IRList Digest Saturday, 30 April 1988 Volume 4 : Issue 24 Today's Topics: Announcement - Xanadu acquired to produce commercial product - Sparse distributed memory prototype being built - Hyperties at the Smithsonian - OSI Implementor's Workshop - The Coming of Age of Electronic Text seminar News addresses are Internet or CSNET: fox@vtopus.cs.vt.edu BITNET: foxea@vtvax3.bitnet ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 11 Apr 88 03:33:29 PDT From: :@gnu.ucsf.edu (John Gilmore) Subject: Xanadu acquired by AutoDesk, to produce commercial product The Xanadu hypertext project, conceived by Ted Nelson about 15 years ago and continuing on a shoestring and volunteer labor ever since, has finally gone commercial. They held a press conference at the recent West Coast Computer Faire, with this press release: Sausalito, CA, April 6, 1988 -- Autodesk, Inc. announced today that it has signed an agreement to acquire an eighty percent equity interest in Xanadu Operating Company, of Palo Alto, California. Xanadu is the developer, along with concept originator Theodor Nelson, of the Xanadu(TM) Hypertext System. The Xanadu Hypertext System stores, manages, and manipulates text and graphical information. It is a new funadmental tool for information processing in the work group environment. ... "Combined with Xanadu's technology, these resources will allow us to delover true hypertext products within the next eighteen months..." ... [Roger] Gregory added that Xanadu will deliver a preliminary Xanadu Hypertext System for research institutions and advanced developers later this year. ... Autodesk sells AutoCAD, the most popular CAD software package in the world. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Apr 88 03:56:39 PDT From: :@gnu.ucsf.edu (John Gilmore) Subject: Sparse Distributed Memory Prototype being built at Stanford Pentti Kanerva did some interesting work at Stanford on how human memory physically works, and how it can be usefully modeled. His PhD thesis, _Self Propagating Search: A Unified Theory of Memory_, Report CSLI-84-7, from the Center for the Study of Language and Information, details this work. He is now involved in building a prototype digital hardware implementation of his memory model: "Sparse distributed memory is a generalized RAM for long (e.g. 1000 bit) binary words. Such words can be written into and read from the memory, and they can also be used to address the memory. The main attribute of the memory is sensitivity to similarity, meaning that a word can be read back not only by giving the original write address but also by giving one close to it as measured by the Hamming distance between addresses. "Large memories of this type are expected to have wide use in speech and scene analysis, in signal detection and verification, and in adaptive control of automated equipment -- in general, in dealing with real-world information in real time. "The memory can be realized as a simple, massively parallel computer. Digital technology has reached a point where building large memories is becoming practical. This research project is aimed at resolving major design issues that have to be faced in building the memories. This report describes the design of a prototype memory with 256-bit addresses and from 8K to 128K locations for 256-bit words. A key aspect of the design is extensive use of dynamic RAM and other standard components." Stanford technical report CSL-TR-87-338 of February 1988 describes the prototype. It is available from the Computer Systems Laboratory at Stanford. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Apr 88 19:48:31 EDT From: Ben Shneiderman Subject: ties again ... Hyperties at the Smithsonian Visitors to the Smithsonian's Natural History Museum will have a chance to learn about opportunities to volunteer for archaeological digs by using a novel computer system. Two IBM Personal Computers are installed at the end of the exhibit on "King Herod's Dream" -- the ancient Roman port city of Caesarea, located in Israel. The exhibit focuses on the rise of urbanism in ancient times and the archaeological methods used during the past 20 years of excavations. Visitors use the "finger mouse" touchscreen to let their fingers do the walking over world and regional maps plus pages of text. By touching highlighted words users can move from article to article and retrieve information about almost 200 archaeological digs taking place this summer. The Hyperties software package was developed at the University of Maryland's Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory during the past five years under the leadership of Ben Shneiderman (Associate Professor of Computer Science). Dan Ostroff and Richard Potter were two of the leading graduate students who participated in developing the software and the touchscreen strategy. Dr. Catherine Plaisant-Schwenn coordinated the efforts to complete the software and assist the historians in producing the database. The GOVA (Guide to Opportunities in Volunteer Archaeology) database was developed under the direction of Ken Holum (University of Maryland Professor of History). Diana Everman constructed the database while Karen Norman prepared the graphics and maps. The exhibit will be at the Smithsonian's Natural History Museum from March 22 to June 19, 1988. Then it will travel to six other museums during the next two years. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Apr 88 14:24:45 EST Subject: Note for IRList - OSI Workshop (ODA) From: king%golfer.dayton.ncr.com@RELAY.CS.NET Here is a brief announcement of the upcoming OSI Implementor's Workshop: A meeting of the OSI Implementors will be held at the National Bureau of Standards, Gaithersburg, Maryland, May 2nd through the 6th. This workshop provides a forum for presentation and discussion of the issues associated with implementation of the standards under OSI. They include: Directory Services Tue-Thur FTAM Tue-Thur Lower Layers Wed-Thur ODA/ODIF Mon-Wed Security Wed-Thur Upper Layers Wed-Thur Virtual terminal Tue-Thur X.400 Wed-Thur OSINET TC Tue Network Management Mon-Tue Executive Committee Tue Tech. Liaison Group Mon Plenary Dinner Wed Plenary Fri Four of these workshops are held throughout the year. For further information contact Robert Rosenthal, Chairman at the National Bureau of Standards. - Jim King j.a.king@dayton.ncr.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 29 Apr 88 09:27:47 EDT From: Peter.Capell@CAT.CMU.EDU Subject: SGSET Program The Study Group on the Structure of Electronic Text (SGSET) presents "The Coming of Age of Electronic Text" a seminar at Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Monday & Tuesday May 23rd and May 24th, 1988 ***** The Purpose of the Seminar The use of the electronic medium has, until recently, been limited to that of a mechanism for composition, storage, and transmission of information to the standard print medium. Publishers and database vendors have expanded the medium to an industry providing electronic texts and databases. Finally, the advent of inexpensive, high density storage, advanced function workstations and personal computers, and networking capabilities have created the potential for an explosion in electronic publishing. The aim of the Study Group on the Structure of Electronic Text (SGSET) is to bring together researchers, educators, librarians, publishers, and information vendors to discuss the aims, needs, and problems of what is becoming a new industry. The purpose of SGSET's 1st Seminar is to identify and explore the practical aspects of making large amounts of text and other information available for general distribution in the electronic medium. We hope that this semianr will be the start of a series of activities and working groups. The program of the seminar will consist of five parts, each of which addresses a pressing issue in moving electronic text forward: o real-world experience with electronic text o the capture of information o processing of electronic text o structuring text for interaction and retrieval o issues in the economics of information The presentations will feature discussion of mark-up language, projects where the full text of documents have been or are being made available online, the possibilities of hypertext, the problems of retrieval, copyright issues, and the distribution of information. ***** Monday, May 23rd 1988 8:30 Registration and Continental Breakfast 9:30 Opening of the Seminar William Y. Arms Vice President, Academic Services Carnegie Mellon 10:00 Session I: Experience with Electronic Text Chair: Mark Mandelbaum Director of Publications Association for Computing Machinery Speakers: Stuart Rothenstein Director of Publishing Systems McGraw-Hill Book Company James H. Morris Professor, Computer Science Carnegie Mellon Discussion 12:00 Luncheon 1:00 Session II: The Capture of Information Chair: Adam Hodgkin Director, Oxford Electronic Publishing Oxford University Press Speakers: Jean-Paul Emard Vice President of Advertising Meckler Publishing J. Sperling Martin Vice President Aspen Systems Discussion 3:30 Session III: Processing of Electronic Text Chair: Richard A. Bowers Director of Development Applied Information Technologies Research Center (AITRC) Speakers: Thomas B. Hickey Consulting Research Scientist Online Computer Library Center, Inc. (OCLC) Sandra Mamrak Associate Professor, Computer and Information Science Ohio State University Discussion 5:30 Reception 7:00 Dinner Introduction: Dana S. Scott University Professor, Computer Science, Mathematics and Philosophy Carnegie Mellon Speaker: Howard Webber Technical Director Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) Topic: "A Manifesto for Electronic Publishing" Tuesday, May 24th 1988 8:30 Continental Breakfast 9:00 Session IV: Structuring Texts for Interaction and Retrieval Chair: Martin Dillon Director of Research Online Computer Library Center, Inc. (OCLC) Speakers: Terry Noreault Database Department Manager Online Computer Library Center, Inc. (OCLC) Catherine Plaisant Research Associate Human Computer Interaction Laboratory (HCIL) William Zoellich Vice President Avalanche Development Company Discussion 12:00 Luncheon 1:00 Session V: Economics and Information Chair: Marvin A. Sirbu Associate Professor, Engineering and Public Policy and Industrial Administration Carnegie Mellon Speaker: Stan Besen Senior Researcher RAND Corporation Discussion 3:00 Closing Panel Discussion Chair: Thomas Michalak Associate Vice President, Academic Services and Director of University Libraries Carnegie Mellon Panelists: Michael J. McGill Vice President, Research and Technical Planning Online Computer Library Center, Inc. (OCLC) Roberto Minio Projects Coordinator Gesellschaft fur Mathematik und Datenverbeitung (GMD) ***** The cost of registration is $150.00, which includes everything except hotel accomodations. A block of rooms has been reserved at the University Inn, located, approximately 1 mile from the Carnegie Mellon campus. The single room rate is $63.00 and the double room rate is $73.00. To make your reservations call toll free: 1-800-245-6675 or in PA 1-800-242-1498. Transportation to and from the seminar on the Carnegie Mellon campus will be provided. For further information please contact the SGSET Office at (412) 268-8599 or send electronic mail to pc1y+@andrew.cmu.edu OR psc@cat.cmu.edu. Ed, I apologize for sending you this mammoth mail message. I realize that you are no longer editing the IRList, however I do not know to whom I should have sent this message otherwise. I wanted to make sure that subscribers are reminded that the SGSET Seminar is coming soon, and to make them aware of our speaker line-up. Thank you. Peter Capell [Note: This is not too long; I like to keep issues at around 13K so unless a message is longer than that, there is no problem on my end. I believe you are confused about editing changes, however - I am no longer editor of ACM SIGIR Forum but am continuing to serve as editor for IRList. Issues are coming out in batches because it is easier to make all the address changes at once, and since this has been a very busy spring - I hope to get issues out on a more timely basis in the future. - Ed.] ------------------------------ END OF IRList Digest ********************