RFC 1003 (rfc1003) - Page 1 of 7
Issues in defining an equations representation standard
Alternative Format: Original Text Document
Network Working Group Alan Katz
Request for Comments: 1003 USC/ISI
March 1987
Issues in Defining an Equations Representation Standard
Status of This Memo
This memo is intended to identify and explore issues in defining a
standard for the exchange of mathematical equations. No attempt is
made at a complete definition and more questions are asked than are
answered. Questions about the user interface are only addressed to
the extent that they affect interchange issues. Comments are
welcome. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
I. Introduction
Since the early days of the Arpanet, electronic mail has been in
wide use and many regard it as an essential tool. Numerous mailing
lists and newsgroups have sprung up over the years, allowing large
numbers of people all over the world to participate remotely in
discussions on a variety of topics. More recently, multimedia mail
systems have been developed which allow users to not only send and
receive text messages, but also those containing voice, bitmaps,
graphics, and other electronic media.
Most of us in the Internet community take electronic mail for
granted, but for the rest of the world, it is a brand new
capability. Many are not convinced that electronic mail will be
useful for them and may also feel it is just an infinite time sink
(as we all know, this is actually true). In particular, most
scientists (apart from computer scientists) do not yet use, or are
just beginning to use, electronic mail.
The current NSF supercomputer initiative may change this. Its
primary purpose is to provide remote supercomputer access to a much
greater number of scientists across the country. However, doing
this will involve the interconnection of many university-wide
networks to NSF supercomputer sites and therefore to the NSF
backbone network. Thus, in the very near future we will have a
large number of scientists in the country suddenly able to
communicate via electronic mail.
Generally, text-only mail has sufficed up until now. One can dream
of the day (not so far in the future) when everyone will have
bitmapped display workstations with multimedia mail systems, but we
can get by without it for now. I believe, however, that the new NSF
user community will find one other capability almost essential in
making electronic mail useful to them, and that is the ability to
Katz
