Installation management: the next ten years
AFIPS '72 (Spring) Proceedings of the May 16-18, 1972, spring joint computer conference
ACCNET: a corporate computer network
AFIPS '73 Proceedings of the June 4-8, 1973, national computer conference and exposition
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Computer networks have the ability to bring the power of large machines to work on a single problem and to provide reliable computer services to large populations. They also may become an unmanageable structure that can cripple itself in a fashion akin to the great Northeast power failure in 1965. Imagine the following sequence: computer X does not have the sine subprogram but relies on computer Y for it; computer Y on the other hand solves the sine subprogram using the cosine subprogram which it doesn't have; computer Y therefore calls X for a cosine; X solves for cosine using sine which it asks Y for.& Of course, you say, no computer network would be so simplistic. But would you guarantee it could never happen for any set of computer resources among N computers-and that the network might not head for the buried recursive disaster like a lemming for a cliff?