[comp.society] C&S Digest, Vol 3, No 16

taylor@hpdstma.hp.com (Dave Taylor) (07/22/88)

 ___________________________________________________________________________ 
|                                                                           |
|  Computers &                                     Thursday, June 16, 1988  |
|  Society                                                      Volume   3  |
|  Digest                                                       Number  16  |
|                                                                           |
|      Editor and Publisher: Dave Taylor, Hewlett-Packard Company           |
|___________________________________________________________________________|

Contents:

 Note from the Editor ........................................... Dave Taylor

 An Inquiry Into Libraries of the Future ....................... Steve Cisler
 Computer Folklore .............................................. Scott Bayes
 More on aesthetics .......................................... Eugene N. Miya
 Optical technology fails in courtroom ............................. Rob Horn
 Paper versus Computer Monitors .............................. Espen Andersen
 The Ultimate Interface .......................................... Doug Salot
 Urban legends -- gyroscopic drum memory .................... Dennis Hamilton
     .......................................................... Mike Van Pelt
     ....................................................... Jonathan Eckrich
 what to do with all those MIPS ................................ Peter Nelson

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

                             Note from the Editor
                      Dave Taylor     (taylor@hplabs.HP.COM)

Yes, as you can see, I've finally gotten enough time to create a
new issue of the digest for your enjoyment.  As it turns out I 
had a fair number of old, pending articles, so this represents
all of them -- sorry if it is a bit hard to pick up the narrative
thread!

In any case, please consider the digest now up and alive, and feel
free to submit articles to be included in future issues.

We've had a considerable number of new people join the list since
the last digest, and I'd like to also invite them to participate!

As a possible topic of discussion, the latest issue of the 
Communications of the ACM has an interesting article by a
group of people at the University of Illinois about a ``PC
in the year 2000'' called TABLET.  I'd welcome someone 
posting a brief description of the machine, and some comments
from a societal impact point of view (for example, how does
one *not* lose the magic stylus?)

			From the edges of reality,

					-- Dave Taylor

------------------------------

                    An Inquiry Into Libraries of the Future
                         Steve Cisler    (sac@well.UUCP)

I am going to be working on a number of projects dealing with the
concept of libraries of the future.  I would like to have readers of
this newsgroup discuss their ideas about what libraries will and will
not be.

If you post a response, it would be helpful if you state how you
currently use or don't use libraries.  Some information junkies satisfy
their habit without ever stepping foot inside a library; others have
people to find the information for them.  Many of us visit and make use
of libraries several times a week.

To start this off I'll introduce myself:  I am automation manager in a
large county library in the San Francisco Bay Area, but I will be moving
to a corporate library of a computer firm and will be dealing with both
engineers and librarians involved in projects that will affect the
future technology in libraries of all sorts:  academic, school, public,
private, and government.  I also publish a newsletter called Connect:
Libraries & Telecommunications.

I am convinced there will be extraordinary gains in the areas of
information retrieval, telecommunications, and expert systems.  But with
terabytes of text, images, and sounds available through fiber optic
cable and manipulated by 'software agents' what will librarians be
doing?  How far down the economic ladder will these technologies
penetrate?  Will we maintain the idea of Free Public Libraries in the
21st century, or will it be pay-as-you go?

Feel free to focus on your own special interest or raise more questions 
about the big (and still fuzzy) picture.
 
Steve Cisler

------------------------------

                             Re: Computer Folklore
                      Scott Bayes    (bayes@hpfcdc.HP.COM)

> "send us a copy of your disc in the post and we'll try to reproduce 
> the problem".  Next morning in a nice envelope arrives... a lovely 
> photocopy of the floppy.

This really happened with an HP Series 200 machine about 5 years ago. I was
the lucky Support Engineer who received the photocopy (two-sided, as the
disk was two-sided!!) from a to-remain-unnamed System Engineer out there in
the real world.

Not a legend, but valid folklore.

Scott 

------------------------------

                             Re: More on aesthetics
                 Eugene N. Miya    (eugene@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov)

Last Tuesday, I briefly sat in on a discussion of the SIGGRAPH exhibit 
of computer graphics at the local De Anza Community College campus.  It 
was an interesting discussion.

Here's a brief summary of commentary:

	Lacking in any warmth or humanity.  This is a problem not for
	the media, but for the people putting the stuff out (note:
	this includes works by the instructor of one of the classes
	which includes a classically trained artist)

	About interactive fiction and gaming:
		This is an area where the computer people in the
		audience were particularly proud.  Comments: Not art.
		It's problem solving.  Reminds people too much of work.
		Interfaces are poor (mice).

There were a few other comments, but these were the significant ones.

Eugene Miya

------------------------------

                     Optical technology fails in courtroom
                        Rob Horn    (rhorn@infinet.UUCP)

The California courts recently abandoned an experimental effort to use
digital scanners and optical disk technology for storing and
retrieving legal documents.  The primary problem was the unwillingness
of witnesses to swear to the accuracy of documents presented to them
on a screen.  Under oath, with lots of money and perhaps criminal
liability at stake, witnesses were faced with deciding whether that
screen image really matched the documents they worked with a few years
ago.  Had a line been missed?  Were there any portions illegible that
should not have been?  Witnesses were not sure, and generally refused
to swear that the documents were accurate.  When presented with a
paper copy, they could read it, hold it, and were confident in
testifying that it was indeed the same document.  A secondary problem
was that the lawyers were not sure what to expect, so they always had
plenty of paper versions on hand in case something went wrong.
Between these two effects, the court found that the digitized
documents were useless.

I have not seen the system that was used, but from what I have seen of
other document scanning systems, I expect that the reproduction
quality was excellent.  The key difficulty is witness uncertainty.
Consider how would you react if you faced huge fines and bankruptcy
if you made a mistake in assessing whether a scanned picture really
matched a document that you worked on several years ago.

Rob  Horn

------------------------------

                       Re: Paper versus Computer Monitors
                   Espen Andersen    (EDB85007@NOBIVM.BITNET)

David Paulsen outlined a cross between a CRT (or, rather, a flexible 
flatscreen) and a book in the Digest, Volume 3 No. 14.

I have always dreamt of a cross between an office desk and a CRT.
Imagine the Macintosh user interface expanded up to 6 feet by 3 and put
flat out in front of you like the normal desktop surface - with a
touch-sensitive screen or a ligthpen instead of a mouse.  With an
operating system resembling the MultiFinder you could write memos,
spreadsheets and books directly "on the desk".  The telephone would be
on the screen as well - with a loudspeaker.  The paper basket (it
would have to be a basket - Apple "owns" the bin :-) would be on the
screen.

In fact - the only thing "physical" would be the coffee mug....

Of course the resolution would have to be fantastic, the colour choices
unlimited and the harddisk enormous.  Not to mention the UPS system -
imagine somebody pulling the cord and erasing your entire office...

Espen

------------------------------

                      Technology and People with Disabilities
                   (AEB_BEVAN%VAX.ACS.OPEN.AC.UK@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU)

[Note: this is a copy of a newsletter sent to the digest by a
 member of the ABLENET group -- the format is a bit different
 from C&S Digest, but it seems quite interesting.  Immediately
 below is a list of contact addresses for those of you interested
 in contacting the studies group in the UK.		-- Dave]

ABLENET
Disabilities Studies Group
Gardiner Building
The OPEN UNIVERSITY
Milton Keynes MK7 6AA
United Kingdom

JANET: ABLENET@UK.AC.OPEN.ACS.VAX
BITNET/EARN: ABLENET@VAX.ACS.OPEN.AC.UK
       (or): ABLENET%VAX.ACS.OPEN.AC.UK@AC.UK
UUCP : .....!mcvax!ukc!ouacs!ablenet
  _________________________________________________
ABLENET newsletter No.1  21 December 1987
Contents:
1/ ABLENET. A brief description
2/ INFORMATION AND POWER
3/ THE DISABILITIES STUDIES GROUP PROJECT
4/ DATABASE PROJECT
    background
    information needed for database
5/ REQUEST FOR INFORMATION
6/ SUMMARY
7/ CONTRIBUTIONS WELCOME!

___________________________________________________

1/ ABLENET

        ABLENET is an information exchange which the disability studies group at
the Open University hopes to establish as a resource for disabled people around
the world. At present it is an experiment in the use of the academic computing
networks, principally the JANET/BITNET/NETNORTH/EARN group.

        The aim of the ABLENET project is to help locate information resources
around the world that could be of value to disabled people and help establish
the pathways by which disabled people can access that information for themselves
and incorporate it into their own projects.

        We hope in particular to provide an information service for the growing
movement of organisations controlled by disabled people.

        If you are interested in this project please contact us. Please also
pass on information to others who may be interested. To subscribe to ABLENET
send a mail message including the line SUBSCRIBE ABLENET YOURADDRESS

        ABLENET is hosted on the Open University Academic Computing Service VAX
cluster in Milton Keynes. It is linked to the Joint Academic Network  (JANET) of
the United Kingdom Universities. The electronic address of ABLENET as seen from
various networks is as shown in the header section. You can also contact the
list editor by mailing AEB_BEVAN at the same node address. Please note that we
do not have Listserve software installed at this site, so this network is being
manually edited at present

EDIS BEVAN   (AEB_BEVAN@UK.AC.OU.ACS.VAX)

Please note that the  form of address as seen from the United Kingdom can differ
from the address forms needed for messages from your site.
*****************************************************************************


2/ INFORMATION AND POWER

        Many marginalised minority groups are handicapped by their restricted
access to the information that concerns them. Existing power and economic
relationships  and the nature of existing service provision means that disabled
people are often on the periphery of information networks. Disabled people need
to be able to organise facilities to collect, store and distribute information
relevant to their own perceived needs.

        Within the movement of disabled people the greatest emphasis is on the
need to find effective ways of removing social barriers. This encourages
disabled people to take an active and leading role in our own affairs.

        The search for appropriate ways of activating disabled people and
removing barriers has led to the creation of centres for the provision of
services  in which disabled people have a direct role. These are variously known
as centres for Independent living or centres for integrated living. The major
point is that these centres are under the control of disabled people and
professional services are deployed according to the wishes of disabled people.


3/ THE DISABILITY STUDIES GROUP PROJECT

        Inspired by the work of organisations such as Disabled Peoples'
International, the disability studied group at the Open University  (in Great
Britain) has initiated a research project. We hope to  identify information
resources around the world that could be of value for disabled people and to
make this information available to disabled people in accessible forms.

        The centre  at the Open University sees its task as presenting a view of
the  mass of available data which will enable representative groups of disabled
people  to  operate more effectively, to reinforce their efforts towards making
disabled people around the world equal citizens in their own societies.The task
of the centre is to build up a resource base that can  assist disabled people
participate in choices and create for themselves information and research
facilities that meet their needs as they see them. The task ultimately  is  to
empower people with disabilities by assisting them to obtain the information
needed  to carry through sound and innovative research on their own behalf.

        We shall explore the concept of participative research and hope to make
contacts with people who support this concept. This enquiry is being pursued
regardless of whether or not the focus of the participative research is on
disability related matters. The thesis here is that people in minority groups
who are in the weak role in power relationships are often further  rendered
powerless by obstacles and restrictions in access to information. There have
been many examples of  groups  trying to carry out grassroots research and their
experiences are of great potential value for disabled people setting out to
undertake the same tasks.

        We shall attempt to carry through practical projects on making
information available for development projects.

The centre's projects will include working with other international networks
concerned with development issues that share our perspectives. We hope to link
up with many electronic conferences, lists and billboards around the world.

4/  DATABASE PROJECT

        One purpose of the ABLENET network is to facilitate the search for
information that can be incorporated in proposed databases on development
projects related to the needs of disabled people.

        These databases will we hope include details of organisations and
projects controlled by disabled people around the world. Also to be  included
in this database are details of other projects and organisations of potential
value to  disabled people who are acting as agents for change in their own
societies.

Background to project

        Existing information sources are overwhelmingly orientated towards the
traditional views of disabled people as dependent and passive receivers of
services. In the main they are concerned with medical and rehabilitation
approaches .

        However disabled people around the world are beginning to reject the
role  of helpless receiver of services and are demanding the right to make their
own decisions about their own lives.The basic focus of attention for the
centre's research will be on the relationship between the world as designed for
able-bodied living and people with various bodily and mental impairments. At
present this  relationship is ill researched and  knowledge of  it fragmentary.

        We hope to provide a resource that will empower disabled people to
construct for themselves information and research facilities that meet their
needs as they themselves define them.

Information needed for database

         In order to make concrete decisions that lead to changes in the
relationship between disabled people and the able-bodied world disabled people
need  reliable and accessible  information sources including data on:

        1/ The existing sources of information, how to access them and how
relevant they are to the work of disabled people in general and change agents in
particular. This will include details of existing information sources relating
to disability issues which  incorporate traditional views of disabled people.

        2/ Organisations and individuals who can provide support for appropriate
action that assists disabled people to participate as full citizens in their own
societies. These organisations include the various world development networks,
computer conferences with special interest sections on relevant topics, and
groups  supporting participative research projects.


         It is clear that much  work is being done by organisations and groups
that  do not have a specialised interest in disabled people but do have an
interest in the support and development of grassroots initiatives.

        3/ Development approaches that have worked for disabled people and which
incorporate the new worldviews outlined above. Information also on how to make
contact with the people responsible for the relevant projects  so that others
can share their experiences  and avoid needlessly repeating work done elsewhere.
It  is expected that this will be the core information service provided by the
database at the Open University when fully developed.

******************************************************************
    ***********************************************

5/ REQUEST FOR  INFORMATION

        We would be most grateful for any information on relevant projects or
initiatives. The basic information required is:

1*  the title of the organisation concerned,
2*  contact address of the organisation,
3*  any electronic mail or conference  facilities,
4*  online computer access facilities,
5*  documentation collections held
6*  advisory services
7*  whether the facilities are accessible to disabled people,
8*  name of a contact person where possible,
9*  a brief indication of the scope of the organisations work.

        Relevant  publications are also welcomed, as is information on
    conferences and seminars.
    *********************************************************


6/ SUMMARY

        We are particularly interested in building up working relationships for
information exchange with existing databases and documentation centres in
overlapping and  parallel fields.

        As a starting point we need to find out where the existing information
resources are, and what initiatives have already been taken. We also need to
investigate the experiences of organisations and projects working from the
perspective of appropriate development, community action and other approaches to
grassroots action.

    We shall seek to identify networks such as the International Federation
for Development Action  "Third System Project" and the CONTACT-0 net in Latin
America. Such networks could offer disabled people pathways to action which are
at present not clearly available.

        We can then make this information available to all those who can make
use of it to change the present situation, whether they are disabled people or
human services professionals of a new breed. We must look to information
technology to help us in this world-wide search and to make the information
available in an accessible manner.

        Making accessible  includes the establishment and support of local or
specialised information networks. I stress again that a prime aim of the project
is to assist the growth of an information and research capacity responsible
directly to organisations of disabled people. From time to time we must expect
these resources to be employed to criticise academic efforts in this field,
including the work of the centre at the Open University.



7/ CONTRIBUTIONS WELCOME

    Contributions, comments, suggestions for names to be added to the list
are all welcome!

Edis Bevan

------------------------------

                           Re: The Ultimate Interface
                        Doug Salot    (doug@feedme.UUCP)

Rob Jellinghaus wrote:

> Perhaps something like William Gibson's "cyberspace" will become the
> prevailing metaphor; you'll move through shimmering spaces of data on
> your screen...

Screen?  I don't need no stinking screen.  I want a real *user* interface,
you know, like a DB-25 in my forehead.  Of course, the gender of the
connector would match the gender of the user, so that sex would still
be fun.  All seriousness aside, they make hearing aids that connect
to the auditory nerve, don't they.  Heck, I'd settle for an optical
nerve gateway.  But what would Nancy Reagan and Tipper Gore think?

Doug Salot

------------------------------

                  Re: Urban legends -- gyroscopic drum memory
                     Dennis Hamilton    (deh0654@sjfc.UUCP)

Jonathan Eckrich wrote:

> Larry Kollar wrote about a CDC disk flipping over a trailer truck...
> I don't believe it.  Here's why.
> In order for the truck to tip over in a turn due to the spinning disks, 
> there is only ONE axis in which the disks could be spinning.  That 
> axis would have to be lateral to the dimensions of the truck.

Prior to the development of compact removable disk packs (with the
introduction of the IBM System/360, essentially), disk stacks were
large *and* non-removable.  Although the first one was vertical
(the IBM RAMAC unit), there were also some large units designed
with horizontal axis of rotation.

However, the story about disk stacks doesn't sound too credible:
the moment of inertia of a disk stack is not nearly so impressive
as that of a horizontally-axised *drum* with its large outer 
surface.  The Fastrand I and II drum units were much more imposing
in this regard, and the problem of shipboard use not something to
be taken lightly.

Concerning the story about shipboard 1108's, that is a mix of the wrong
technology.  Fastrand may have been considered for use aboard ship,
though I can't imagine their placement on anything smaller than a
cruiser or aircraft carrier.  The computer technology would have been
defense equipment out of Univac St. Paul, probably something between
the CDC 1604 and Univac 49x in architecture.  

Although there is certainly a high degree of "urban legend" to these
stories, the shipboard case is actually quite plausible.  Whether
the problem of gyroscopic effect was very difficult to remedy or not
is a different matter.  Someone who knows the masses involved in
gyrostabilizers might want to indicate how hard or easy it is to
interfere with the steering of a vessel.  It would certainly be the case
that motion of the ship would be a problem for the drive unit, and
some sort of steps would have to be taken to minimize the resulting
stresses.  Fortunately, disk technology was revolutionized before
there would have been much need to solve such problems on a regular
basis.  The current vertical-axis units must still present problems
with respect to roll of the ship.  I wonder what kind of special measures 
are taken, especially to prevent head crashes as the result of such
forces interacting with the drive unit.

Dennis E. Hamilton

------------------------------

                               Re: Urban legends
                      Mike Van Pelt    (vanpelt@unisv.UUCP)

The story Larry Kollar wrote about CDC disks in a truck sounds very
similar to a Univac legend, which I've been told was true.  They put a
Univac 1108 on a destroyer, complete with Fastrand drums.  (A Fastrand
drum is defined in "The Devil's DP Dictionary" as "A non-floppy rotating
medium for the storage of angular momentum.")  As in the CDC 18-wheeler
story, everything was just fine until they tried to turn.  There are two
versions of the results:  (1) They turned the wheel over, but the
destroyer just kept going straight, and (2) the Fastrand drum cabinet
ripped up out of the floor and rolled through a bulkhead.

This really does have that "Urban Legend" sound to it...

Mike Van Pelt

------------------------------

                               Re: Urban legends
                    Jonathan Eckrich    (johne@astroatc.UUCP)

Larry Kollar wrote about a CDC disk flipping over a trailer truck...

I don't believe it.  Here's why.

In order for the truck to tip over in a turn due to the spinning disks, there
is only ONE axis in which the disks could be spinning.  That axis would have
to be lateral to the dimensions of the truck.  I am not familiar with the
drives that CDC used but I suspect that they spun on a vertical axis?  The
gyroscopic effect, refered to above, is called precesion.  When a force is
applied to the side of a spinning gyro, the gyro responds as if the force
was actually applied at a position that is 90 deg. in the direction of the
spin.  If the axes of the disks where lateral with respect to the truck, and
the direction of spin was counter clockwise (if viewed from standing to the
left of the truck), then maybe, just maybe, it could happen.  This would
require extremely heavy platters AND very fast rotation, then the driver
would have to make a fairly fast rate of turn.  I'm cross posting this to
rec.aviation, because gyros are commonly used in airplanes.

                            <-------.
                        __________   \  Rotation is counter clockwise.
                      /            \
                     /              \
                    | .              |
                    |/      +        |
                    /\              /
                   /  \     .      /
                  /    ^____|_____^
                 /          |
 Apply force here.          |
                            Gyro responds as if force was applied here.


Jonathan

------------------------------

                         what to do with all those MIPS
                     Peter Nelson    (nelson_p@apollo.UUCP)

I wanted to raise a question about how rapid increases in compute
power available to individual users will affect the way we use
computers.      

Just lately, the amount of sheer compute power available to an
individual user has been taking huge leaps.  While noting that
MIPS is a poorly defined term (some say Meaningless Indicator
of Performance / Second), there is no doubt that there are 
about to be a lot of them out there.   My company (Apollo) recently
announced a workstation that will offer 40 - 100+ MIPS, depending
on configuration.  Startups Ardent and Stellar have also announced
high-performance products and we may reasonably expect that Sun,
HP, and Silicon-Graphics will have competing products on the market.
Currently prices for these machines are in the $70K - $90K range 
but competition and a growing market will, no doubt, lower them.

Modern workstations also allow the programmer to treat the network
as a virtual computer.  Paging across the network, subroutine calls
to other nodes, and distributed processing are all common to
architectures such as Apollo's.  If I want to do a 'build' or 'make'
involving dozens of compiles, I can distribute them accross the net
so they will take little more time than one or two compiles on a 
single machine.  Furthermore, the disk resources of the network,
which may be many 10's or 100's of gigabytes are all transparently
accessable to me.   I suspect that ('the network is the computer')
Sun may offer something along the same lines, and while I think that
our other major competitors are still trying catch up in this area,
clearly this is the way of the future. 

A few years ago the compute resources available to a single user 
may have been 1 or 2 MIPS and a few 10's of megabytes of virtual 
address space.  A few years from now a typical user will have 100
MIPS and a seamless virtual address space of gigabytes, not to     
mention decent graphics, for a change.  A transparent heterogeneous
CPU-environment will round out the improvements

I was wondering whether any of this will change the way we use com-
puters or the kinds of things we do with them.  Most of what I've 
seen so far is people doing the Same Old Things, just faster.  Now
we can ray-trace an image in 5 minutes that used to take an hour; now
we can do a circuit simulation in an hour that used to run overnight;
now we can do a 75-compile 'build' in 5 minutes that used to take hours,
etc.  

I'm concerned that we (or I, anyway) may lack imagination.  The basic 
tools of my trade (software engineer) are compilers, linkers, interactive
debuggers and software control products (DSEE, in this case).  I've
used things like this for years.  The ones I have now are faster, and
fancier than what I had a few years ago but they're not fundamentally
different in concept.  CAD packages allow the user to enter a schematic,
say, and do a simulation or do the routing and ultimately even the chip
geometry, but except that they can do it faster now, and handle more
gates, tighter design rules, etc, they are not fundamentally different
in concept than what engineers were using 5 years ago.  Database systems
still do similar things to what they've always done as well, just faster,
with more data, and better pie-charts (or whatever). 

Does anyone have any thoughts about whether (of if or when) huge leaps 
in compute resources might result in fundamentally *different* ways of
using computers?   We always used to worry about being 'disk-bound' or
'CPU-bound' or 'network-bound'.  Are we in any danger of becoming 
'imagination bound'?

Peter Nelson


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Articles for submission to the digest should be sent to the editor, Dave
Taylor, at either of the following electronic addresses:

       comp-soc@hplabs.hp.com      	 ...!hplabs!comp-soc
  
This digest is published approximately weekly, the articles representing 
the views of the authors, not the Computers and Society Digest editorial
staff, Hewlett-Packard, or anyone else.

The copyright to each article is owned by the author, the copyright of
the entire digest (including format) is (C) Copyright 1988 Dave Taylor.  
Unless otherwise explicitly stated, any article can be retransmitted as 
long as an appropriate citation of the source is included.

  ___________________________________________________________________________ 
 |                                                                           |
 |                     End of Computers & Society Digest                     |
 |___________________________________________________________________________|