THE TECHNOLOGY of EXPERT SYSTEMS by Robert H
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FEATURES INTRODUCTION . 100 CIARCIA:S CIRCUIT CELLAR: BUILD THE HOME RUN CONTROL SYSTEM, . PART 1: INTRODUCTION by Steve Ciarcia ... 102 Steve returns to the field of home control in this first part of a three-part-series. COPROCESSING IN MODULA-2 by Colleen Roe Wilson . .... I I 3 ... This method lets you cooperatively process information by interleaved execution on a single computer. A MILLION-POINT GRAPHICS TABLET by James Hawley . ............ 120 Build a graphics pad for less than $200 using the KoalaPad for input. THEMES INTRODUCTION ........ 124 .............. ' •...•' COMMUNICATION WITH ALIEN INTELLIGENCE by Marvin Minsky . ... 126 .. .... .. It may not be as difficult as you would think. THE OUEST TO UNDERSTAND THINKING by Roger Schank and Larry Hunter. .... .......... 143 . It begins not with complex issues but with the most trivial of processes. THE LISP TUTOR by John R. Anderson and Brian J. Reiser.. ..... .. 159 . The system described offers many of the advantages of a human tutor 100 in teaching LISP programming. PROUST by Lewis Johnson and Elliot Soloway .. ... .. 179 W. This LISP program automatically debugs the efforts of novice Pascal programmers. ARCHITECTURES FOR AI by Michael Deering .......... 193 F. .. The right combination of hardware and software is necessary for efficient processing. THE LISP REVOWTION by Patrick H. Winston ..... .... 209 The language is no longer limited to a lucky few. THE CHALLENGE OF OPEN SYSTEMS by Carl Hewitt ... 223 Current logic programming methods may be insufficient for developing the intelligent systems of the future. VISION by Dana H. Ballard and Christopher M. Brown ..... 245 Te chnology is st ill being challenged to create reliable real-time vision systems. LEARNING IN PARALLEL NETWORKS by Geoffrey E. Hinton. ........ 265 . The author presents two theories of how learning could occur in brain-like networks. CONNECTIONS by Jerome A. Feldman. ... 277 .. .... Massively parallel computational models may simulate intelligent behavior more closely than models based on sequential machines. REVERSE ENGINEERING THE BRAIN by John K. Stevens ... 286 ..• ' The brain's circuitry can serve as a model for silicon-based designs. THE TECHNOLOGY OF EXPERT SYSTEMS by Robert H. Michaelsen. Donald Michie. and Albert Boulanger ... ........ .. ' .....303 There's more than one way to transplant expert knowledge to machines. INSIDE AN EXPERT SYSTEM by Beverly A. Thompson and William A. Thompson .315 The authors trace the development of a rule-based system from index cards to a Pascal program. 124 BYTE is published monthly by McGraw-Hill Inc. Founder: James H. McGraw !1860-1948[. Executive. editorial. circulation. and advertis· ing officeI[SSNs: 70 0360-52801 Main St . Peterborough. NH 034 58. phone [603[924·9281. Office hours. Mon-Thur 8:30 AM -4:30 PM. Friday 8:30 AM- 1:00PM.Eastern Time. Address subscriptions to BYTE Subscriptions. 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Printed in the United States of America. 2 BYTE APRIL COVER ILLUSTRATI ON BY ROBE RT TI NNEY • 1985 VOWME 10, NUMBER 4, 1985 REVIEWS INTRODUCTION ...... ................................... 334 . REVIEWER'S NOTEBOOK by Glenn Hartwiq .. 337 THE ITT XTRA by John D. Unqer . .... 338 . ...... An IBM PC-compatible system with telecommunications software. INSIGHT-A KNOWLEDGE SYSTEM by Bruce D'Ambrosio ..... 345 Software to help·you build an expert system and learn about artificial intelligence. REVIEW FEEDBACK . .... 348 Readers respond to pr,evious reviews. KERNEL INTRODUCTION 353 ....................................................... COMPUTING AT CHAOS MANOR: OVER THE MOAT by Jerry Pournelfe . 355 .. .. ......... As construction workers descend on Chaos Manor. Jerry battles the flu to look at more new items. CHAOS MANOR MAIL conducted by Jerry Pournelle . 373 .... ......... .. ........ ... Jerry's readers write. and he replies. WEST COAST. LASERS, OFFICE PUBLISHING, AND MORE by john Markoff and BYTE Phillip Robinson . .. .. .. .. .............................. 379 334 Our West Coast editors report on lnterleaf's OP5-2000 and TP5-2000 and on FastFinder for the Macintosh. · U.K.: NEW DATABASE IDEAS by Dick Pountain . 389 BYTE ....... .................. I.D.E.A. S. is a commercial database-generator package in which all data items are related by a system of coordinates abstracted from the real world. )APAN: THE FIFTH GENERATION IN JAPAN by William M. Raike . 401 BYTE ....... ... ... Our Japan correspondent takes note of the International Conference Generation Computer Systems. the new Hitachi supercomputer. of Fifth and software development in the country. CIRCUIT CELLAR FEEDBACK conducted by Steve Ciarcia . , ........ 408 ............ ..... Steve answers project-related queries from readers. 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Where necessary. permission is granted by the copyright owner for libraries and others registered with the Copyright Clearance Center !CCC) to photocopy any article herein for the flat fee of per copy of the article or any part thereof. Correspondence and payment should be sent directly to the CCC. 29 Congress St.. Salem. MA 01970. SpecifySl.SO tSSN 0360-5280/83. 5!.50. Copying done for other than personal or internal reference use without the permis- sion of McGraw-Hill Inc. is prohibited. Requests for special permission or bulk orders should be addressed to the publisher. BYTE is available in microform from University Microfilms International. 300 North Zeeb Rd.. Dept. PR. Ann Arbor. Ml 48\06 or 18 Bedford Row. Dept. PR. london WCJR 4El England. Subscription questions or problems should be addressed to: BYTE Subscriber Service. POB 328. Hancock. NH 03449 e SECfiON ART BY DOUGLAS SMITH APRIL 1985 BY T E 3 • I·N·T·E·L·L·I·G·E·N·C·E THE TECHNOLOGY OF EXPERT SYSTEMS BY ROBERT H. MICHAELSEN, DONALD MICHIE, AND ALBERT BOULANGER Transplanting expert knowledge to machines THE PURPOSE OF this article is to in analysis is successful. the computer ferentiate. pursue and test hypothesis. troduce expert systems. Initially. we'll program based on this analysis will be explore and refine. ask general ques define these systems. Next. we'll able to solve the narrowly defined tions. and make a decision (see ref discuss methods for building them. in problems as well as an expert. (For a erence II). cluding the advantages and disadvan discussion of successful expert sys Experts are capable of tages of each method. Finally, we'll tems. see reference 2 .) review the computer resources Experts typically solve problems Applying their expertise to the solu needed to build and run expert that are unstructured and ill-defined. •tion of problems in an efficient man systems. usually in a setting that involves ner. They are able to employ plausi diagnosis or planning. They cope with ble inference and reasoning from in DEFINITION this lack of structure by employing complete or uncertain data. Expert systems are a class of com heuristics. which are the rules of Explaining and justifying what they puter programs that can advise. thumb that people use to solve prob do.• analyze. categorize. communicate. lems when a lack of time or under Communicating well with other ex- • consult. design. diagnose. explain ex standing prevents an analysis of all the (continuedi plore. forecast. form concepts. iden: parameters involved. Likewise. expert Robert H. Michaelsen is an assistant professor tify. interpret. justify. learn. manage. systems employ programmed heuris- of accounting at the University of Nebraska monitor. plan. present. retrieve. tics to solve problems. Figure I is an (Lincoln. NE 68588-0488). He received his schedule. test. and tutor. They ad example of a complex heuristic used Ph.D. in accountancy from the University of dress problems normally thought to by TAXADVISOR. an expert system