Subject: categories: Vaughan, in the real world

From: Peter Freyd <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 Feb 1999 10:23:57 -0500 (EST)

Now who says that people on this net are just too theoretical?

   The Chronicle of Higher Education   
                                From the issue dated February 26, 1999

Stanford Computer-Science Professor Creates a Pocket-Sized Web Server

By KELLY McCOLLUM   

Watch where you step in the computer-science department at Stanford
University. There may be a Web server hiding under that scrap of
paper.

Vaughan Pratt, a professor of computer science at Stanford, has
created what he says is the world's smallest World-Wide Web server, a
computer that is capable of sending images, sounds, or text to Web
surfers around the world. But unlike most such computers, Mr. Pratt's
Web server is not quite as tall and wide as a business card, and only
a quarter of an inch thick.

Mr. Pratt says he made the device "initially just for the impact."
But, he says, the computer also makes a point about the shrinking size
and cost -- and growing power -- of general-purpose computers like his
Web server.

"Fifty years ago, a computer with less computational power than a
modern pocket calculator filled a whole room, and ran programs
consisting of only a few hundred instructions," Mr. Pratt says on his
Web site. "Today we can fit the extensive software needed to drive a
World-Wide Web server into a computer the size of a box of matches."
The Web server was partially an answer to the previous record holder,
a tiny server designed by a software company in Cambridge, Mass. That
earlier server was an "embedded system" -- a computer constructed to
perform a specific task. Embedded systems are useful because they are
inexpensive and run their programs reliably. General-purpose machines,
like personal computers, have multiple uses, but are more complex and
expensive.

However, says Mr. Pratt, the general-purpose computers have dropped so
far in price that they may be more economical than embedded systems in
some cases. And in the case of a Web server, a general-purpose machine
is desirable because its software can be easily replaced or upgraded.
Mr. Pratt's server uses a 486 processor, like those found in older
personal computers, and runs the Linux operating system. He adapted
the Web server from a computer that costs about $400. The challenge
was paring down the powerful Linux operating system to fit into the
server's 16 megabytes of storage space and getting it to communicate
with the Internet.

The tiny computer's only job so far has been self-promotion: It serves
up a Web pag with photographs of itself, information about its
hardware, and detailed instructions for creating similar servers
(http://wearables.stanford.edu/).

According to Mr. Pratt, the server has sent out about 120,000 pages in
the past month. He says it could handle a hit per second, although it
hasn't been that busy yet.

The hardware that makes the server possible is what is commonly called
a "computer on a chip." Unlike most personal computers, which are
built from many pieces of hardware -- a processor, memory chips, a
hard drive, and so on -- the tiny server has all its components
integrated on a single circuit board. That concept has been
increasingly used in the personal-computer industry, which has begun
integrating components like sound cards and modems as a way of cutting
manufacturing costs.

Mr. Pratt adds that wearable computers -- complete with eyeglass
displays and wrist-mounted keyboards -- are prime uses of tiny
computers like his Web server.

Mr. Pratt says the tiny server would probably not work for a Web site
with heavy traffic. But it could be useful where a server was needed
only temporarily or where a mobile server was necessary -- perhaps for
scientists hoping to serve up pages from remote places.

  _________________________________________________________________   

http://chronicle.com
Section: Information Technology
Page: A25