From: zyda@aquarius.cs.nps.navy.mil (Michael Zyda)
Subject: LORE: SIMNET versus NPSNET
Date: 17 Aug 92 19:54:30 GMT
Organization: Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey CA



Some people get wrapped up in history of projects and the "first" to
do things and this seems to be the thread of the BBN/SIMNET versus
NPSNET argument.

The Naval Postgraduate School demoed the first simulator, the FOG-M,
in November 1986. We networked it to a vehicle simulator in June 1987.
This was on IRIS-2400's! Yes, we did not have textured terrain and
yes, the pictures were not very complex but it was clear that if we
continued working along the line we were, then eventually we could
just "buy" the faster workstation and get higher speeds or add more
picture detail (the path inevitably chosen). This seemed clear to me
in 1986 BUT probably not to the DARPA SIMNET Project Managers making
hardware decisions. The DARPA guys wanted to "for sure" arrive at a
working piece of hardware so they contracted out a special piece of
hardware design work sometime in 1983-84. We had a different attitude
at NPS. I looked and did not see staff to design/build special
hardware.  I instead went the other way, which is buy the best
workstation you can and see how far you can go...

We heard about SIMNET in about 1989 when we had a distinguished
visitor who stopped by our lab and said that what we had built by that
time (the Moving Platform Simulator - MPS) "looked like SIMNET".  It
is kind of silly in retrospect not to have heard of the SIMNET project
earlier but we had a sponsor with particular needs, USACDEC, - the
requirement was to build a networked simulator to receive live testing
data and generate a 3D display. We started receiving DARPA money (in
very small pieces) about that time.  MPS became NPSNET about March
1990 when we learned how to read SIMNET databases. It is relatively
recently that we have learned SIMNET and DIS networking and integrated
those with NPSNET. NPSNET systems with that level of support are now
at some 31 different sites.  In reality, NPSNET and SIMNET are
independent developments that have "merged" through the use of
networking and database standards.

By the way, the goal of the NPSNET project is not just to replicate
SIMNET but to go beyond SIMNET. We want a piece of public domain and
documented code that we can play with and hand out without
restrictions, something that BBN probably can't do.

We have some really fun looking things coming down the road with
NPSNET, things I tried to summarize in my posting last week. Things
our sponsors and students (typically 10 years into their military
career) think would be useful/cool to add into the system. The project
is really to put nice toys and appropriate classes into the students'
hands, give them some guidance and see how far they get.

I hope this clears up any misconceptions people have about NPSNET
versus SIMNET and their respective origins.

     Michael Zyda
     Associate Professor of Computer Science
     Naval Postgraduate School
     Principal Investigator of the NPSNET Research Group