European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - December 14, 1993, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Computer network is music to ears by Dav Walczak assistant City editor he song was right out of close encounters of the third kind but it was the technology piping the music into Orlando fla., that had the audience thinking about the extraterrestrial. And rightly so. For without fiber optic cables and defense department satellites the film s song conversations would have fallen on deaf ears inside the Orlando Marriott world Center. The listeners in Orlando were attending the 1993 interservice Industry training systems and education conference. The four Day Assembly late last month Drew t More than 2,000 educators computer firm sales representatives and defense department leaders to test and display the latest in High tech gadgetry. Cen. Cordon r. Sullivan the army chief of staff addressed the gathering and education Secretary Richard Riley watched the proceedings via satellite. The students providing the rendition of the Hollywood song stretched from Germany to South Korea to Kentucky. Thanks to computer technology the Dodds students on three continents jointly performed the song on computers which sent the music Between the four schools and into Orlando. Computer driven keyboards and music synthesizers in each school allowed the students to hear and alter portions of conversations students at the different Sites folded specific portions which were then blended into a Complete version and played in Orlando. The music was Only one part of what Dodds educators Call the defense simulation internet. The computer network carries a Price tag in excess of $1 million and links student work stations at Ramstein High school and Stuttgart s Patch High school in Germany Seoul High school in South Korea and fort Knox High school in Kentucky. Bart Lagomarsino headed the Dpi foray. The school system s Deputy director compared his Dpi role to that of stage manager rather than that of orchestra director. Quot we wanted someone fairly High ranking to be closely connected to the project to show that we Are serious about it Quot he said in a Telephone interview from Orlando where Dodds ran a  with the Pentagon s defense modelling and simulation organization were vital to the birth of the Dpi concept. Quot Dodds did t really have anyone in House who was that familiar with the modelling and simulation capabilities available to them so Dimso stepped in to help them Quot said a Dimso official. Lagomarsino spent months coordinating Dpi with a White House official defense department agencies and school system educators to ensure the network came on line by september. None of the Dpi hardware software or Cable links were in place when the school year began aug. 30, but by mid september All of it was connected and running at the four schools. The Money for Dpi came As part of the 1993 defense. Authorization act. Continued congressional interest in such High tech computer programs is spelled out in the 1994 version of the act passed last  1994 act targets $5 million Quot to continue the in Many ways the defense simulation internet reaches into the utopian world of education. In the internet workplace at Ramstein High school Germany for example students work together Homework does t exist and learning is bounded Only by the minds of each participant. It helps of course that the students Are volunteers ensuring that no one in the computer workroom w Ould rather be someplace else. It helps even More that Ramstein s computer room worker bees Are among the Best and brightest of the 650-member student body. Quot it s always easier to take the most highly motivated students and work with them Quot said Bart Lagomarsino the department of defense dependants schools Deputy director who spearheaded the Effort to get internet functioning at Ramstein and three other schools. Still he argued the computer system Quot is not something for the elite. It has the capability of much More Quot he said such As providing every student with visual images of abstract concepts. One such Eye stopper comes As part of the Dpi galaxies program. To use it students enter measurements associated w Ith known or conceptual galaxies such As Speed size and time measured in Bil on of years. The data is sent via computer to a Mega Puter at the University of Illinois in Champaign. It Brant Lardie a senior w to has spent hours on the galaxies program describes the Illinois computer As Quot a big number Cruncher Quot capable of performing 86 million calculations per second. The computer sends Back a mathematical Model in the form of Galaxy in vivid color. Brant s hypothetical Galaxy took the form of a mass that seemed to. Implode then explode with the Galaxy s remnants slowly pulled from its Core. His conclusion based on the Law of Gravity something bigger than anything conceivable is pulling the largest known entity apart. And what is that something Brant could Only shrug. Rick Ratchner a Ramstein faculty member says programs such As galaxies allow students to go beyond the limits of traditional science education. In typical classroom settings Quot we teach problems we already have the answers to Quot he said. Quot with this program there Are no known outcomes. Students can t go to a teacher and say were the results right Quot atop one Dpi work station a camera resembling an electronic Pencil Sharpener focuses on the work station user. The device enables a user sitting at a similar work station in Seoul South Korea for example to see a fellow worker at  Yardley the Ramstein High school music teacher who spent hours at the school s internet lab described the music program As Quot the Ferrari Model Quot of Apple computers made to order for Bright talented students. A Dave Walczak Lisa olde plays a computer driven keyboard at Ramstein Abas music teacher Kent Yardley looks on. A amps John Botimer development and deployment of a Long distance learning program to link Dodds schools together and to link the Dodds system to appropriate education institutions in the United  the Titan corp., headquartered in Southern California was the key contractor for Dpi. The firm has worked with defense department planners in developing technologies used in War game simulations according to Chuck Prater a systems Engineer to Titan. Neither Prater nor Lagomarsino would disclose financial terms of the Dpi contract except to say that More than $250,000 in equipment was in place at each of the four schools. A Dodds source familiar with some aspects of the project said Dpi was purchased through an ongoing classified defense contract. The computer network in place at the High schools is connected to defense department satellites. At Ramstein for example the school s Dpi computers Are linked by phone Cable to the building that serves As the communication Hub for . Air forces in Europe. The four schools were chosen in part because of the ease in connecting them to defense networks Logomarsino said. Despite All the work that went into Dpi prior to the recent Hookup no one connected to it was willing to predict that the music Experiment would go off without a hitch Logomarsino said. A Quot we had sophisticated and knowledgeable technicians with their fingers crossed Quot he said. Quot it s not like using the Telephone  most of the Dpi equipment will remain in place at the Fizur schools until the end of the school year. A private Fiji will evaluate the educational effectiveness of the High tech system for Dodds. I Lagomarsino held out Little Hope that Dpi immediately will extend into More schools because it costs too much but i expect that will change Quot he said. Quot i see the Pegram As a jump in technological capability that s going to come Down in  staff writer Chuck Vlinch in Washington contributed to Thea report internet opens new world defense simulation internet four Dodds school locations were linked by computer As part of the defense simulation internet allowing students to work with each other simultaneously. Students from the four schools blended their musical ideas via the Dpi network for a demonstration of the system at the Orlando conference. I v at your fingertips libraries of the future a a a p i. A Quot amp j National geographic researchers pore Over volumes the old fashioned Way in the main Reading room of the Library of Congress by Donald Smith National geographic of Aren t sleeping Well. The faucet is dripping. You have a headache. But mostly you re driving yourself nuts trying to remember when Hank Aaron hit his 715th Homer thus breaking the record of the immortal babe Ruth. Finally at 4 . You Roll Over in bed and groggily address your computer a fuzzy beige sli1k5000 sitting in a Corner of the room the tiny red Light on its built in Load of lightning inst Modem pulsing Jike a Distant Star. Quot hey Ralph Quot you Call out. Quot when did Aaron hit his 715th Homer Quot Ralph s dark rectangular Eye blinks once almost imperceptibly. Quot april 8,1974,&Quot the machine purrs. Quot would you like to see a video simulation of the game Quot Quot nah maybe later. Thanks Ralph Quot you murmur already Drifting Back into blessed sleep. Something like this Middle of the night activity is perfectly plausible in the not Distant future according to pioneers in the booming multimedia electronic information Industry. Quot if you Wake up with a thought in your mind right now the Only Way to get an answer is get dressed go to the Library and find a Book. It s a far different ballgame if you can simply stumble out of bed to the nearest computer Quot says Robert a Dierker of the Library of Congress and there Are already voice activated programs on the Market Quot Dierker the Library s senior adviser for Quot multimedia activities foresees a Day when virtually the entire sum of human knowledge a the contents of All the world s great libraries a will be instantly available to anyone with a computer anywhere on the Globe. And that s not All. This ultimate Library of the future will consist not Only of printed words but also of photographs film Vileo animations and sound recordings All flowing from the computer on command. A preview of this information future can be seen at the Library s National demonstration Laboratory for interactive information technologies. A set up in the atrium of the Library s Madison building on Capitol Hill the Laboratory is a wonderland of cutting Edge computer hardware and software a some off computer store shelves and others under development and still unavailable to Consumers. The lab s stars Are the elaborate multimedia information programs loaded into the Banks of computers Coni pact disc and laser disc players spread around the floor. / one elaborate program focuses entirely on Alfred lord Tennyson s poem Ulysses. Instead of just Reading the poem a viewer can investigate a whole world of information about the work dazzlingly presented by manipulating the computer s mouse. Instead of one teacher the viewer a through film clips viewpoint to discuss any key passage the viewer chooses the accessible future already has arrived for thousands of americans who have inspected on their own computer screens a remarkable collection of once secret a documents from the archives of thie former soviet Union. These papers which include private correspondence of the founder of the soviet state himself Vladimir Lenin were made available to the american Public by the russian government. They were put on the Public s computers by the Library of Congress through a commercial on line subscription service. Quot the number of people who saw these papers electronically far surpassed those that personally saw the exhibit at the Library Dierker said. Quot and today even though the documents have been taken Back to Russia and Are no longer available because of a change in policy the Hole in the Wall was created and people can still get  the Library of Congress own extensive collection of some 100 million books prints photographs maps and other items makes it the largest Library in the world with 45 Miles of shelving. The idea of putting this collection into electronic form and making it available to the Public was first tested in a Pilot program called american memory. Since 199q the Library has been building an embryonic electronic Library drawn from its collections that pertain to american history and culture. Last october librarian of Congress James h. Billington went further initiating a three year program to develop a More comprehensive plan for converting More of the Library s collection to electronic formats. Eventually the Library expects to be Able to allow computer users to electronically link up with other major libraries throughout the world that Are also converting their collections such As the  National in Paris. 16 the stars and stripes tuesday december 14,1993 the stars and stripes 17