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C00002 00002		This is a request for a grant of $40,000 to support a two year
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	This is a request for a grant of $40,000 to support a two year
study of protocols that would permit ARPAnet like facilities to
be provided to any time-sharing computer system that implemented them
and equipped itself with telephone dialing equipment and data sets.

	The ARPAnet connects about 60 computer facilities supported by
the Department of Defense and allows users of each system to login
on any of the others, allows transmission of messages between users
of different computers, and allows the transfer of files between
computers.  More generally, it allows interaction among programs in
different computers.

	These facilities have proved very valuable in permitting collaboration
between computer scientists at different sites and in permitting the
use of unique facilities such as the MACSYMA system for computing
with algebraic and analytic expressions all over the country.  It
also will permit a new form of publication in which
documents are kept in the computer, are continuously updatable,
are immediately accessible throughout the country, and in which
comments from readers are accessible to other readers.

	The usefulness of the ARPAnet has prompted many non-defense
installations to try to connect to it, and in some cases this has
been possible, but in other cases the institutional and financial
obstacles have been insuperable.  The main financial obstacles are
the need for a dedicated computer called and IMP costing about $100,000
at each site and the need for dedicated communication lines rented
by DoD at great expense from the telephone countries.   Therefore,
other networks have been started, but they all have problems of
expense and also of deciding who should be on them.  Some facilities
have gone to the expense of joining more than one network.

	We propose to design protocols that can be implemented by any
time-shared computer system without their having to join any network.
The hardware cost will be from $1000 to $5000 depending on how difficult
it is to connect devices to the computer, and they will also have
to provide for programs to operate the telephone dialer (rented from
the telephone company) and to transmit signals and information according
to the protocols.  Any installation implementing the protocols will
be able to communicate with any other.  The only disadvantage compared
with the ARPAnet will be lower speed and higher cost when the volume
of information transferred is very high.

	Our proposed system (like the ARPAnet) will be mainly useful
to %2full time-sharing systems%1.  In such a system, each user has
named disk files permanently in the system (and therefore remotely
accessible) and new files can be created by file transfer and on
receipt of messages.  The usefulness of the message system requires
that users normally login each working day and are most beneficial
when the users have private display terminals in their offices.  Further
benefits accrue when reports are normally prepared at terminals and
when the secretaries also use terminals for letters and messages.
However, many less advanced installations have found the ARPAnet useful
and more and more systems are acquiring economical full time-sharing capability.

	In order to make the picture more concrete, here are three
scenarios of the use of the system:

	%3Scenario 1%1. A user types on his terminal

mail Sedelow Do you have a reaction to our proposal yet?

and the system looks up Sedelow in the users correspondent file and
discovers that Sedelow is called SED at a computer called NSF that is
reached on at (203)222-2222, dials the number and attempts to transmit
the message.  If the transmitting computer cannot elicit a response
from the desired recipient, it informs the user that it will try again
later and send him a message when the transmission has succeeded.  If
the user's correspondence file did not contain the telepone number, the
user would have to supply it.

	%3Scenario 2%1.  After receiving a message that the reaction
to his proposal is in a file called REACTION.P100435 at the computer
called NSF, the user types

copy REACTION ← REACTION.P100435@NSF

and after a while he has a file called REACTION that he can print and
show to his colleagues or even merely tell them that they can look at
the file through his console.
Other files that would be transmitted include reports and programs.

	%3Scenario 3%1.  A user types MACSYMA on his terminal and is
connected with the least loaded version of MACSYMA in some distant
computer.  His computer has had to do some telephoning to determine
which is the least loaded system.

	In order to make these facilities available suitable protocols
have to be designed, and in the course of this, a number of technical
problems have to be solved.  Here is what we think the problems are and
Section 2 of this proposal contains our idea of what the problems are
and how we propose to solve them.

	As you see, we propose to devise suitable protocols, publish them,
and let nature take its course.  Almost certainly, initial experience
will produce a requirement for changes, and standardization committees
will be formed and set to work.  However, we believe that we have the
experience to produce a set of workable protocols, and that it is better
to start with an implementation than to standardize something that
doesn't exist.  The latter procedure in recent years has led to
gold-plating the requirements to the extent that the standard is not
implementable.