How They Wired the Elephant
[excerpt]

By Peter J. Nofel,
Associate Editor

Installing a local area network can be a major undertaking for a business, even under the best of circumstances. Imagine trying to get one up and running during the whoop and holler of a political convention.

Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their party

People pound out that old typing exercise, taking it for granted, hardly thinking of what the words mean, but not Compucorp, Santa Monica, CA.

While the Republican Party might not be "their" party, the computer firm came to the GOP's aid by wiring the "elephant" – providing a local area network at the Republican National Convention in Dallas, Aug. 20 through 23.

It took 60 OmegaMite personal computers acting as workstations, six interconnected networks, 10,000 ft of coaxial cable, a half dozen people, and more, to set up the electronic mail system at the convention.

The use of electronic mail was not just an excuse to give the equipment greater exposure, it provided several important benefits for both delegates and convention organizers:

• Security was improved because there were fewer messengers going to and from the convention floor.
• The convention floor was kept clear of unnecessary people trying to deliver messages.
• Messages were delivered in seconds instead of many minutes.
• Delegates could carry on business back at their homes because they could stay in touch through timely messages.
• Announcements could be broadcast to all of the delegations and provided in writing, without interrupting the speakers at the podium.

Installing a local area network at an event that is a circus, parade, convention, and political rally all rolled into one gives you some idea of the challenge. Wiring the "elephant" began, oddly enough, about two years ago with a football player. Lance Rentzel, a former Dallas Cowboys and Los Angeles Rams wide receiver was then, as he is now, Compucorp's director of government relations.

"I was talking to a friend of mine, Morgan Mason, a special assistant to President Reagan, who said he was going to be involved with the GOP convention," Rentzel says. "As I listened to him, I began to form the idea of offering our computer technology to the Republication National Committee (RNC)."

Eventually, through a number of meetings with several people involved with the convention, Compucorp agreed to provide word and data processing to the convention staff and subcommittees at a reduced rental in exchange for official designation by the GOP.

On Deck
"During the course of getting to know more about the convention, I thought it would be nice to put some systems on the convention floor," Rentzel remembers. "I thought about it for a couple of months, but kept coming back with the problem of justification. There was no real need to provide word processing or database management for the delegations, as we were for the convention subcommittees. Then I hit on it – electronic mail."

The network was set up to handle only electronic mail, and then in only one direction – from the message center to the delegations. But this limit was procedurally set because of circumstances. Once the network was in place, it could have functioned as a full LAN. The limits were placed on it because the RNC preferred to restrict system utility to clearly defined needs.

The use of electronic mail alone was a big time-saver for both delegates and convention officials. Compucorp and AT&T Communications Systems operated a joint message center at the convention, where messages called into the center were written down by telephone operators, and the message form given to the workstation operators. Five OmegaMites were used at the message center, four for electronic mail and one for supervising.

Telephone messages were transferred from paper to a message template called up on the terminals. Once filled in, the message was electronically routed to the correct delegation, where it was received and printed on a thermal printer. The printed message was then put in an envelope and given to the person to whom it was addressed.

"It took an average of 21 seconds to input the message, transmit it, print it, put it into an envelope, and hand it to the proper person or a page," Rentzel says. "We delivered a total of 4,519 messages, an average of 350 per hour." This was a quantum jump in message delivery time compared to the previous system of hand delivery of messages.

It was not uncommon, during a crowded session, to take 35 to 40 minutes to deliver messages with the old system of hand carrying them," says Andy Carter, GOP convention committee project manager for the electronic mail system. "During the course of the convention, message delivery on the convention floor is difficult and time consuming. When the floor gets crowded, access is very limited because of the number of people as well as security reasons."

A Clean Floor
"The ability of the Compucorp network to function without sending people out was a real advantage," Carter says. Other advantages were keeping the floor clear of pages delivery messages, and making security easier because of fewer people entering . . .

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