and a Chapter on the Moscow side. On the
15th and 16th of December, in Moscow will be when the Club officially
becomes a reality. I was told that American software people will
be invited to it's "kick-off".
They want to create a number of Software "Journalists" as they call it,
to link up all the embassies and post a public information forum through
the use of BBS'es.
Soviet citizens of ALL walks of life are invited to become a member
and the costs are $15 monthly and $40 per year dues. The information
I have is currently sketchey at this time, as things are still being
set up. They will have an Email address on the SF/Moscow teleport,
but in order for Americans to use the Email setup, a written authorization
from the ICC would be necessary. I would suspect that the ICC would
want to get as many Americans on the Email link as possible.
The ICC would be building computer facilities for those not currently
posessing Personal Computers, and will have Modem equipment.
In Februrary, they are planning on sponsoring a Programming Skills
competition. I'm not sure if Americans will be invited to participate,
but they are going to be looking for American Judges to judge the contest.
Each of the Americans selected to become a judge, will be flown to
Moscow for a weeks worth of judging. This would give the Americans
a chance to evaluate the programming Skills of Soviet Programmers. This
should prove VERY INTERESTING INDEED.
They also want to establish a World Exibition Software library. Hmmm!!
(I wonder what kind of piracy opportunity this provides??). They want
to collect all the new software thats produced within the Soviet Union
and catalog it with American Products.
The Soviet winners of the Software Skills Competition will be allowed
to visit the USA and meet their American Software counterparts, tour
American Institutions, and companies.
I was invited to participate in this joint venture through the
Programmers Network. I suspect that other information exchange forums
would be built as a result of this. I was asked to help spread the
word and interest to American Programmers.
If anyone is interested in more information, Please Email me, and
I'll send your resuests for information on to Moscow, and relay the
information by posting it to the appropriate newsgroup. I suspect that
"comp.misc" might be appropriate, as the other newsgroups devoted to
the Soviet Union have little or no traffic. Perhaps we should set up
a new newsgroup called "sov.joint.ventures". But I have absolutly
NO idea how to create a new newsgroup.
My Link to the SF/Moscow service has been delayed yet another week,
pending permission and necessary paperwork from the Soviet side.
I also will be publishing an erratum or correction information on the
SF/Moscow teleport as soon as I recieve the corrections to some errors
and assumptions I made.
One such correction, is that the SF/Moscow teleport will NOT connect
an American institution to the network unless INVITED on by a Soviet
institution. Origionally, nothing was mentioned about that when I
phoned in my inquiry, nor was it mentioned on the Service agreement.
The Soviet Teleport user must issue a request in writing to the
Teleport offices and the National Center for Automated Data Exchange,
an organization the Soviet user must sign a seperate contract with, and
a duplicate letter must also be sent to the Moscow Teleport offices.
The letter should outline in detail the names of the American institutions
wishing to establish Email contact with the particular Soviet Teleport
user.
This serves 2 purposes:
1) CONTROL over who the Soviet can communicate with.
2) Prevents the American from paying for services that don't
connect to any specific recipiant.
I just recently recieved this information yesterday, and passing them
onto the many people who asked me about the Teleport Services.
Interested organizations can contact me at:
uunet!acad!well!crunch
Also, please indicate in your inquiry if you want me to pass it onto
Moscow. I understand that certain UseNet sites are not permitted to
communicate with the USSR because of their work, so by default, I will
NOT pass this information on to the USSR without explicitly requested
to do so.
John Draper
Programmers Networkpatth@dasys1.UUCP (Patt Haring) (11/25/88)
NYC's Board of Education sponsored a program along with the USSR
whereby our students and their parents and chaperones were invited
to spend some time in the USSR with host families -- Soviet students
and their chaperones were also welcome to the USA.
Eric Fenster, for the past few years has taken groups from the USA
to Soviet computer camps and I hope he'll join this discussion --
his email address is: {uunet,rutgers}!umix!fenster or
EricFenster%Wayne.MTS@UM.CC
Two of the doctors who post to sci.med have taught and travelled
in the USSR; one I know of has published an article about the
first micro-computers he saw in the Soviet Union.
People are people -- we're not inviting their GOVERNMENT to
access the net (they're already on it) but it would be quite
wonderful to know that Soviet citizens have net access just like
the rest of us.
Patt Haring {sun!hoptoad,cmcl2!phri}!dasys1!patth
-or- uunet!dasys1!patth
-or- patth@ccnysci.BITNET
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