From: system@condor.nmfecc.gov
Subject: Cyberspace Now
Date: 25 Oct 90 15:08:21 GMT


 I want a deck now.   I can't have one because no one has developed the
intervening steps yet.   We sit around in our offices reading books and
postings and pretending that we are designing these things that do not exist.
this is mostly a bunch of bs.

 If you are truly interested in doing these things, work on what is
possible now.  You can not jack into your brain, but you can make
pretty pictures on a screen.  What we need to discuss is what those
pictures need to look like.  By working ( not daydreaming ) we can
begin to discover metaphors that do work in cyberspace.  ( it is real,
you are reading this message through it ).  what we have now is akin
to someone sitting on a skate board and holding a running gas engine
with the flywheel rubbing on the ground to push the thing along.  Wow!
automotion !!

In my smelly opinion,  we can work on these things in several areas,  one or
two of which will need (perhaps unfortunatly)  the consensual agreement of a
significant group of participants  which this interest group might provide.

Before I go into the areas,  i will present a quick view of one cyberspace
possibility.

  I walk into my office and sit down at my  workstation.   jiggling the mouse,
the screen lights up with a constellation of colored blobs.   There are green
blobs that I know I can log into,  Blue ones that I can get interesting data
from,  Yellow ones that i get mail from but do not have other access to and red
ones that get pretty hostile if I try to talk to them at all.   I mouse over to
a green blob in the corner and click.   The blob zooms to fill my screen with a
constellation like view of some local network.   I can see hosts, some of which
are green ( i have accounts on these ),  and some others with just data that I
can get - these are blue.  Some of the objects appear brighter or bigger than
others,  and they perhaps have icon shapes that mean something to me about what
type of host they are.  if I click on one of the greenies,  i am logged in and
that host opens a window on my workstation.   If i click on a blue one,  a
window opens with a directory of the files on that system that i have access
to, and I can select files and they will be dragable to other windows,
initiating data transfers.

  I hpe you get the idea.

Now.  what could make it happen?

 1.  a database of information about the hosts and networks
 2.  a tool running autonomously to fill in the database
 3.  a user interface that used the database to create the maps etc.
 4.  some standards for the inter-process communications
 5.  eventually a standard for multi-processing over distributed nodes

 Enough for now.   If responses warrant,  we can maintain this thread and work
on the design of 1 and 3  on this group.  Discrete implementation of 2 for
various workstations is reasonable  if there is a standard for the database.

Jim Morton
National Energy Research Supercomputer Center
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

JAM @ CCV.NERSC.GOV
(415) 423-2374

These views are mine, and are not known or supported by my employer.
If they knew I were doing this, they would probably shake their heads.