Robert L. Schoenfeld questions were naive, such as, “What is the best operating Rockefeller University, N.Y. system (language)?” One predoctoral neurophysiology student talked to me * WAS INVITED to the People’s Republic of China by about his research project. It involved stimulation with light I Professor Xue-liang Yang, Chairman of Computer Science patterns and recording “single-cell discharge numbers in the Graduate School of Science and Technology, Chinese Acadvisual cortex.” His equipment included a Picasso CRT Image emy of Science. Professor Yang had been an exchange Synthesizer (Innisfree Co., Cambridge, Mass.), an IBM PC scholar at the City College of City University of New York XT, a Lab Master board, a graphics master, DADIO, and a from 1980-82. During this period I spent several afternoons “1st Mate” board. The student was having equipment with him going over his work. His project was to write a trouble; all I could do on the hoof was to make troublemicroprogrammed engine to execute Modula M-Code. shooting suggestions, but the presence of the neurophysiolAfter he returned home, Yang proposed that his City ogy student gave me some reassurance that the audience College mentor, Professor Stanley Habib, and I visit China and was a broad one. give lectures on computer science. This project required two During the first week, I gave one seminar at the Beijing years for approval, but Professor Habib was unable to go in Institute of Computer Application Technology, BICAT. This 1985, so I got the first crack at it. was followed by a banquet given by the Vice President of the When I left for China, I did not really known Xue-liang very Institute. The contrast between the facilities of BICAT and well. He had been gracious, charming, and eager when we the Academy school was impressive. The Academy had a had met, but our contact had been rather limited and series of ancient two story buildings, unheated and poorly constrained by a serious difficulty in communication. Neverlighted, with student dormitory rooms adjoining classrooms, theless, after he returned home, Yang kept sending me little malodorous lavoratories, and badminton courts strung up in gifts and protestations of friendship, which I found slightly the alley ways between buildings. By contrast, BICAT was in embarrassing. an elegant fouror five-story building with a beautiful lobby In the process of negotiation for making the trip, I became decorated with photographs and a dwarf tree exhibition. The aware that the quid pro quo was not trivial. Yang wanted 25 seminar took place in a room reminiscent of the one in which hours of lectures with a focus on distributed computer Nixon and Mao Zedong conferred. It had upholstered chairs systems and local area networks. Since I wanted to tour Xi’an covered with blue slip covers, a beautiful samovar, and and Nanjing as well as Beijing, it was requested that prepare covered tea china on lacy damask alongside every chair. The 10 hours of lectures for presentations at the former cities. BICAT seminar participants were a responsive, argumentaIn advance of the trip, I prepared about 100 pages of typed tive group of professionals, one of whom discussed the notes covering the following topics: biomedical laboratory possibility of designing an expert system for Chinese tradicomputing, multiprocessor architectures and topology, contional medicine. current programming concepts, distributed systems, and During the course of my lectures, Yang took me through local area networks. I mailed the complete text to Yang for the department computer laboratory, upon entering which reproduction a month in advance of the trip and prepared one removes one’s shoes and puts on slippers. The computer Xerox transparencies for the oral presentations. laboratory had about 30 PC’s of various manufacture, several We arrived in Beijing at 10:30 PM on October 3, 1985 after Dual systems, and a Motorola 68000-based system with a traveling 24 hours from New York. At the airport, Professor hard disk running the Unix operating system. It was about 4 Yang was waiting for us, literally with open arms. He walked P.M., but there were no students in the laboratory. I logged us through a perfunctory customs inspection. A driver and on to the Dual system using Yang’s log-in codes. There were car were waiting to take us to the Friendship Village, where only about a dozen files on his main directory, and it looked as we would stay while in Beijing. Before leaving, Yang gave me though not too much work had been done on the system. a schedule of our activities while in Beijing. Professor Yang gave me the penciled draft of a paper he was We would “take a rest” the next day, Friday morning, but writing for presentation at a 1986 international conference in go with Yang to the Summer Palace in the afternoon. On London, entitled “Distributed Systems vs. Local Area NetSaturday, his associate, Xing Junying, a lovely young woman works.” When I got back to the U.S., I “polished” the paper computer scientist, would take us through the Forbidden and sent a typed copy back to Yang. The paper was an City. Another young associate, He Tian, would take us to overview of the definition and description of the two types of Behai Park on Sunday. During the week, from Monday to systems. Yang explained that he felt that many Chinese Saturday, I would give lectures and one additional seminar, institutions and businesses had bought PC’s without any interspersed with touring, shopping, evening banquets, and a clear notion of how to use them. He wanted to be able to ballet. The following Sunday, an all-day trip was scheduled to develop effective local area networks to link mainframes and the Great Wall and the Ming Tombs. I would give lectures on centralized filing and printing resources with individual PC’s. Monday and Tuesday of the next week, rest on Wednesday, Yang had purchased plug-in boards from a Boston company, and fly to Xi’an on Thursday. Proteon Co., to set up a token-ring network. The Academy I finished presenting my prepared material in the first week, was scheduled to get a VAX 11/750 in 1986. Yang was a bad sign. The Chinese students would not say a word, even concerned with connecting the VAX Unibus with both the if asked a direct question. After running out of prepared IBM PC bus and the Dual system S-100 bus. Proteon had material, gave two lectures “off the cuff”; one on Pascal, boards for the first two systems, but not the last one. “‘C,” and Modula 2; the other on the Unix operating system. Yang’s associate Xing Junying specializes in relational Near the end of the week, a few students came up to me databases and distributed database systems.
