RFC 87 UNKNOWN COMMUNITY · GRAPHICS

Topic for Discussion at the Next Network Working Group Meeting

Planning a network graphics meeting for the early internet community.

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PUBLISHED
January 1971
AUTHORS
A. Vezza
STREAM
Legacy
MEETING LENGTH
2 full days
PLANNED DATE
April 1971
PLANNING MEETING
February 1971, Urbana
DOI
10.17487/RFC0087

RFC text

Original text · RFC Editor View on rfc-editor.org ↗
Network Working Group                                       A. Vezza
Request for Comments: 87                                    12 January 1971
NIC 5632

     TOPIC FOR DISCUSSION AT THE NEXT NETWORK WORKING GROUP MEETING
     --------------------------------------------------------------

     Project MAC is planning a network graphics meeting to be held in

April.  It would be desirable to devote some portion of the February

Urbana meeting to consideration of the length, format, structure and

contents of the April meeting.  Perhaps discussion on topics germane

to network graphics can be started in an informal way at Urbana.

     Project MAC's present ideas about the length, structure, and

format of the network graphics meeting are as follows:

   1)  The length of the meeting is expected to be two FULL days.

   2) Each organization represented is expected to participate by

   presenting one or more working paper(s) on one or more of the areas

   chosen for discussion.  The working paper(s) will minimally consist of

   a set of working notes and an oral presentation.  Who presents the

   working paper for an organization, or how the labor is divided, is to

   be determined by the organization.

   3) The bulk of the two full days is to be used for the prepared oral

   presentation with discussion after each presentation.  About three

   hours at the end of the second day are reserved for open discussion.

   This three hour period is to be used for critiquing this meeting,

   planning the next one, and bidding for special assignments that

   participating organizations might wish to undertake as a contribution

   to the network graphics effort.

Our ideas about content are:

   1) A description of present or future graphical facilities that are or

   will be connected to the network, with a functional description of how

   they work or look (or might look) to a user (network user).

   2) A functional description of a graphical facility one can envision

   or would like to see the network support.

   3) Proposals on network graphic protocol, even proposal which are only

   intended to smoke out issues are acceptable.

   4) A sharing of network graphic "Historic Moments."  Description of

   your experiences in network graphics, what problems were encountered,

   how you solved or lived with them.  What insight and understanding

   have you gained, what questions have been left unanswered by these

   experiences?


The foregoing are our present ideas.  If you have suggestions, please

convey them to one of the people from your site attending the Urbana

meeting so they can be discussed, or notify either Fran Yost or me of

your suggestion by calling 617-864-6900-6026 or writing to:

      Miss F. Yost
      Project MAC/MIT
      545 Technology Square, Room 830
      Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139

I hope we can come away from the Urbana meeting with a firm concept of

the April network graphic meeting.

I would like to ask each participating organization to bring to

the February meeting a list of its people who are actively engaged in

graphics with facilities that are or will be on the network.







       [ This RFC was put into machine readable form for entry ]
         [ into the online RFC archives by Phillip Jaenke 4/97]

AI ELI5

On this page
PROBLEMProject MAC at MIT wants to organize a dedicated meeting on network graphics, but first needs to gather input on what topics to cover.
MECHANISMRFC 87 invites network sites to discuss graphics topics at an upcoming February working group meeting in Urbana, with plans for a larger dedicated graphics meeting in April.
PURPOSEThe RFC coordinated planning among early network sites for specialized technical discussions.

§1Planning the Graphics Meeting

A. Vezza of Project MAC at MIT proposes planning a network graphics meeting for April 1971. Before holding the full meeting, MIT wants to discuss it at the upcoming February Network Working Group meeting in Urbana to finalize the format, length and content.

Project MAC suggests the April meeting last two full days, with each organization presenting working papers on graphics topics they choose. The bulk of time would be prepared presentations with discussion afterwards, and the last few hours would be reserved for open discussion, critiques and planning.

We want to have a meeting about graphics on the network. What should we talk about?

§2Proposed Content

The RFC outlines four content areas: descriptions of graphical facilities already connected to the network or planned to be, functional descriptions of graphical facilities one might envision or wish to see supported, proposals on network graphics protocols (even preliminary ones to discuss issues), and shared experiences with network graphics work, including problems encountered, solutions developed and insights gained.

Each participating organization is asked to prepare at least one working paper on one or more of these topics and present it at the April meeting, with authors determined by each organization.

Show what graphics systems you have or want. Suggest rules for sending graphics over the network. Tell war stories about what you tried.

§3How to Participate

The RFC asks each organization to bring a list of its people actively engaged in graphics and related network work to the February meeting in Urbana. Suggestions for the April meeting agenda can be sent to Fran Yost or A. Vezza at Project MAC before the February meeting, by phone or mail to Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The RFC reflects the early network's culture of face-to-face working group meetings where technical communities self-organized around shared interests.

Send your ideas before February. Bring your people to Urbana to talk about it. We will figure out the April meeting from there.

§4Scope

RFC 87 is a working document for organizing technical discussions within the early network community. It shows how research communities coordinated work across sites before formal standards organizations existed.

Network graphics was an early research frontier: remote access to graphics systems and protocols for transmitting visual information were not yet standardized. The proposed meeting would bring together researchers from different institutions to share work and identify common interests.

This RFC is basically a meeting invitation, showing how people organized technical work on the early network.