[SIGCIS-Members] Fwd: Virtuality versus transprency -- trying to locate a quote about the difference

[Dag Spicer]

Dear SIGCIS Friends,

Mike Williams weighs in!

Dag
--
Dag Spicer
Senior Curator
Computer History Museum
Editorial Board, IEEE Annals of the History of Computing
1401 North Shoreline Boulevard
Mountain View, CA 94043-1311

Tel: +1 650 810 1035
Fax: +1 650 810 1055

Twitter: @ComputerHistory

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Michael R. Williams" <m.williams at computer.org<mailto:m.williams at computer.org>>
Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Virtuality versus transprency -- trying to locate a quote about the difference
Date: October 30, 2014 at 12:33:30 PM PDT
To: Dag Spicer <dspicer at computerhistory.org<mailto:dspicer at computerhistory.org>>

Dag,
 I wish I had said this, but I am afraid that this is the first time I have heard it.
Mt memory is not as good as it once was, but I am quite sure that I should not take credit for this one.

I am not a member of the ‎SIGCIS (I am already a member of too many things) so if you would pass this not along to that group it would be nice - Hi to you all
Mike

Michael R. Williams, BSC, PhD, DSc
  Original Message
From: Dag Spicer
Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2014 10:48 AM
To: Michael Williams
Subject: Fwd: [SIGCIS-Members] Virtuality versus transprency -- trying to locate a quote about the difference



On Thu, Oct 30, 2014 at 9:24 AM, David Hemmendinger <hemmendd at union.edu<mailto:hemmendd at union.edu><mailto:hemmendd at union.edu>> wrote:
I heard it from Mike Williams, when he had his professor of computer science hat on! Here's how he said it:

If it is there, but you can't see it, it is transparent.
If it isn't there, but you see it, it is virtual.
If it is there, and you see it, it is real.

For the purposes of symmetry, what if something is not there and you can't see it?

If it isn't there and you can't see it, you're ok.

David
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I heard it from Mike Williams, when he had his professor of computer science hat on! Here’s how he said it:

If it is there, but you can’t see it, it is transparent.
If it isn’t there, but you see it, it is virtual.
If it is there, and you see it, it is real.

For the purposes of symmetry, what if something is not there and you can’t see it?

Paul

From: members-bounces at sigcis.org<mailto:members-bounces at sigcis.org><mailto:members-bounces at sigcis.org> [mailto:members-bounces at sigcis.org] On Behalf Of Thomas Haigh
Sent: Wednesday, October 29, 2014 7:01 PM
To: members at sigcis.org<mailto:members at sigcis.org><mailto:members at sigcis.org>
Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Virtuality versus transprency -- trying to locate a quote about the difference

Hello SIGCIS,

I am trying to locate a quote I remember reading circa 1998. It is something along the lines of “Something virtual isn’t really there but looks as if it is. Something transparent is really there but looks as if it isn’t.” That is of course the computer science sense of transparency as making the work of software invisible a user or process – for example how the network stack shields applications from whatever network media the data is travelling over to present the illusion of a connection.

Google is not helping me. Does anybody know the source and correct wording?

Thanks,

Tom