WlD'ilVffiWlD 1 l5 mWV'il lD l5WlB L'0 V l5lD 15 OOl5aJlDl5 f OOaJ 1aJGJlD f rn U0110 November 1981 THE PPC IS CCMING Future Powerful Personal Computers FurUR T e T frGt7 -------r 7J o r CRYPTIC CROSSl rORD 14 U oooooooooooooooooooooooooo SAY WHAT YOU MEANC' U ooooooooooooo ooooooooooo l Vjd W Gaddv o i o o o o o o o o o 15 HOW TO CREATE A U ER-UNFRIENDLY SYS EM U ooooooooo 17 OPELINT IS ALtVE AND WELL IN B GROUP 3 REVUJoJ ' Jhat do you think U o oooooooo 25 29 TillS DOClJi UlNT CONTAINS eOBEWORB MA'fERIAI J GL'tSSIFIEEl BJPY USA CSS 123-2 REVIS t ON 10 New 2Gl11 Declassified and Approved for Release by NSA on '10-'1 2- 20'1 2 pursuant to E O '135 26 vl DR Case # 54778 DOCID 4009838 Published hy P1 Techn iques and Stand ard s for thO Personnel of erations FDITORIAL The response to our cry for hel p in keeping our subscription lists up to date has been hearteninF Thanks me active nalle on our list has been out of the gency for several years j many others have moved VOL IX No 11 PU9LISHFR 90ARD OF Along with the resoonses we h1'lve been gettinl2 questions along the 1 ine of Is CRYPTOLOG sUIl alive we think so and Is it oing to be merp ed with some other puhlication we have no plans to merge with any other puhlication and none has so far expresset l eny interest in mP l inp wi th us We are a DfY Operations puhlication but it is clear from our subscription 1 ist and our author 1 ist that we range outside the physical confines of DOO F DlTOR Editor-in-Chief I I R322 Production o ooooooo 1 b369s If we don't seem to be publishing any art icles about your area of interest it is either because the editor is biased against your area of interest or because he isn't getting anything al'lout your area of interest that can be published I About half of the i t s now being worked on for this and futureiss s have cane in over the network o e are still interested in receiving it s fran people not on the netv ork We C on't mind typing even though it's nice to have some items that don't require it r to CRYPTQLOG or c a l l 1 3 3 6 9 S To submit articles or letters via PLATFOP address to crypto1g at bar1c05 note no '0' in 'log' M st of the layout and ed iting of CRYPTOLOG is now being done on a computer - actually on several canputers Using the tNrX syst with some help from PTNgmER and the PLATFORM network between various host computers the original keystrokes often the author's are retained throughout the process A lot of retyping as well as cutting and pasting that characterized the earlier issues all done on a typewriter is being avoided Q1e it' l1 r1 Ipiece last month on Technic91 port Catalogs was coordinated th him in final form just before publication via the network Ken is now stationed in Germmy V P L 86-36 UNCLASSIFIED mrtJRE POWERFUL PERSONAL COMPUTERS An Overview of the Teclmology byl P L cientific and analytic computing especially at NSA has evolved from the batch envirol'lllent of the 1960's to the timeshar ing and mul tiprocessing envirol'll1ents of the 1970's In the 1960's typical progranmers submitted 'a deck of punched cards to the batch system CIld later rece1v a the deck and a listing of the progran execution In this envirol'lllent both the computing power and the user's access to this power were remote and non-interactive In the timesharing environnent of the late 1970's and of today the progranmer has direct timely interactive access to his or her computing processes through a terminal In this envirol'll1ent the computing power is still' remote whether in the next room or far away across a netW rk and is shared J-bwever the user's access to this power is potentially local and definitely interactive hopefully the access terminal is on or near the user's desk I ' ' What will scfentific and analytic computing be like in the 1980's While it can be argued that very large-scale super cClJlputers like the Cray 1 will definitely be needed for many complex problems 10J advances in several areas of computer tecmology have spurred efforts to design and produce extremely powerful extremely compact computer systems for scientific and analytic use Jch systems will be small eno h and inexpensive eno h to be single-user systems located at the user's desk In a sense these systems will enable users to have their 0'-11 VAX or 370 instead of a terminal In this envirol'll1ent both the computing power and the user's access to it will be local personal and highly interactive 86-36 The purpose of this paper is to discuss capabilities being proposed for such a computing system how it may be realized and Io'hat its impact on NSA scientific and analytic computing might be J-bw should this future system be described Some papers on the subject call it a personal computer 4 12J While it will be personal this label conjures up images of the TRS-80 or the Apple II a totally inappropriate image other papers 13 refer to it as an intelligent terminal At NSA this term fits the Delta Data 7000 for it is a terminal with its 0'-11 microprocessor The powerful future system is M T a terminal it is 'IHE computing system and may be more powerful than systems to Io'hich we interface intelligent terminals today For lack of another nane this paper will refer to this system as a Powerful Personal Computer PPC The PPC has the potential to revolutionize scientific and analytic computing at NSA Even with the GTSS and other timesharing systems of today analysts use' terminals to gain access to remote shared computing power and data over relatively low-speed connections Io'hether netw rk or communications lines The PPC will give the analyst access to significant local individual computing power and data Netw rks and communications lines today are used to gain access to all computing power all data and personal comml l1ications In the PPC env irol'll1ent hig speed netw rks will be used for access to very large data bases and shared resources and for electronic personal comml l1ications This will be a drastic change from our present netW Y'king philosophy Nov 81 o CRYPI'OLOG o Page UNCLASSIFIED DOCID 4009838 II Olaracteristics of a Canputer UNCLASSIFIED Powerfui PersOnal 7o aud io input and out put 8 ease of interfacing other peripherals if desired 9 Al tho h timesharing systems have given access to remote general-purpose canputing rather than to local personalized canputing the environment which has been created is a rich one for timesharing users This environment has pranoted a large set of programning languages large file storage capabilities sharing of programs and data a cooperative user ccmml ll itY and other benefi ts o The environment of the PPC should preserve and enrich the good characteristics of the timesharing environment while bringing many totally new capabilities to its users A number of efforts are I Ilderway to specify and or produce a PPC and its envirol'lllent' at institutions like xerox 12J Carnegie-Mellon University 6 MIT 15 Convergent Tecmologies 16 and Three Rivers Computer Corporation 13 While these efforts do not canpletely share canmon technologies their broad goals are remarkably similar and these goals apply for many scientific and analytic institutions including NSA The individual PPC envirol'lllent of the mid-1980'S should' be reasonably priced $10 000 to $20 000 should exist in a S1Iall and attractive package for office use and' should have the following characteristics 1 a very powerful processor or processors W1ile this will be implemented on one chip the term microprocesSbr seems too limited it should have 32-bit data paths and use 1-bit 8bit 16- it 32-bit and 64-bit operands 2 a S1Ioothly addressable virtual address space using as ma'ly as 32 bits of address 3 a very large multiport memory- 1 Mbyte or more 4 at least 100 Mbytes of high-speed local secondary storage 5 a 1024x1024 raster display probably color with several bits per picture point pixel 6 primary good interactive devices keyboard graphics pointer lights function buttons a v-ery high-speed local nection netw rk con- 10 a powerful local operating W1ich can be personalized 11 powerful languages niques system easily-used programming utilities and OOMS tech- Given a PPC with the above characteristics an office environment built arol lld several such PPC's w uld have these additional characteristics 12 a local high-speed netw rk connecting all PPC 'S thro hout the office 13 a gateway to other netw rks 14 an office PPC to support expensive peripherals tlich are needed occasionally e g quality printers massive disks and to perform support functions e g mass data transfers fran distant data bases local office coordination 15 an office file system used databases 16 a global to the local netw rk operating system to allow easy InterPPC sharing of programs data and resources for camnonly Items 13 14 and 15 could be implemented in a distributed ma'lner on several PPC' s across the local netw rk or in a centralized manner using one physical PPC as the office machine to support all office resources This paper will assume the latter implementation The global or netw rk operating system w uld be distr ibuted o The personal canputing environment described above is more powerful in both hardware and softwpre than almost all timesharing systems in use today Should a canputing envirorment that powerful really be used by only one person Can institutions like NSA afford to allow such a powerful canputing engine to stand idle between' the Nov 81 o CRYPTOLOG o Page 2 UNCLASSIFIED ------------------------ DOCID 4009838 UNCLASSIFIED keystrokes of its single user Yes Economics today show that the hardware to imp16llent a PPC will be reasonably priced in the mid1980' s Some estimates for a PPC as described above are in the range of $10 000 6 Of course an imp16llentation today would be much more xpensive Economics today also show that the people 10410 do scientific and analytic computing are becoming more and more expensive If such people become only moderately more productive lo41en given a PPC the investment is w rthlo41ile The cost of any wasted machine cycles is insignificant compared to the productivity gained While the packaging of the characteristics of the PPC in the form described will be a major effort each characteristic by i tsel f is not completely new Each already exists in some form at some price Thus the developnent of the PPC is more of a hardware and software engineering project rather than a research project 6 This does not mean it will be any easier it simply means that the areas to be explored and developed are not un-known III Hardware Tecmology for the Powerful Personal Computer The combination of hardware and software technologies needed to successfully imp16llent a PPC with the 16 characteristics listed in section II does not yet fully exist It is important to point out here that we must have both adValced hardware technology and advanced software technology to successfully 'implenent the PPC env irorrnent One without the other will lead to failure This section will discuss in some detail the hardware technology lo41ich will enable the PPC to be built section IV will discuss the software technology which will enable the PPC to be successfully used The hardware issues fall mainly in characteristics 1 through 9 and 12 The technology exists today to supply the capabilities listed in these characteristics but at substantial cost and in very large packages not at all sui ted for an office setting One could attempt to meet these characteristics with the following set of today's standard hardware 1 - 4 8 a DEC VAX 11 780 computer tem $160K Nov 81 sys- 5 - 6 a Genisco or Ramtek raster graphics system $3010 7 input-- 64-word vocabUlary system Heuristics $259 by output-- VOTRAX voice synthesizer $31 or Texas Instrunents 'I -l990 306 179-word system $11 9 12 an ETHERNET or $6K Mitre bus system If this hardware configuration were assembled it would cost about $2001 and would require about 200 square feet of floor space and special electrical connections and air conditioning It w uld not be sui table for a personal system on one's desk As LSI and VLSI circui t design technology continues to make advances the hardware pieces needed to satisfy these requirements will continue to get smaller and less expensive The remainder of this section will explore cominR tecmologicaladvances lo41ich will help realize the PPC A Processor and Address Space If the PPC is to truly give its users the power of current multi-user machines like the DEC VAX 11 780 or the IBM 370 its processor must have a powerful instruction set must be fast must have a large address space and must have wide internal data paths ginglechip processors of the late 1970's traditionally called microprocessors have not met these criteria AI though their instructions sets may have been reasonable their execution speeds have been moderate internal data paths have been either 8 or sometimes 16 bits wide and direct addressing has been limited to 64K bytes of m6ll0ry Because the tern microprocessor has been traditionally asSOciated with these earlier single-chip processors it is inappropriate when discussing the type of processor needed for the PPC of the mid-1980's The newest generation of single-chip processors has made several major advances over the earlier generation as LSI technology has grown As technology continues to grow further advances are sure to come Before discussinR what the mid-1980's may produc e for single-chip processors a look at current state-of-the-art processors is in order CRYPTOLOG Page UNCLASSIFIED 3 DOCID 4009838 UNCLASSIFIED since these processors are being used in current projects to implement PPC' s See Figure 3 for a quick canparison of the Intel 8086 the Zilog Z-8000 and the Motorola M68000 All three of these processors have been built with some concern for the operating systems and higher-level languages that must run on them Thus they have instruction sets to support byte-string operations bit manipulation re-entrant code dynanic relocation etc They all have ll-designed interrupts register sets and other expected hardware features Al though a ranking of the three may not be fair their applicability for a PPC processor could be ranked in decreasing order of applicability as 1 M-68000 2 Z-8000 3 8086 At this point in LSI evolution the capabilities of the processor chip will depend heavily on the surrounding support chips and coprocessors When the processor chip of the mid-1980's inclooes ml l1Y functions otIich are now off-chip this will not be true LSI state-of-the-art technology in 1980 puts about 70K devices on a chip to produce a Motorola MC-68000 VLSI technology VLSI is usually accepted to mean 1001 or more devices per chip will greatly impact the developnent of more powerful single-chip ccxnputers because cf increased design density increased chip size and improved layout techniques 7 ' SI state-of-the-art in about 1985 will put 1M devices on a single chip The single-chip processor of 1985 dubbed P1985 in 7 will be a much more po rful one than that of today When the P1985 architecture can be realized a single-chip processor will indeed be equivalent in functionality to many large canmerc ial CPU's 0 f tod ay e g the VAX 11 780 With such a processor the PPC as described in this paper will be realizable B Primary t-'emory Given a good virtual memory operating system for the PPC significantly less physical memory is required than could be supported by the address space I-bwever the anount of physical memory to nicely support multitasking and to provide image memory for the raster display is still significant Because memory chips will be very inexpensivE' in the mid1980's a primary memory on the order of 1 Mbyte will be an economically sound way to reduce local operating system swapping overhead Im e memory for the raster display Nov 81 could take an depend ing upon or color additional 0 1-0 5 Mbytes the choice of black-and-whi te With present - proven 16K-bit memory chips it would take 500 chips to provide 1 Mbyte of primary memoryj this would occupy several physical boards perhaps 10 and would occupy too much space for a PPC With the 64K-bit chips now caning into production only 125 chips are needed and they can be configured in a much smaller package perhaps two board s With 256K-bit chips on the horizon 4 7 this shrinks to approximately 32 chips Depending upon other design considerations this entire 1 Mbyte memory might be placed on the processor board considerably reducing packaging size Texas Instrunents predicts that these components will be available by 1985 at a cost of less than $2000 for the 1 Mbyte capacity 4 o C Secondary Storage For the PPC environment to be successful a high-capacity fast secondary storage system is needed at the individual PPC to hold personal utilities prograns data and text files For this storage system to fit neatly into an office envirorrnent it needs to be canpact In an office wi th several PPC' sand an office PPC networked together the office PPC may be required to supply additional bulk secondary storage That can be done with more traditional disk systems and will not be considered here Exanining current work in storage technologies shows advances in charge-coupled devices CCD's magnetic bubble memories MBM's v ideo disks AND m netic record ing J At first glance one might be inclined to discount magnetic recording as a continuing attraction for mass storage I-bwever many of the same technological cdvances that are cdvancing CCD's and MBM's are also advancing the state-of-the-art in magnetic recording In the past 25 years device capacities have increased over 100-fold and recording densities have increased over 1000-foldj similar dranatic cdvances continue to be pred icted J Especially wi th the introduction of df'Vices 1 ike the Winchester disk which can store in excess of 30 Mbytes of data on an 8-inch platter for about $2500 i t seems that m - netic recording will be the appropriate technology for the PPC CRYPTOLOG Page UNCLASSIFIED 4 DOCID 4009838 UNCLASSIFIED D Raster Graphics and Interactive Devices In the timesharing environment of today a raster graphics system is a peripheral that is often used in conjunction with a more standard alphantJlleric systems terminal In the PPC environment the graphics display will be the ONLY visual presentation to the user and it will be an integral part of the PPC not a peripheral 11 Thus use of the graphics display will be an inherent part of any program tlich interacts with the user The PPC raster display should have the following features high resolution -- the display should have approximately 1024x1024 addressable picture elements pixels frame buffer -- the im e memory bitmap should be organized as a frane buffer which can be accessed on a pixel basis directly by the PPC processor the frame buffer should be seen as main memory by the PPC processor graphics processor -- functions I ike vectors characters and other graphics primitives should be implemented by either a special graphics processor or by special microcode for the PPC processor color -- depending upon the amount of PPC memory to be devoted to the frame buffer color could be an option if chosen at least four bits per pixel should be used with a video look-up table for greater color definition 11 40-60 Hz refresh is desirable video I O and processing -- digitized video input to the frame buffer should be possible under control of a video processor 11 output from the frame buffer to the screen could be zoomed scrolled pseooocolored etc keyboard -- a flexible keyboard is needed which reports to the PPC processor lJ'tich specific key is depressed not a specific ASCII code this allows total redefinition of the keyboard by the program present canmercial raster graphics systems lJ'tich are tied to present computer systems as peripherals The teclTlological issues lohich must be resolved to put these features in a PPC are tw size and integration The bulk of current color raster graphics systems is physically in the image memory the interface to the host and the graphics processor In the PPC graphics will be integrated into the entire package tt will not be a peripheral and no interface is needed The image memory will be organized as a part of the PPC's main memory A separate graphics processor is not needed if the PPC I S microcode supports primitive graphics functions If not a graphics processor in this technology w uld be extremely small Thus i f the integration of raster graphics into the PPC is done correctly size is not an issue Even with a separate graphics processor and a sophisticated video processor the extra hardware associated with the raster graphics should be confined to one board at most E Audio Input Output The concept of talking to your PPC and having it talk back to you may seem far-fetched and perhaps unnecessary but aoo io I O seems very attractive from a hunan factors point of view Advances in heuristic techniques for speech recognition advances in LSI and the home computer market have been driving forces in producing the aooio I O devices available today SevEjral companies now offer speech input and output systems for trlder $1 000 each The popularity of the Texas Instrunents Speak and Spell toy attests to the value of aooio I O F Interfacing Given an office environment with a nunber of individual PPC's and an office PPC to support a large office database and a highquality docunent printer extra peripherals for an individual PPC may not seem needed However given the div rsity of talents and pointing device -- a pointing device with dynamic cursor is needed for accurately indicating positions on the screen by the user All of these features are available in Nov 81 o CRYPTOLOG o Page 5 UNCLASSIFIED DOCID 4009838 UNCLASSIFIED interests lJ'lich may use the env ironment some new device will soon be suggested as a peripheral to a PPC When that time cqnes the interface to the PPC should be straightforward and easy The hardware interface could be via a standard communications port or directly to the internal bus of the PPC both should be available G High-speed Local NetloOrk High-speed local netloOrks exist today There are several different configurations of topology control structure and transnission media which can be chosen depending upon the applications and the distances involved 1 For an office PPC environment a ring or bus topology see Figure 4 with a contention control structure seems prqnising 1 15 F xanpIes in current technology inclu le the ETHERNET and the Mitre bus IV Software and Environment Technology the Power ful Personal Computer for A Operating Systems The local operating system will be the primary interface between the user and his or her PPC It should be friendly easy to use helpful and as forgiving and tolerant as possible It should support a multitasking virtual memory environment with interprocess canmunication Any hardware feature of the PPC should be as useable as possible fran the operating s tem level In the PPC environment with a high-speed local netloOrk resources used by a given task may be distributed between the personal PPC and the office PPC or they may not The location of resources files peripherals gateways etc should ideally be transparent to the user In order for this to happen a global or network operating system must exist to coordinate this communication and resoUrce sharing pend ing upon implementat on it could reside on the office PPC or be distributed throughout the PPC ' s in the office netloOrk B Progranming Languages Very strong emphasis must be placed on the software and the environment for the PPC If the hardware technology described above is successful beyond our wildest dreans the result will not be practically useful without an equally successful software technology If hardware technology can be viewed as supplying the raw power needed the software and environment supply the ease of use and contro o necessary to harness and direct that power Progranming languages will be the second interface between the user and the PPC Prograns will be one of a user's major products Prograns must be coded modified deb ged merle effic ient and finally executed A progranming language and its surrounding environment should be designed to facilitate this process and to make it as pleasant and efficient as possible Alan Kay and his g ALLTALK work on the Xerox ALTO system 2 have shown that novice progranmers cCl1 quickly beccrne proficient if the progranming language is designed appropriately The user interface to the PPC is all important The hardware technology discussed above can provide interactive and cqnmunications devices with very interesting hUllCl1 factors implications A PPC which can listen to you and talk back draw colored pictures for you Since the PPC as described herein is and communicate with others in your office for designed for sc ientific and analytic progranyou could beccrne a very powerful extension of ming the proposed users are not totally yourself However the software and environnovice However languages for the PPC should ment of the PPC must be carefully constructed be designed for people who trerlitionally think for this potential extension tc becqne realof themselves as non- programners A ntlllber of current languages are often proposed for ity The use of au lio I O color displays and the local netloOrk must be innately a part use as a basis for a PPC programning language of all software cqnponents o If these capabil- o PASCAL C ALGOL Ada The environment built ities are thought of as occasionally desired around a language should support a cqnpiler peripherals rather than as an integral part linker powerful symbolic debugger and extenof the system the resulting env ironment will sive runtime library be much less htlllan and less powerful than it could otherwise be Nov 81 If CRYPTOLOG If Page 6 UNCLASSIFIED _--- - - - -7 _ _ d _ L ---J --- ------- ------------------ DOCID 4009838 UNCLASSIFIED C Utilities Utilities are normally invoked by operating system commands They inclooe things like an editor various Ord processing progrcms speller formatter etc a file system language compil ers and interpreters deb gers an electronic mail system etc These utilities MUST be implenented with the total PPC envirorrnent in mind The text editor' should take full advantage of the raster graphics for font definition color and perhaps illustrations All utilities that could use the local net Ork and any gateways to other net Orks should use them as transparently as possil lle As with the operating system the utilities should be as friendly easy to use helpful forgiving and tolerant as possible D Servers and Net Ork Gateways In a local net Ork PPC envirorment W1ere users interact with one another frequently the concept of servers has proven important 12J In this envirorment a server is a machine on the net Ork W1ich performs some widely-used service for all users who desire to use it e g document printing In some net Ork envirorrnen ts there are several or many servers distributed arOl l1d the net Ork In the PPC envirortllent one server has been postulated the office PPC The concept of gateways to other netw rks is especially important at NSA If a PPC local netw rk becomes a replacenent for current Gfss systems the interconnections currently supported over Pl ATFORM would need to continue The local Server or office PPC would handle Pl ATFOR -like communications for overall netw rk mail and file transfers E Environment and others will generally remain in the shell of their o oKl PPC The overall PPC envirorrnent should be flex ible enough to gracefully allow use of all some or none of these spec ial features It should gently encourage their use without penalizing a person who insists on using only the keyboard input and alphanumeric text output A Po rful Personal Computer must be just W1at its ncme implies po rful yet personal V NSA and the Powerful Personal Computer It will take the research and industrial community several years to complete a commercially-available PPC which meets most of the specifications of section II Such a system may not be available l I'ltil 1985 i f then Before 1985 several versions of a FPC wi 11 be available in one of t O forms 1 a commercial form Iktich uses 1980-1981 technology to meet many of the section II specifications or 2 a research form W1ich meets all of the specifications The commercial versions will be realistically available in 1981-1982 with the necessary software A more po rful rpsearch version wi th ne r technolop y might be available in 1984-1986 Given that these predictions come true what should NSA be doing' to prepare for the advent of the PPC NSA should be planning for it and experimenting with t hose versions of the PPC which will soon be available several offices in NSA e g R53 are now using timesharing syst ems in a very personal way Terminals are at the users' desks various inter-user communications systems exist the computer serves as phone book and personal text preparation system and many Orking documents are kept on the system Most importantly the users of the system have adapted their way of 1He around the system in peroona1 ways they have made the system an integral part of their w rk environment Such offices are excellent candidates to experiment with the PPC environment When the software described above is implemented the envirortllent created for the individual scientific or analytic user will be very po rful extrenely easy to use I and tailorable to closely suit the individual's personality and needs Even though audio I O and color graphics are integral tools at all levels it is obvious that some people will use them and others will not Some people will make constant use of the local netw rk Nov 81 o CR 'PI'OLOG o Page 1 UNCLASSIFIED DOCID 4009838 UNCLASSIFIED Parts of the DOR and DDT organizations are already closely following the develofJllent of the PPC externally R53 is now assembling an initial prototype system for experimentation in the use of PPC's This system will initially inclu le tlrtO PPC systems fran Apollo Computer buil t aroll'ld the Motorol a M-68000 one system fran Convergent Tecmologies built arotl'ld the Intel 8086 and a high-speed local netlrtOrk buil t by Sytek Inc The present R53 timesharing resources will be integrated into this system via the local netlrtOrk This total PPC environment in R53 will be used in part to gain experience and to help determine possible architectural configurations for the T4 User Interface System project What areas of NSA are likely candidates for a PPC environment Problems where massive anOInts of canputational power must be applied will still require systems like the CDC 1600 and its successors 10 However algorit 'rn develofJllent for these problems is an excellent candidate for a PPC envirorrnent Environments which now use the Generalized Terminal Ibsystem GTSS timesharing concept are obvious candidates for the PPC Any scientific or analytic canputing lrtOuld be a candidate for the PPC Non-technical functions like IrtOrd processing may eventually benefit from the PPC environment depending upon the final cost of the PPC and the coupling between technical and administrative people within an Qffice In short any canputing environment where people are doing interactive canputing or algorit 'rn develofJllent is a candidate for the PPC env ironment Thus NSA has a lot to gain in productiVity from successful develofJllent and application of a Powerful Personal Computer env ironmen t o Bruce W Ravenel The Intel 8086 Microprocessor A 16-bit Evolution of the 8080 C olPUTER vol 11 no 6 June 1918 6 Newell Allen Scott Fahlman and Robert Sproull A Proposal for Personal Scientific Computing Department of Computer Science Carnegie-Mellon University Draft of 13 July 1919 7 Patterson David A and Carlo H Sequin Design Considerations for Single-chip Computers of the Future IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CCJ 1PUTERS vol C-29 no 2 February 1980 8 Peuto Bernard L Architecture of a New Microprocessor crnPUTER vol 12 no 2 February 1979 9 Stritter Edward and Tom Gunter A Microprocessor Architecture for a Changing World The Motorola 68000 CCMPUTER vol 12 no 2 February 1919 10 Igarman Robert ers IEEE SPECTRUM '''Superpower' Computvol 17 no 4 April 1980 11 Tarbell Lawrence C Jr The Potential Impact of Raster Graphics at NSA PROCEEDINGS CF TIiE CISI SPRING CONFERENCE Iol ay 1979 12 Thacker C P E M McCreight B W Lampson R F Sproull and D R Boggs Al to A Personal Computer Xerox PARC report CSL-79-11 7 August 1979 13 Three Rivers Computer Corporation Pt'eliminary docllllentation for the Perq Intelligent Terminal enclosures to correspondence dated 13 June 1979 14 Trifari John Backing Up the New Winchester Disk Drives MINI-MICRO SYSTEMS vol 12 no 8 August 1979 References 1 Cl ark Dav id D Kenneth T Pogran and David P Reed An Introduction to Local Area NetlrtOrks PROCEEDINGS CF THE IEEE vol 66 no 11 November 1918 2 Kay Alan C Microelectronics and the Personal Computer SCIEtrrIFIC AMERICAN vol 231 no 3 September 1917 15 Ward Steve Chris Terman Jon SIeber and Rae fo'cLellan NO The LCS Advanced Node MIT Internal Memorandllll 28 February 1979 16 Wegbreit Ben 23 April 1980 3 HoaglCl1d A S Storage Technology Capabilities and Limitations CCMiUTER vol 12 no 5 May 1919 C Garrrnill 4 Isaacson Portia Robert Richard S Heiser Adam Osborne Larry Tesler and Jim C Warren Jr Personal Computing CCl IPUTER vol 11 no 9 September 1978 5 Morse Stephen P William B Pohlman and Nov 81 CRYPTOLOG Page 8 UNCLASSIFIED Private caDmll'lication of --DOCID 4009838 SECRE'f FUTURISTIC REPORTING u P L bylL --- _ eporting describes a wide variety of different activities Within NSA we serve our customers in many dif ferent ways We issue in formal 3 eee reports such as TACREPs formal reports and translations in both hard copy and electrical versions and we support canmll1ity data bases through the COINS system Among our reports and translations which form the bulk of lotJat we generally refer to as reporting we cover many different subjects and fJl I II could go on Ilstlng l the variety of reporting for some time The variety of reporting we do requires a lot of different ways of doing it We tailor our product to some extent today and are always looking for ways to improve it but we do almost all our reporting via electrical narrative reports few hard copy reports few graphics few briefings 6 eeS With the availability of computer technology ma'ly parts of NSA' s missiDn have been affected Where we used to copy I-t rse code on six-ply paper and the analysts back at NSA would scan the raw traffic a month or two after it was intercepted today we routinely forward traffic electricall to NSA for nearl instant anal sis Traffic analysis signals analysis cryp-' tanalyis telemetry analysis are all done routinely on computers U With the advent of the MESSENGER computer system in NSOC we even prepare reports on a computer It wait a minute Let's consider how that is done The reporter scans his incoming traffic prepares his report submits i t to a chain of reviewers lotJo eventually deliver the draft to the typist in the nex roan The tei'tis retyped possibly for the fourth or fifth time and then released AI though MESSENGER is a computer based report preparation system it ohly perform the typing and releasing functions and does not serve the person lotJo actually prepares the report the reporter U Will we solve this problem this lack ofslJPport to the reporters of NSA in the next decade I certainly hope so and I think it is weI within our power to do so The technology is available today to enhance the reporters' functi m beyond the wildest dreans of most reporters Mlmy people recognize both the problem to be solved and the means of solution and in several areas they are already working to develop cdnp er systems to serve reports in the preparation of reports EO 1 4 c P L 86-36 to aeSCrloe U This paper will attempt some of the probletlsWhich are inherent in the reporting field both those now felt by reporters al'ld those lotJich must be addressed in th develoJJllent of a reporting canputer system It will then look at current projects 1 l'lderway which are developing canputer systems capable of supporting reporters Some of these systems are not intended to serve reporters but could do so with little additional effort We will look at the possibilities available for reporting computer systems given today's technology and then discuss some of the ways in lotJich future technology might further enhance a reporter's life Finally we will discuss some of the possible changes in the structure of the reporting field caused both by the computer itself and by policy changes in the intelligence commll1ity Nov 81 o CRYPTOLOG o Page 9 8 BEURRECf IIJdfficB YfA 88MB eUidiNBbS 8NcJPY 86-36 DOCID 4009838 CONFIDBNTIAI Problems To Be Addressed U that the c tomer can make informed on behalf of the country In today's intelligence reporting world we have reached the dubious position of inl l'ld ating our customer s wi th reports We have a great need to tailor our reporting more carefully so that the important pieces of information otlich U S decision-makers need are not lost in the sea of information we are 'capable of producing U We have always had a problen insuring quality control No one wants to publish an erroneous report but sometimes we don't have time to check all the facts Sometimes the typist introduces an error into a report that was already carefully checked And sometimes out intelligence sources present us with erroneous information in the first place We have established over the years a canplex coordination-review process aimed at getting anyone lJlo has information relevant to the subject of the report involved in the production of the report Of course this coord in ation takes time Sometimes the reviewer makes changes that are wrong and doesn't take the report back to the originator Sometimes the report has to be revised heavily and therefore m t be retyped fran scratch U In the research that goes into an NSA product report there are a nUTIber of onerous tasks that must be performed which must seen to many reporters as needlessly timeconslJ1ling checking the spelling of pl cencrnes finding the coordinates because the report goes out electrically and has no maps getting people's ncrnes spelled right conforming to the myriad regulation about format preparing the coversheet so that the acCOllltAll the-se are tasks ing system will work which must be done but are not a part of lJlat the reporter thinks of as his primary function - presenting relevant facts to a customer so decisions e-ees Accolllting for otlat we do is very important to the proper managenent of limited resources We are now trying to connect formal requirements and their satisfaction through the use of canputers but reporters are finding that it takes a lot of extra time to prepare the canplex coversheet that puts the needed data into the managenent progran And that doesn't include t he time spent keypunching all that information Hooking the reporter to the canputer could save time and at the same time eliminate the keypunching U How fast can we report information How fast do we need to Wi thout trying to definitively answer those questions let us say that there are nlJ1lerous times lJlen our reporting was not fast enough to suit the situation en a limited basis we have the capability to speed up reporting but it takes a heavy toll in resources How much 'of the delay is in the report research and preparation process itself Some might not agree wi th me but I would claim that today most of the delay is in the report preparation precess We have enabled intelligence to be expeditiously intercepted and decrypted but we have made little progress in translating and reporting quickl y e ees Some problems lJlich are introduced with the canputer are the dependability of the canputer system and the security of the data If the canputer goes dOW1 do we have all our analysts sit on their hands I I'ltil it canes back up And in the sectrity area we have potentially horrendous problens We have built up over the years an incredibly canplex ystem of canpartments codewords and clearances to the point that many people don't know which things they are cleared for Can the canputer help us deal with this problen or will the potential for inadvertent access to someone else's data exacerbate the problen beyond belief Current Systems and Projects U U There are almost as many coverncrnes in NSA as people and a person could be forgiven if he got confused It let's look at a few of the names in the field of analytic canputer systems Nov 81 o CRYPTOLOG o Page 10 CONFIDENTIAl IIJtzJJQlsii ' S9119 SII tJtJ8b8 St - DOCID 4009838 CONPIBEN'fIAL iii PoLo 86-36 1 Possibilities With Present Technology u U The TRS-80 a'ld similar so-called per sonal tI canputers have more than enough power to satisfy most reporter's needs today With canmU'lications interfaces such canputers provide the technological basis for a reporting ccmputer netkOrk capable of revolutionizing the way we do reporting at NSA Nov 81 o CRYPTOLOG o Page 11 CONFIDBNtIAL DOCID 4009838 P L 86-36 SECRE'f anything other than a continuing fast development rate in new canputer technology over the next ten years U Already there are runors flying about canputers that will interpret the spoken Oro can you imagine simply talking to your canputer terminal to give it instructions or to write reports Undoubtedly such machined will be on the market in the next few years S SSS Developnents in microtechnology and high speed canputer c ircui ts pranise to produce desktop canputers with more power than 25 Cray-1 'so The Cray-1 is the fastest general purpose canputer available today and sells for about $10 million We use a Cray-1 to attack the most sophisticated cipher systems u r-bre canpact terminals may result fran developnents in the pla3lla display field using a flat display instead of a cathode ray tube This will make the terminal on every desk concept more practical Combined with the extra power available each usl r might have a canplete 1Y0cessing system on his desk tied to a central system only for data transfers U It goes wi thout saying that there are a nunber of problems that Ould have to be solved before this utopian picture can be developed The present tubes are rather snall and can only display a limited anount of information The present canputer systems have nunerous problems with both turnaround and dependability A couple of developnents in the canputer field may help in this area failsoft technology in Iotlich pieces of a canputer can Ork independently of one another and distributed processing in Iotlich each user or snall group of users has an' independent canputer tied to other canputers only for data transfer All the lYoblems are solvable The major question is W1 ether our institution will solve the various problens whether it or we are ccmmitted to improv ing the effectiveness of reporters through the use of canputers Can we Will we Future Technology U U The TRS-80 has been called the r-bdel The era of cheap canputing power is here today and the pace of tecl'l'lology developnent has been increilsing for several years There is no reason to expect 1' of the canputer industry U High quality facsimile transnission at a reasonable cost is just around the corner With consU'llers tied to NSA through a facsimile data net Ork electrical reports with graphics becane possible Q lr loca canputer might help to generate the maps requiring no more instructions than a list of the pI acen crnes to be identified OIarts and graphs will also be practical in such a sys- - tern Possible Reo-Structuring of the Reporting Function U euess Last year NSA was stooying a system that could result in a massive restructuring of the way in W1 ich reporting is done This was not generated by technology but rather represented an attempt to simplify the Orld of code Ords for intelligence consU'llers The progrcrn called APEX was a matter of some confusion here at NSA APEX called for decanpartmentation of intelligence meaning generally the sanitization of material so that it could be distributed without code Ords APEX is now dead but some of the ideas contained in the project live on There is still Nov 81 o CRYPTOLOG o Page 12 SECRET _ _- - - - - - - - L - - - L - - - L - - - - - - L - - - - - - - - - - - - -- DOCID 4009838 CONPIDBNTIAl a hugh dsnand for sanitized SIGINT This meal' producing some additional reports t detach lines or it could involve producing t'oO versions of a singrereport one of them sanitized Conclusion U wt t a- Imagine if you will applying such a system to all SIGINT reporting I am sure you will agree at a computer would bean invaluable tool in editing and reviewing reports w ich must be sanitized for wider distribution If we stop and take a look at the possibilities we might even be able to redesign the reporting' system with an eye on the technology and take advantage of the technology instead of using it to play catch-up Ways in W1ich we might restructure the reporting function to take advattage of technology incltrle putting more information into data oases and making more of that data base information available to users at multiple access levels through sanitization We might tailor our reporting to fit the needs of individual users by having the computer scan the available intelligence information and select items by using a dictionary of relevant terms Our requirements process might be different in that conS Jllers could simply input their key'oOrds into their computer terminals instantly updating the requirements dictionary The NSA system could automatically compare the consumers' input and access level wi h the available NSA information and route the appropriate information as it becomes available Management reports could be available instantly on which user requirements were being satisfied and ich were not Analysts at NSA might refer to the unsatisfied requirsnents data base to help them rrioritize their workload Supervisors might use it to assign work to analysts This infornation might even be used to a1 ter our tasking f c c s on a real-time basis EO 1 4 c P L 86-36 U In conclusion let us consider the challenge of the 80's to integrate technology that is available and that is becoming available to improve the efficiency and the effectiveness of the reporters at NSA and to alter the ways we do our reporting to better serve our present and future consuners wi thin the btrlgetary constraints place on us My contention is that we can do our present job of serving intelligence consuners better and more cheaply by taking advantage of the existing technology The decreasing nunber of secretaries at NSA is already a problem and one that seems unsolvable Lack of staff people to coord inate reports and a continuing need to maintain quality control create rressures to use computers to assist the reporting staff in maintainIng the quality for w ich NSA is renoW1ed U How to do this First we need a coherent policy regarding the use of technology to serve the reporting function If my contention is correct - that technology can enable us to do our present job better and more cheaply - then we are wasting valuable resources by our continuing failure to use the technology available to us already U Second we must have a driving force The purpose of this paper is to pull together ideas from throughout NSA and from the computer world and to present them to reporters and managers in NSA as a meahs of helping to create such a driving force - nanely the reporters and managers in NSA If we sit around waiting for the T organization to recommend new and better uses for technology in support of the reporting function we will grow old and gray before anything happens This is not intended to be an indictment of the T organization merely a statement of the realities of life The T organization exists to serve the other organizations of NSA incltrling erations If we want to update the reporting technology here we must ask demand - that it be done And we must take an active role in specifying in great detail how the job is to be done U The possibilities are almost endless but the challenge is ours The technology is there and more is coming fut we must take an active role in developing our understanding of how the technology can help us and in seeing to it that we make the fullest possible use of the technology Nov 81 o CRYPTOLOG o Page 13 eONFIDBN'i IAL DOCID 4009838 UNCLASSIFIED CRYPTIC CROSSWORD Byl I -------------------- --- Vouble fI I c I 044WOlLd puzzle done the c l lJptic oIL h 4tfjle But b e 06 Ac I 044 that one' 4 plLettfj aw6u t _ __e e _ e e e_ e e e-e e e e_ _ _ _ e e e _ e __ _ ___e e_e _ I_ e _ e _ -e e __e e e e 9 10 11 3 1 16 18 9 20 1 23 1 7 28 86-36 _9 1 30 ACROSS 13 14 17 20 23 24 25 28 29 30 31 2 5 6 1 5 9 10 12 8 7 C YPTOLOG' 4 I n60 lma tion Suence EcLU nIL hM COtUltJw ct ed ex cellent P L 7 6 i4Ij 15 o de6 tUl I _ e _ _ 5e__ _ e 3 12 Pwu AnagJu1m6 Co tJtu cti o 1 31 DOWN Average second bites are vegetables 8 Could this be where amputated limbs are thrown 6 Small overthrows combined in great poems 8 A child or a place in Mexico 6 Consumes teas in a sloppy manner 4 Weasel out of orders to attack 5 A kick from the teaa's top untried draft choice 4 I hear the sea left the fiend's farm machine so he could show us his wares 12 Otherwise calm mediator possessing emotional appeal 12 It's not often the meat isn't overcooked 4 Less confused about a tradition at Easter 5 A peachy coat for policemen 4 Myth of the ankle perhaps 6 Religious gentleman takes a note back to provide work for the secretary 8 Did the bug clear his throat for the Spangled lIaM f 6 Snake has Richard Henry cbnfused about a small prisoner 8 1 A sentry stationed at the fence 6 2 The right side ejects from bed 6 3 Somehow the line forms in the river 4 4 Anoth ewe into paint need we ask again 8 4 6 Enough space to anchor around 4 7 The faction favoring pipes put together the merchandise 8r 8 I sort art for Arnold's kind among others 8 11 Gather '50 scheme for the European Recovery Program 8 4 IS Rushes we hear through the book 5 16 Draw off five hundred droplets 5 18 Destroy the rum label Nol It'll be useful next April 8 19 Very good Everyone is not left behind 3 5 21 Roman god adds eyes we hear to restore a flat 6 22 Blossoms as a sound heard over the meadow 6 26 At one time at the induction center 4 27 Scandinavian in a Japanese rickshaw 4 Nov 81 CRYPTOLOG Page 14 UNCLASSIFIED CONFIBRN'fIAb SAY What You MEAN by David W Gaddy ver time jargon becomes accepted usage but in its application there can be confusion of meaning Sanitization is an example Part of U the confusion arises frCITI our tradition l view of the I T handling system a view which must bemodifiE d if we are to cOOlllunicate effectively among oursp-Ives and Olr colleagues in the Community o1hat follows is a renection on lessons learned during the APEX study of the past t years and an attempt to clarify terminology now in wide but often differing use @ the definition of compartment as develope ' under APEX and approved by the OCI IB It represents but a slight morlification of that contained in the 1978 DCIINFIB Glossary of Intelligence Tenns and Definitions cQlTlp1'1rtmentation FonnCil systems of resEURrfct i d access established and or managm by the Director of Central Intelligence DCI to protect the sensitive aspects of 5Ources methods and analyticCll procedures of forl i n intelligence progr1ll1s P neric term in Conrnunity us is sensitive compartmenterl information SCI CCJo1INT or STGINT hanrlled und r the COMIVT syst is therefore a fonn of foCI Al tho h we are concerned only with spec1 ll cess progrcrns in an intelli enc context there are other such programs especially those createrl for military operatiomll purposes The e-eee To set thf' stage by stating the obvious 50 obvious it may be overlooked the body of infonnation under discussion Cf MINT is classifiPd It is TOP SECRET SECRET rarely CONFIDENTIAL lJnthinkable a fp w years back there i also unclassified CrnTIIT of a historical nature but we are concerned here with current DOMINT It also has at least one addit onal attribute it usually has a code rd or a restriction that it be handled only in crnINT channels the INT compartment This is the infonnation which from World War II U S Army usage is frequently called special intelligence or SI ince SI is now limited to CCJo1INT it has become a euphemism - lOme even mistakenly but with the same result think it equates to signal s intelligence e eee For years most of us have thought of compartJnents as thosf' small cloistered efforts usually distinguished by a covern flle which are now for the most part covered under the VRK Very Restricteci nowledge system See llSSTD 16 for details It still comes as a mild shock to he reminded that the COUNT handling system is itself a compartment or special access progran as cCITIP8rtments are termed in Executive Order 12065 o Here is EO 1 4 c Nov 81 o CRYPTOLOG l'flge eONFIBBN'fIAJ 81 -36 IWJBIoB 8SMHff' eItA mUftoS 6Jft Y DOCID L 4009838 CONFIDENTIAL 4 c 86-36 I Ed Note It may have been the conductor on the Orient Express 1 110 said it first as the oetachnmt of 'I Jrkish soldiers got off the train at Vienna I think we shall' have to sanitize that ccrnpartment Nov 91 r RYPT 0G o Pap e 16 CONPIDBN'fIAL IIlf oB WA 99M1fR' eltANlfBt S 8f4Li DOCID 4009838 UNCLASSIFIED HOW TO CREATE A USER-OltnFRIENDLY SYSTEM byl _ vrona c08IIand duaay J 10 away I' bUlyl another lOlic error atupid' Clsl Workshop May 1981 one of us sets out deliberately to bring unfriendly hunan machine interfaces into the world Somehow even though we re trying our hardest to design and build good software the user interface all too often turns out to have some serious defects when it is delivered and people start using it Some of the defects can result in increased error waste of expensive man-rours and waste of machine resources If the users have any choice and things are bad enoup h they may simply refuse to use the system and find other ways to get their work done If they don't have a choice their work efficiency may suffer significantly The worst aspect of the situation is that the losses are hidden the machine is not down some amount of oOrk is flowing through the system and there is no obvious stoppage or breakdown that can be singled out to warn us that a lot of time and effort may be going down the drain unnecessarily My main purpose here is to raise your consciousness about the needs of the user and row some kinds of desip n decisions can affect the convenience and supportiveness of the user interface in an interactive system I have a strong feeling based on studies I have made of several Agency systems that ma1Y of the unfriendly features are unnecessary Some it is true are forced on us by prior commitments to specific formats or procedures or by file security and file integrity requirements The majority of the features that make problems for users come about however simply because the designer and programJer were optimizing Nov 91 other variables without thinking about the effects on the user Their priority lists are headed by other things and the user is way down in the stack They are concentrating on savin space getting around weaknesses in the programming languages and operating systems meeting demands of the sponsor for performing given fUnctions and beating deadlines In the miost of these pressing preoccupations it is all too easy to forget that we are desip ning a system that will interact with a user From his point of-view the system will exhibit behavior just like another person or animal If its behavior is puzzling contraiictory and frustrating the user will have a lot of trouble getting along with it If it leaves him hanging not knowing what to do next and he has to dig through a badlywritten manual while his work waits his time and the system resources are being needlessly wasted when we could have told him what he needed to know 'n a simpl e message on the screen If system messages mislead the user or i f datA-entry procedures are confusing and inconsistent with normal usage we are designing in a source of constant error All it takes in ma1Y cases is a slight re-wording of a message addition of information to an incomplete message or standardization on one set of field 1 abel s or procedures to solve these probl s for the user Very rarely will the changes toward us r-friendliness require any major sacrifices in efficiency running time or ease of debugging or maintenance In fact the same changes that make a a system more predictable and convenient for a user are likely to make it easier to maintain and debug CRYPTOLOG Page UNCLASSIFIED 17 P L 86-36 DOCID 4009838 UNCLASSIFIED as well I guess what I am trying to sell to you is the need for a lot more EMPATItY TC7tlARD THE USER Interactive programs are basically dif ferent frOlT1 the kinds of programs that read in a batch of data chew on it a lJ1ile then spit out a batch of answers to be read later at a user's desk or rlJ'l m another computer At least half the work in an interactive system is being done by that user out there who is carrying out a continuous exchange of infonnation and instructions with the system en we design such a system we cannot afford to let ourselves forget that we are creating BEHAVIOR The interface that the user sees will have characteristics that significantly affect his work efficiency We have to find a WaY to keep in mind what the user is trying to do what exPectations he brings to the taSk and how he will perceive what the system is saying to him At any given point in an interactive dialog the user has certain expectatIons in terms of infoilllation he needs and timeliness of response to avoid breaking his train of thought You the system designer and programmer have built up that set of expectations whether knowingly or not in the sequenc of dialog steps that preceded the screen the user now sees ' ether we like it or not when we design and implement an interactive system we are creating behavior and we are creating a conversation If we are going to do it right we must somehow get into the habit of empathy imagination putting ourselves in the user's place at all stages of our work WHY IS IT SO HARD TO SEE TIfE USER'S VIEWPOINT Unfortunately there aren't very many good tools and techniques yet to help designers change their point of view from the old batch way of designing programs Most of us still tend to approach an interactive system design task pretty much as if it were a batch program f task is specified by a sponsor who has certain requirements j we know what COlT1puter system and programming language we will use we go ahead and write A PROGRAM which will do the job within those constraints lole treat the interactive user as if he were a tape drive a card reader or any other input device that we get data and parameters from Instead of send ing a seek to the disk or a read to the tape drive we seml a message to the user This is a very poor way to look at an interactive task People are not like disks or tape drives for better or for wor Nov R1 Somehow we must develop diagrCl1llling and planning techniques modelling and prototyping skills and useful practices and guidelines for this new and special kind of programming and design involving dynamic give-and-take between user and system olE NEED A COURSE IN INTERACTIVE SYSTEM DESIGN I would very much like to see a COlD se in Design of Interactive Computer Dialogs taught at OlD School There are a nunber of courses being taught at Universities and Colleges and in private industry Videotapes are available from at lc st one source I know of rr Ben Schneidennan at the University of Maryland An excellent course is offered by Dr J D Foley at GW There are also a nunber of research efforts under way in several places to develop guidelines for interactive system design and they have publishe9 usefUl papers e g those by Ramsay pt al and Smith et al in the references I bel ievp that such a course should be practical in its orientation It should incltx le at least one real design project And it ought to be required in our Data Systems Professionalization program TOOLS TO HELP THE DESIGNER In the near fut ure there wi 11 be new aid s for designers of interactive systems 'ole wi 11 be able to use the power of interactive systems themselves in the design process with rapid prototyping and planning packages similar to the PSA PSL system currently in use by T-Group for program design I believe that we could gain useful techniques and tools right now frOlT1 the Computer Aided Instruction 0 1 field Designers of computerized courses have developed a lot of experience in building one type of interactive dialog A study of CAT packages and techniqu s lnd an attempt to transfer useful ideas to interactive system design would cmply repay our effort Unfortunately our need is pressing and we don't have these tools at OlD fingertips today There are still some infonnal methods we can use to help us visualize and manipulate the essential structure of an interactive session from the us-er's point of view The diagramming method I am suggesting in this workshop is a simple pencil- lnd-paper aid you can use right away to tryout ideas and see how thl' Y wi 11 impact the user to cOlT1pare different designs and to trouble-shoot bad spots in an ex isting dialog CRYPTOLOG Page UNCLASSIFIED 18 L DOCID 4009838 UNCLASSIFIED EXAMPLES CF mOD AND BAD USER DIAWGS As a way of demonstrating the importance of empathy toward the interactive system user I will present several examples of poor design chosen from actual NSA systems in current use The examples will be disguised to avoid needless embarrassment to desi ners mana ers and progra1lllers associated with them Features of several real systP ms may be lunped together into one artificial system for the sake of a dramatic illustration The essentials of each feature will be retained with surface details changed to conceal the source Rock-throwing sessions are destructive to all concerned and my intention is not to criticize any specific system or Agency elanent In many cases the particular unfriendly feature I have chosen to describe is only a S'llall part of a system lokJich is otherwise very helpful to users With just a little forethought to avoid makin needless problans for the user these excellent systems could be performing far better I will also present some cOll'lter-examples to illustrate good userfriendly designs for contrast Some of these are chosen from the same real-life Agency systems as the bro examples For reasons of space the examples were not Incluned in this paper but were presented in my talk at the workshop only First let's look at the basic shape of an interactive session - the structure that makes it essentially different from batch program run o TI-lE STRUCTIJRE OF A DIALOG I will illustrate these points with a convenient method of di gramming an interactive user dialog which emphasizes the dynamic structure of the interaction Fig 1 shows a diagram of a simplified typical dialog The circles are st tes of the user and the arrows are exchanges of information between him and the system lokJich move the user to a next state Each step from one state t the next involves a user input followed by a systP m response Tn this analysis we are interested in the USF R's states the system too has states but we are seeing them entirely through the user's eyes at present because it is the user's viewpoint we are trying to model and understand in this exercise The action starts when the user sits down at the terminal and LOGS ON When the system receives his log-on it can either accept him at state 1 and display a message prompt or menu or else it can refuse him and give him we hope a cleDr message telling him what is wrong at state 4 If his log-on is accepted the Nov 81 system gives the u r access to what I will call the TOP L VEL of the rtialog Here he has a chance to sp lf'Ct one of a set of m jor actions he can perform on the system They can be commmds he may type in files he may call up nunbered choices from a menu or function buttons he may press l en he self'Cts one of these actions the system will again respond by either giving him access to the subsystMl he has requested file command routine package etc or displaying a message warning him that he is un author i zeci to use it or has made an error in his input The function the user has chosen may offer him still another set of choices leading to another level of subsystems or there may be a linear chain of actions and responses between user and system involving no further choices of dialog patl1s but continuing until t he action is done data entry record retrieval comput tion and display of a result etc for instance the step from state to i in fip ure 1 After the user has viewed the display or the system has completed work behind the scenes and given the user a message the system may automatically return the user to a higher level and let him choose a new action at that level or else it may ask him lokJere he wants to go next Eventually the user will decide to quit work or else the system will automatically terminate his session and he will be returned to the top level nere he wi 11 LOG O 'F At any point in the dialog the user may su1denly see that something is wrong or else he ay hav to break off his work unexpectedly so he will need to ABORT or CANCf1 the dialog and return to a higher level before work at the current level has terminated normally Tn many existing systems the top level i special in that a user cannot ordinarily bypass it by an interrupt from inside the dialog His interrupt will get him lack to the top level where he must LOG OFF to get out of the system entirely This is because logging on and off CRYPTOLOG Page UNCLASSIFIED 19 DOCID 4009838 UNCLASSIFIED are often handled by the operating system while lower levels of dialog are handled by a specific routine or software package under the operating system Some systems allow users to log off directly from one or more states within a SUbsystem without having to return first to the top At each state the system gives the user specific displays that must tell him lJ1at he needs to 'know to select the next transition No matter what else may be going on behind the scenes in the host computer disk files m8SS memories network connections data links etc ALL THE USER'S DECISIONS MUST BE BASED ON WHAT HE SEES ON ruE SCREEN RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM HERE AND NOli As the designers and pro ranmers of the user interface we have to find a way to tell him just what he needs to know right now to make the best choice of his next action Why make him guess at incompletp information try to remember lists of commands or recall data displayed on earlier screens You are unnecessarily adding to his burden and detracting from his effectiveness in the primary task he is performing with the system The table below is a state-tr8nsition matrix It provides a useful way of 5t111l11arizing information concerning pairs of states or data associated with each transition allowed by the dialog in figure 1 This particular table shows user inputs U and system responses S for each transition An X indicates that the transition is not 8llowed by the dialog Such a table is a convenient method of reviewing 811 the Possibilities and planning or analyzing an interactivf dialog CU ftENT t r I E I lFTW_t STA 1 I ---------1----------1-----------------f---------I-------- UTRAL I x U lo on X IU lo on l' top menu I r fuoo l ---------iu i - r- ----i----- u t r--- -----l--- ----15 f'oodbllGkl S pro ptl r ---------1----------1-----------------1---------1--------2' X rU o rio 1 1 U 1 t X S top u IS d isphyl I top enu 1 I f --------- ----------1--------------r-------- 1--------X fU qu1t X X 1 X I ---------I----------l-----------------r--------- --------It U I X X X X 1 e s l Figure 2 shows a d iag ran of a d ia l wi th a user-interrupt transition skipping from State 1 directl y back to the top 1 evel bypassinp an intervening State 2 and skipping State q wnich ordinarily would have come next U T e A L For instance suppose that a user has l ged on and at St8te 1 has asked for a file-updatp packagf tate 2 inside the file-update part of the dialog has givf'n him a data-entry format to fill in on his screen State 3 While enterin data the user suddenly realizes that he should first have retrieved a record to check its contents before making the updat s He enters a comm8nd canceling the data entry screen removing the effects of any data he may h8ve entered already 8nd returning him directly to the top level where he may request the retrieval subsystem and make his query It is useful for the designer t make a state-tr8nsition tahle including al the cancel or user interrupt t ransitions he will allow and listing the items of dat8 or pro ram vari8bles that must be reset to clean up the loose ends at each point This is also a good method of deciding where we can reasonahly permit the user t cancel without creating too much chaos in the data base or program variables Tn general it is more userfriendly to allow user-interrupts at as many points in the dialo as can reasonably be mCln8f M ---------1----------1---------- --------l--------- --------Before he ogs on and after he logs off the user is in a speci l neutral state where he is not directly affected by anything the system does In this state he is not enp aged in any dialog with the system Q1ce he logs on and from then until he logs off Nov Rl CRYPTOL0G ' Pa e UNCLASSIFIED 20 -----OOCID 4009838- 1 1 UNCLASSIFIED he is more or less closely coupled with the system and his actions are directly affected by the p ive-ald-take of the dialog At ach of his states wi thin the dialog he expects to see certain data wi thin a certain range of time-frames He has specific uncertainties which must be resolved completely by the display on the screen if he is to he able to continue YoOrking effectively The system designer must be aware of this mental context buH t up by the previous steps of the interaction and provide what the user eeds to know right where he needs it The diagram can help us by factoring out each transition and letting us consider just what path or paths have led the user to a given state A statetransition table can help us organize and review all the items of information the user has supplied to the system 8I1d expects to receive from the system t ach state Figure 2 shows another situation which can happen in this nIl-too-imperfect IooOrld Imagine that the user has YoOrked his way to State 3 again Suppose for instance that he has called up the retrieval subsystem State 2 entered a query State 3 and is waiting for the system to display the retrieval on his screen Suddenly he finds himself not at the top level but all the way back at the neutral state out of contact with t he system The dialog has been stopped dead the screen is unresponsive and when he pushes a key nothing happens The system has CRASHED in midstream perhaps leaving a multitude of messy loose-ends hanging behind the scenes The way this experience feels to the interactive system user must be lived through to be truly understood The best way to describe it is to say that one minute the user is closely involved in a lively give-and-take with a responsive talkative entity and suddenly everything has died on him It is a very pecul iar and frustrating feel ing a 1 ittIe like running into a walL Whenever this happens to a user he will have some very strong uncertainties that must be resolved somehow by messages or pre-Jarrangl ct procedures so that he can put his IooOrk back together and get going again with a minimum of lost motion after the system comes back up In addition THERE IS ASTRO G E OTIONAL RESPONSE of frustration and alarm especially if the user knows that a lot of his YoOrk will be lost not just the last action he performed but perhaps hours or even days of earlier IooOrk as well A state-transition table incltrling crash tra 1sitions back to the neutral state can help us review the possibilities and plan otlat loose ends need to be bV 81 clenned up and what recovE'ry features need bE' provided to the user to The diagrams can be a handy aid for doodling while you are planning an interaction Tf you are a designer they can l1el p you to see the structure of a user interface from the user's viewpoint They can help to make clear what are the successive choices a given design puts before the user and what data he neE' s at each point to decide Where to go nE'xt If you are a user you might find it an interesting exercise to try diagramming all or a portion of a user dialog for a system you use especially a part of it that often gives you trouble Fxper iment with various kinds of matricE's and tables of data associated with state-pairs for instance user performance times system response times user inputs and system messages etc The excrnples in these handouts will provi e some illustrations The references at the end of this paper list several sources where state d iagrgns for interactive dialogs are discussec1 These references were brought to my attention by Joan J'o'C bnald R8 sa-1E HIl NDY RllLFS OF TH R Below are some guidelines that express the moral of the illustrntions T presented in the IooOrkshop 1 Ibn't make the user give you rerlundant information get it from him once and use it efficiently behind the scenes E g i f you ask him for his name and can look it up you shouldn't need to ask for his initials and his social security number too If you have a passYoOrd you shoLildn' t need anythin else to identify him 2 Ibn't leave the user looking at a blank screen after he has input a command or data Give him a messagE' ''DocLlllent number not fOl l'l'i retrieval ended retrieval failed or at feast a prompt to t ll him what level of dialog or state he is in so he has an idea what to do next especially if the command he just input has failed 3 Ibn't build data entry formats or representations into your rj ialog which are counter to normal usage You ar laying t he fOl naation for persistent user rrors that will waste far more time in error checking and recovery code than the extra trouble to CRYPTOLOG Page UNCLASSIFIED 21 DOCIO 4 009 83a----- -- ---'----------UNCLASSIFIED THE SOL IS E b IT t 1 F 3 E lJ - Il A _ _o -------------------------------- ---------------------------CUR-I R U XT R TItAL I 1 X 't ----1-----1----1------1----1------- ---- I U 1 on I 1 EU-I TR'LI ___ 1I X 1 2 fS top I IT 2I1ln I X 1 U l orrl Ictal l X ____ 'T -'Ol 1 S a oohl IU lntel t t'lt I 1 T -10 1 X 1 3 U - X 1 ____ er'lIlh U - IS arl hl 1 X ------ IU edlt I I 1 Ilplyl X I X IT 6-1Dsl 1 2 U - ____ I I r ' x i ' X eelI I X --------1 X I 1 ' _--- --------lr l tllb X i 1 1d x U t8b U t b rl 1 S hol'lt 1 X I or IT X I ----r------- -------I------- ------- ------------ U nt --------1 5 IU - IU ftftte IU t'b 1C crulhl ____ 6 U exlt I 1 to I eu IA l top IT -ll'sl o I r t ftxi IS fl 1d IT 6 ' I r t X IU v 1 rt plyl X T -1 1sl X X -----X J ----I------- - -----I------- -------I------------ I ' 0 J S pr-OMot --------1 T -10 I 1 X I --------1 0 Llo aL Id_ L 12 '' '6 17 8 #' J 3 f ' t ' ---- J 1 To Fir CU 7- EU ---------------------NEXT----------------------------------ft r T TR AL 2' 3 q 5 '5 ----1-------1------- -------1-------1-------1-------------- ------- U l on I 1 U-I TRALI t S top x x I X I X ' x 1 ----l------- -------l-------t-------l-------l-------------- -------1 10 1 01'1'1 IU re r 1 mess l x g wndow x ----1-------1-------1-------1-------1-------1------- -------- -------2 IU - U del I f er-ashfS mess r U otl-alU old 1'1 S new rl splrl x r x ----1-------1-------1-------1-------1-------1-------------- Jn1el -------3 IU -1 I U new r cr sh x x dsp1yf ' X '5 Slve r ----1-------1-------1------- -------1-------1-------------' U -- 1 IU p P -------11 11 U 1 1 asht l X I X x S new r l e Examples from Other Systems scroll s ve ----1-------1------- ------- ------- ------- -------------- -------5 IU -1 I IU dlta 1 IS cr-ash x I x ds lyl X' x x ----1-------1-------1-------1-------1------- -------------- -------5 U -1 IU dlta 1 S e sh r r S ds lyr x x ----1-------1-------1-------1-------1------- -------------- -------1 U -- U -- S cr sh top 1 x I '1 ' 1 x x ----1-------1-------1-------1-------1------- ------- -------- -------CRASH stites 1l 5 6 ' ystroke rltcovery fl1 stites 1 2 3 user coy ry not ne ed st8te after hit del- eOY rf not possible Nov 81 CRYPrOLQG Page UNCLASSIFIED 22 ' DOCID 4009838 r UR-I IlEU- RJ IIT TR L 1 UNCLASSIFIED I 2 'ElM' I 3 1'1 I c I f'i I 7 I fl I I 10 I ----I-------I-------I-------I-------r-------I-------I--------1--------1--------1--------1--------1 'I U-l fU t on I I 1 I I fU IO t onl 1 TR LI X l top 1 X I X X I X I 1 I X I 1 l rprusd 1 I ---- ------- -------I-------f-------I-------l-------I--------1--------1--------1-------- -------- 1 IIJ l ofr IU trivi I I lC I I I I I I I 1 x I x I X I 1 I 1 I lC I ----I-------1-------I-------l-------l-------I-------I--------1--------1--------1--------1--------1 llIe 'l 31 X 2 U - J 1 crAShl X l prmptl I I X X IU retrvlU cr l'ltp 1 llPlyl prmpt 1 1 I I 1 11J chl'ln p I wnmrl I l prompt promptl 1 I I 1 ----1-------1-------1-------1-------1-------1-------1--------l--------I--------r--------r--------I 1 I'J -- l crash IU exit I X I prmptl I X I lC I 1 X 1 1 I X I I 1 I I X I I X I X I ----1-------1-------1-------1-------1-------1-------1-------- --------I--------I--------I--------1 '1 111 I I I 1 lU dat a I I I I 1 I l cr shf X f 1 I X X r p ptr 1 I X 1 f 1 I 1 I ----1-------1-------1-------1-------1-------1-------1--------1--------1--------1--------1--------1 ' In - - W cf1I1cll I r fU fatl'l I I I I I f crlli'l111 1 I prmptf 1 I X I x l promptl X I x l l I X 1 ----1-------1-------1-------1-------1-------1-------1--------1--------1--------1--------1-------- 11' t IU exlt I I 1 I I I I I I 1 crRshl 15 prmpt X r 1 1 X I x I x I x I ' I ----1-------1-------1-------1-------1-------1-------1--------1--------1--------1--------1--------1 7 lIJ -- l crai'lhl X IU l xit I IS prmpt 1 X I X I I X I I oX I I 1 X 1 I I I I X I I ----I-------J-------I-------r-------I-------I-------I--------1--------1--------1--------1--------1 R l'J - I I I I I I I I 1 IS crllllhl X I 1 I X I X 1 X I X I X I X I X I X I ----1-------1-------1-------1-------1-------1-------1--------I--------I--------l- ------l--------l ' 11J - I I 1 I I I I I I 11l trlvi l 1 mE'si'lgl X I X J X I X I X 1 X 1 X f 1 I 1f fS r rus r ---- - -----I----- -I-------t-------I-------I-------I-------- --------1--------1--- ----1--------1 1 1 II -1 I I f I r I I I 1 m I 1P 1 X I x 1 x I X I 1 I X I x I x I x I 1 1 ----f------- ------- ------- -------l------- -------I--------I--------f-------- -------- -------- Nov 81 CRYPI'OIOO Page 23 UNCLASSIFIED DOCID 4009838 UNCLASSIFIED provide a natural format in the first place If a field is to contain dollars and cents permit the user to insert a decimal point and edit it out later if you must If the data structure behind the scenes requires an oddball representation of dates times etc let the user enter them in a natural easy-torememher form and do the needed conversion in the software When you display them to him convert them hehind the scenes back to the form hp is used to 4 Don't let different parts of the same system Ilse different formats procedures or representations for things that are the same to the user Use the same method of error warning and correction throughout all the data entry routines of a system Use the same convention for default or null data entries i3nd command selections If one subsystem provides a list of options 1 2 3 and asks the user t pick one don't use a similar display with numbered items to mean something else in another subsystem If some subsystems tell the user PROCESSING Cct-1PLETE at the end of their actions as a way of letting him know he is back at the top level all subsystems should do so rather than some of them leaving the user looking at a blank screen If you display a review aft er data entry in a form always give the user the same way of inrlicating correct or wrong ood making corrections throughout all data-entry routines of a single system 5 When you send an error or warning message to the user - tell him clearl y what is wrong where the error is anrl what he can or must do next Don't just say invalid code give him a list of what the valid codes are or provide a help or command that will display them to him without interrupting the interaction Don't just say index out of range Tell him the name of the variable and what was in it 1 0 X 999QQ99 If the essage indicates that something is wrong which the user can't fix give him a phone number to call for help and keep the message up to date so the mrnber is right 7 If t here are requirements for contents or formats in data entry fields check for them right away lnd let the use r correct errors for each field as he enters it Don't give him a review o several fields at once one of J1ich may be incorrect unless you al so provide a forms-entry interface with tabbing from field to field and protected field boundaries 8 Don't use different labels or abbreviations for field names commanrls or other key wrds in differe nt parts of the same di810g or system If a field is called AMOUNT in one display call that field the same thing in every display or message that refers to it not AMT one place MONEY someplace else FUNDS someplace else Don't choose labels or abbreviations that look alike or are confusing l hlle an experienced user may be used to some of these you are making it needlessly harti for a new user to learn and remanber them F xperienced users have a way of leaving and all users have to start out as new users sometime 9 If there is information at the top of screen the user needs to see be sure it doesn't get scrolled off before he gets to Ilse it Jf you aren't sure it will still be there when he needs it dtsplay it again don't count on its being visible now just because you d i591 ayed i t few steps earlier the REFERPJCFS Foley J D Notes and Lectures in a course taURht at G 1-1 University Fall 1QAO Foley J D and Wallace V L The rt of Natural Graphic Man-Machine ' cnversation Proceedings of IEF E Vol 62 No 4 _I pril 1974 pp 6 - 71 Giloi 1 ' K Interactive Computer Graphics Prpntice-Hall Inc 197 pp 2n5- 07 Newnan W M A System for Interactive Graph- 6 If certain data to be input by the user must function as key elffilents in the data structure or the procedures on which the task is based let him input them at the beginning check them thoroughly right away and give him a chance to correct them if neP led Don't wait until he has ente red several page of a form before YOIl tell him WRONG SN - FATIl L ERROR and make him re-enter all' the other data Nov g1 ical Programming I 'IP Proceedin s of Spring Joint Computer ' cnference 196 P pp 47-5 Ramsay H R and Atwod M F Human Factors in Computer Systems A Review of the Literature Science Applications Jnc Technical Report AI-79-111-DEN 21 September 197Q Smith S L Requirements Definition lnd Design Guiriel ines for the Man-Machine Interface in C gystem Acquisition MITRE Technical Report M80-10 15 April 1980 CRYPTOLOG Page 24 UNCLASSIFIED DOCID 4009838 SECRE'f OPELINT is Alive and Well in B Group f1J by P MY INSURANCE COMPANY NE ENGLAND LIFE OF COURSE o oooo WHY f ' he alternate title of this article could be To P ag Po BLACKBIRD ann Other SIGINT Tales and it might start with a conversation something like this Hello Ralph You know that SAM site that isn't there Yes Jim what about it It just launched tv o 311 'f's at the SR-71 Ch no I I f 8 Fi ve years ago excellent article Yes GBPXln There Is An FLINT CRYPTOLOG August 1976 bro ht ELINT out into the bright light 9f day for many His TT CHELINT oriented piece invited a companion article from an OPELINT-er in 11 B ior G Group No one has yet responded to th challenge so this article will hopefully bep in to fill that void EO 1 4 c P L 86-36 P L 86-36 Nov 81 i ' ' Much has happened in the v orld of ELINT meanwhile Collection systems have prolifer ted measurement ca bilities have i'llproved And in many areas of DOO OPELINT and CCl-I NT analysts have joined forces against their tar ets This inter-disciplinary mingl ing has spawned a new breed of SIGINT analysts who are equally oomfortable on either side of the fence And no constantly strive to operate on both sides to produce the highest quality most accurate 3IGINT product available o in th f r Much of the credit for this welcome evolutionary stage in the state of the art known as SIGINT production goes to those Agency and Community managers with foresight enough to appreciate the potential of ELINT who have pushed to popularize and expand the ELINT fusion curriculum in the National Cryptologic School and no h we kept up the successful battle to remove the best FLINT collection from the compartment in which it resided for so long et-Managers no have made the choice to make F LINT work in their own SIGINT organizations have found that activism and encouragement are the keys to success Without these ingredients the curtain separating the tv o major components of SIGINT remains CRYPTOLOG Page SECRE'f 25 L 86- 3 6 DOCID - -- -o -_ _ 4009838 SECRET impenetrable while analysts continue to go wi th what they know rather than trying something new and perh ps strange To Pag a BLACKBIRD U The crux of the dile nma which roUowed consolidation was how to keep E1 INTclose to the entity analysts while still achieving the economies of scale offered by consolidation for OPELINT worked away frC1Tl the CCMINT it supports er tuates the se ration of the tloO - er As a resul t Me haveia SIGINT analytic fUSion effort which really has gotten the maximlJTl mileage out of both CO fIIofT and ELTIofT in producing a ntlTlbet of siM ificant products and stud ies wi th far-reac hing impl ic ation s Nov EO 1 4 c P L 86-36 Rl o CRYPTOLOG o Page 26 SECRET DOCID 4009838 SECRET SPOKE Nov 1 If CRYPTOLOG If Page 27 SECRET SPOKE EO 1 4 c P L 8636 - __ --0 _ _ - ---' -' - _-_ _ _ - DOCID E014 4 OO-g83a- c P L 86-36 SECftE'f SPOKE I Try It You'll Like It u - erTn Sllll we are still on the uphill side of the learning curve with regard to the best uses of OPELINT both on its own and in fusion But the more we learn the more we find we can do And oh yes who f r form s these exotic analytic routines Ordinary Traffic and Special Research fmalysts just 11ke you and me with a more than able assist from -a one NSCOM-trained 98J ELINT Analyst Which Way Did They Go U P The reconstruction of a recent SIGHIT event scenario serves to indicate how valuable a resource FLINT can be in determining exactly what occurrE'l'l We are all capable of using FLINT to its full potential given minimal training and practice Let's bring Fl INT out of the closet and int the spotlight it deserves SOWfTON TO NSA-CROSTIC No 35 Plain reprinted Liners I English by CRYPTOLOG May 1977 from the fiMl issue of C- r-1 ' ' ' ' - ' '11 I If we want all Agency personnel to speak and write plai n English perhaps we should first teach Agf'ncy personnel F n lish If want Agency managenent to write concise active decisive memos perhaps we should first teach Mency managE mf'l lt to be concise active and decisive Let us attack the probl EURI1l notjust hide the symptom EO 1 4 c P L 86-36 Nov R1 If CRYPTOLOG If Page 28 SHCREq J SPOKE P L 86-36 I DOCID 4009838 UNCLASSIFIED What do YOU think Re view uldn't It be Nice if We Could Write Computer Prograns in Ordinary English -- or Would It I D Hill The Computer Bulletin r 19'72 PP 306-Y 13 Although this paper was published nearly a decade ago it is still right on target in an area of cooputer technology that is receiving even more concentrated attention today There are many software designers no seem to think that natural language by which they usually mean everyday conversational English is the ideal medium for ccmmunication between humans and cooputers The arguments for this idea are obv ious we all Imow Engl ish and nobody has to spend a lot of time and money teaching it to us Of course teaching it to cooputers WILL require tremendous amounts of time and money if it is ever really possible at all The natural language enthusiasts are convinced that the vast benefits conferred by computer English will counterbalance the 'costs Proponents of natural language also seem to assume that English is an ideal medii m for humans to specify exact and detailed instructions to cooputers and other humans Hill has presented some very good arguments against this assumption and I believe all of us who are concerned with human-machine systems can profit froo a 'careful consideration of the points he raises If everyday English is ineffectual as a means of conveying exact instructions it certainly isn't worth spending all that money and time to design English-like programming languages Hill's paper presents a very clever and amusing argument against the use of natural English for programming In fact in a halfserious way it suggests that English isn't very good for any precise 'description or instructions intended to guide others' actions instead eople should learn to use an algorittrnic formal language even in specifying procedures for other people as well as in working with computers Hill makes his points about the deficiencies of English very convincingly in spite of the exaggerations implicit in the humorous view he presents He makes some other very interesting points - for example that the unreadableness and general difficulty of legal language tlich attempts to specify something precisely and unambiguously result from the lI1suitability of natural English for this use He gives some amusing examples of people misunderstanding other peoples' descriptions and some more serious ones He uses an ALGOL-like block notation to show the precise meaning or alternative possible meanings of many examples quite effectivel y Cooking rec ipes knitting instructions and musical notation provide further examples of somewhat better specialized subsets of English these are incooplete however and still open to misunderstandings P L HiH makes the further claim that even if a way could be found to enable cooputers truly to understand natural language inputs there remains a much more basic objection English just isn't the right language to nJINK in nile deciding EXACTLY what is the right thing to do We would sacrifice precision and power in the way we think about a problem or task and also in the way we represent the task and possible solutions We would also lose a main advantage of cooputers their reliable obedience in doing exactly what we unambiguously instruct them to do without a chance of misunderstanding It wouldn't really be a help to have computer systems that responded like J leople Ol but I tho ht you meant so-and-so especially i f you the human user never realized that the system wa acting on a totally different Bl1I' SENSIBLE interpretation of your instructions until it was too late for correction Hill suggests that we start by using an algorittrnic form for specifying legal financial matters e g taxes many of nich have to be programmed into cooputers anyway While this idea of using a prograJllling language in ccxnmll1icating with other people seemed bizarre to me at first glance second thought made it more and more convincing English phrases with BEGIN END meaningrul labels judicious use of go-to' s and careful use of parentheses to define scope wi th some other conventi'Ons defining logical implication conjunction and disjll1ction might People could prove a highly useful tool switch to an algorithmic description in this 1anguage whenever they fel t they had not been understood or use it whenever they anticipated difficulty It could be taught in elementary schools especially when terminals and interactive teaching networks becooe commonplace I can 1magine a highly amusing parlor game involving charades or skits called What's my program In this game one team would compose a set of tricky programs for sets of actions to be performed by the other team penalty points would be scored for failure to follow the specifications exactly What do you thi'J Nov 81 o CRYPTOLOG o Page 29 P1-Dec 81-53-11593 UNCLASSIFIED 86-36 DOCI D- -WCr9a-3t ' - '_-- - OO '------ ----- -sEeREf 'fillS BOeln tBN'f EURON'fA INS EUROBBWORB MhTKRlAb This document is from the holdings of The National Security Archive Suite 701 Gelman Library The George Washington University 2130 H Street NW Washington D C 20037 Phone 202 994-7000 Fax 202 994-7005 nsarchiv@gwu edu