Topic for Discussion at the Next Network Working Group Meeting
Planning a network graphics meeting for the early internet community.
Vezza, A., "Topic for Discussion at the Next Network Working Group Meeting", RFC 87, DOI 10.17487/RFC0087, January 1971, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc87>.
@misc{rfc87,
series = {Request for Comments},
number = 87,
howpublished = {RFC 87},
publisher = {RFC Editor},
doi = {10.17487/RFC0087},
url = {https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc87},
author = {A. Vezza},
title = {{Topic for Discussion at the Next Network Working Group Meeting}},
pagetotal = 3,
year = 1971,
month = jan,
} RFC text
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
§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.