[71] in Resnet-Forum
Re: Why?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Mike!)
Tue Nov 30 08:11:46 1993
Date: Tue, 30 Nov 1993 07:55:56 -0500
To: resnet-forum@MIT.EDU
From: Mike.W.Miller.40@nd.edu (Mike!)
I think, as far as I'm concerned at least, you come closest with these two:
>4. You want to foster an academic environment in which the students
>accept the computer simply another item for the personal tool kit, like
>the telephone, the pencil, and the dictionary.
>
>8. It's simply an idea whose time has come - ten years from now we won't
>even think about the reasons for residential networking because it's
>unthinkable not to have it.
The computer has changed from being mainly a tool for *creating* content to
a tool largely used for *communicating* content. If you want evidence of
this assertion, look at the current hot spots in campus software usage and
development -- Gopher, WWW, e-mail, MBONE... The computer is becoming the
next major communication tool, encompassing both the telephone and the
television.
As computing becomes a completely commonplace part of *everyone's* lives
(it's already getting entrenched in academia), ubiquitous computing
networks will follow. We've all seen enough "information superhighway"
references or the articles du jour by wide-eyed reporters who have
"discovered" the Internet...
The second (networks) follows the first (communication-oriented computing),
and also following these two changes, we simply must extend the
infrastructure, services, and support to make networked computing easily
available to every student at the center of their student lives -- for
many, that means in the residence halls.
My $.02...
Mike!
***--------+----------------------------------------------------------***
* ______ | Mike! <=> Mike W. Miller office: 219 631-8024 *
| \ / | e-mail: Mike.W.Miller@nd.edu home/fax: 219 237-0788 |
| \ / +------------------------------------------------------------+
| \/ | This message is packed as full as possible; |
* | some settling of content may occur during shipping. *
***--------+----------------------------------------------------------***
