Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, September 8, 1994 TAG: 9409080054
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-8 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: DUBLIN LENGTH: Medium
NASA engineer Gary Warren addressed the school's board and other area educators about the project Tuesday.
Computer engineers like to use fiber-optic cable and other high-expense items for demonstration projects, Warren said, but this one uses existing telephone technology and is more affordable. ``A model is not a model unless people can develop that model,'' he said.
The secret is a computer language called TCP/IP, which stands for Transport Communications Protocol/Internet Protocol, a networking standard accepted worldwide.
The language makes it easy for computers to share data with other computers around the world.
A box of electronic components that translates various computer languages into TCP/IP is the secret to putting schools on the Internet, Warren said, so students and teachers can access material from the Library of Congress, Smithsonian Institution and hundreds of other libraries and places across the country.
The box, which has about eight functions including routing languages and acting as a file server, costs about $8,600, he said. He had one set up at the Governor's School with several computers hooked into it.
It allows schools with many kinds of computers to get on the Internet with existing equipment, rather than extending fiber-optic cable to every school, he said.
The program that will link the schools, called Mosaic, could bring a wealth of data to schools in the Governor's School service area. The cost would be about $50 a year per school in addition to start-up expenses, some of which might be covered under a NASA grant.
The setup would be similar to that of the Blacksburg Electronic Village. But people who will use this program will use lower-cost modems, while some electronic village users have access to pricier, faster "ethernet" connections, the Internet backbone.
There would also be line charges, membership costs and the expense of full- or part-time computer operators, but those costs drop if a school system signs on for more than a year at a time. Warren said Mosaic offers information to students of all ages.
NASA has a small segment of its supercomputer and programming budget set aside for educational programs like this to help its public image, Warren said. ``We get accused of playing in our own sandbox, that NASA doesn't help out the rest of the country that much.''
by CNB