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NIC 5655 SUMMARY REPORT: PROJECT MAC J. C. R. Licklider Ed Fredkin, Roger Banks, and others discovered/proved interesting things in the field of cellular automata. Banks' thesis shows that a two-dimensional infinite cellular auto- " mation in which each cell has two states and communicates with its four neighbors can be a universal computer. There are comparable results for finite three-states-per-node automata. There are interesting results for constructors as well as computers . Jack Dennis and Prakesh Habalkar advanced the analysis of the problem of "deadlock" in systems (such as multiple- access computers) that involve subdivision and allocation of limited resources. Habalkar' s thesis presents an improved look-ahead algorithm for avoiding subdivisions and allocations that simultaneously deprive all the users of sufficient resources to proceed. Interim Network Control Programs have been completed for the Multics GE-645 and the Dynamic Modeling/Computer Graphics PDP-10. Editing routines in each computer have been used in an ad-hoc demonstration way from consoles of the other. In graphics experiments conducted with the DM/CG PDP-10, and the Harvard PDP-10, and the Harvard PDP-1, a display pattern was sent from the Harvard 10 to the DM/CG 10, processed by the latter 's Evans and Sutherland LDS-1 processor, and then dis- played on the Harvard 1. Ed Meyer, Tom Skinner, Raj Kanodia, Bob Bressler, Bob Metcalfe, and Howard Brodie are hard at work " on full-fledged NCPs. Multics has become the main time-sharing system at M.I.T. It now operates with 40 concurrent users in single-processor 256-K word configuration, 60-70 concurrent users in dual- processor 384-K word configuration. A design has been completed for a follow-on Multics computer, which the Information Processing Center of M.I.T. intends to purchase. It has a hardware feature that promises to make "ring crossing" system calls as fast as ordinary subroutine calls. Multics has proven hospitable to subsystems, and several (including the Dartmouth System) now operate within Multics . Suhas Patil and Jack Dennis extended the formalism of Petrie Nets (cf. Tolly Holt) in such a way as to define a class of interconnected asynchronous digital modules for which the problem of debugging can be factored neatly into two parts: (1) make sure that the modules work properly as individuals, (2) make sure that the interconnection pattern is correct. " 2 That is to say, for the defined class the problem of inter- actions is eliminated. The number of different kinds of modules required to synthesize a complex computer is not great. The central processor of a computer comparable to the (synchronous) CDC 66 00 could be made, according to an analysis by Dennis and colleagues, with nine kinds of asynchronous " digital modules. At the end of 1970, the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory became an independent laboratory under the co-direction of Marvin Minsky and Seymour Papert. At the same time, Project MAC formalized its main goal for the next several years as the creation of computer systems that will provide very strong assistance to people in substantive work in such areas as management, mathematics, and programming. Selection of that goal was based on a consensus that progress during the 1960 's had brought multiple access to, and a moderate degree of interaction with, computer processes and information—but that the achievement of very strong and productive man-computer teamwork waited upon advances in "storing knowledge in computers (a phrase that, given the proper reading, sums up a lot of our aspirations) and in interacting with "knowledge" rather than merely with editing programs, retrieval programs, and the like. " February 9, 1971 ".