lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein) (12/14/84)
Just a short note to tell everyone who responded to my request for Stargate netnews screeners that I haven't forgotten you. I'm trying to organize a mailing list on a site with more capacity for such things than vortex, and hope to have one soon. From that time on, I'll be able to communicate with you directly via that list. Notices of general interest regarding the project (which I am now "officially" calling "Project Stargate" [P.S. for short] will continue to be posted to this group unless volume begins to indicate the need for a separate group. At this time, status data continues to flow into vortex from stargate 24 hours/day without difficulty. The error rate, even over the extremely crude cable system that serves my particular area (The Los Angeles area is served by no less than ten, count 'em, ten separate cable companies!) has been extremely low. While the current test data is arriving at 1200 bps, the error rate should not be any greater at higher speeds, since the data is actually being extracted from the video at full video (megabit/sec) rates, and delivered at an effective 1200 bps by the decoder at this time. Tests have also shown that, as I suspected all along, a production system will require interfacing hardware between the decoder and the main computers to handle message sequencing, error correction/ repetition control, message selection, and buffering/flow control. Even a 1200 bps data stream, running on a more or less continuous basis, will result in occasional lost characters when running into many timeshared/multitasking systems, as we know all too well. However, for the current experiment, occasional lost characters from this situation are not a problem. I was considering setting up a special account on vortex to let people dial in and see a few minutes of direct video data, but gave up the idea since I was afraid there'd be too much traffic for my already overloaded single dialup line to handle (it's busy most of the time with uucp traffic as it is). Oh well, it was a nice idea... Anyway, everything seems to be proceeding well. The Fortune 32:16 is churning along in its unattended operation and there have been no significant problems to report. I'll issue another status report when appropriate. Many of you have sent me private mail expressing support for the project. Thank you *very* much. Without positive feedback, I have no sense of whether or not anyone really cares about such things, and it's pretty easy to get discouraged in such a situation. Thanks again. --Lauren--