Communications of the ACM
Research on rural communication and the microcomputer controlled modem and telephone
SIGSMALL '81 Proceedings of the 1981 ACM SIGSMALL symposium on Small systems and SIGMOD workshop on Small database systems
Position paper on: personal computers for science in the 1980's
ACM SIGPC Notes
The Oregon Report Personal Computing
Computer
The RAND intelligent terminal agent (RITA) as a network access aid
AFIPS '76 Proceedings of the June 7-10, 1976, national computer conference and exposition
GPMX: a portable general purpose macro processor adapted for preprocessing FORTRAN
AFIPS '76 Proceedings of the June 7-10, 1976, national computer conference and exposition
A tiny portable language-independent macroprocessor and some applications
AFIPS '81 Proceedings of the May 4-7, 1981, national computer conference
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Intercomputer data communication via modem and telephone promises to have an important impact on rural areas. Unattended and inexpensive late-night communication has the potential for providing routine, noninterruptive, and rapid information interchange. An application of intercomputer communication to reduce the cost of using remote timesharing services has been experimentally developed at North Dakota State University (NDSU). An agricultural problem-solving program from the AGNET system in Nebraska has been split into three parts: interactive input of user data, computation of results, and production of an output report. The interactive input is then carried out on a computer near the user, eliminating interactive long-distance communication costs. The data collected are transmitted to the AGNET timesharing machine for calculation. The transmission, including login, is rapidly carried out by the local machine, using a protocol interpreter developed at NDSU. The results of the calculations are then transmitted back in compact form to the user's machine, where they are formatted and displayed. Only a minute of connect time to AGNET is required instead of half an hour. The protocol interpreter used to do this is described in some detail. Such splitting of functions between computers promises to allow high-quality problem-solving services to be provided on central machines, with personal or local machines providing interactive input and printed output services.