Talk:High Performance Computing Act of 1991

Needs detail
Sorry, but I don't get it. Just what does this have to do with "taking the initiative to create the Internet"? Specifically, what did the Act to promote the Internet, or make it bigger or faster or cheaper? Or anything like that? --Uncle Ed (talk) 00:32, 29 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Try reading the bill and the numerous experts that state that this bill was specifically what created the internet. Al Gore is one of the five or so most important individuals for giving you the ability to use Wikipedia.  He is, however, not in the top three.  Roberts, Perlman, Kahn and Cerf were the four people who gave you the nuts and bolts.  Al Gore is the one who forced the bill through, and he did force the bill through by all accounts because no one but him thought is was all that important at the time.  Basically the bill allowed you to access the internet, and the rest is history.  I'd pop you some sources but all of this info is readily available through google if you want to spend 5 minutes reading about it.  151.213.208.239 (talk) 23:06, 2 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank you for this encouraging news, my nameless benefactor! I'm glad to know that all I need to do is read the bill or spend 5 minutes on google to find out about what this article is supposed to be telling us.


 * But perhaps I didn't make my point: I was hoping that the article itself would answer the questions I raised.


 * Can you give me a list of the numerous experts that state that this bill was specifically what created the Internet, so that I can put them in the article? Along with their names, can you tell me which provisions of the article helped us to access the Internet and use Wikipedia? If you can do this in 5 minutes, it would save me countless hours, because I spent a lot of time looking already and couldn't find anything; hence, my question. --Uncle Ed (talk) 21:49, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Actually Ed, it was Sarah Palin and Liz Cheney who took the initiative to create the Internet. Not sure where I heard that, I think it was one of those fringe right media outlets who claim Al Gore said he "invented it". I have no doubt you are familiar with several of them. Cosand (talk) 22:38, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Ed you won't find any such information, this bill is one of many steps that is part of the ongoing creation that is the internet. This article frankly overstates the importance of this bill. If you want a good overview of the history of the internet go here http://www.nethistory.info/index.html 75.163.76.81 (talk) 19:52, 22 July 2012 (UTC) me

Unused sources
Moving these from the article: Disavian (talk) 00:05, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Gore, Al. "Infrastructure for the global village: computers, networks and public policy." Scientific American Special Issue on Communications, Computers, and Networks, September 1991. 265(3): 150–153.
 * ---."Information Superhighways: The Next Information Revolution." The Futurist, January–February 1991, Vol. 25: 21-23.
 * --- and et al.High Performance Computing Act of 1991 ,
 * ---."The Digitization of Schools," BusinessWeek, 10 December 1990.
 * ---."Networking the Future: We Need a National Superhighway for Computer Information", The Washington Post, 15 July 1990:B3.
 * ---."Congressional Record: Presentation on the National High Performance Computer Technology Act" and "Opening Remarks before the Senate Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Space by Senator Al Gore" in "National high performance computer technology act: SIGGRAPH and national high-tech public policy issues" by Donna J. Cox, Computer Graphics, Volume 23, Issue 4, August 1989: 276-280.
 * Agre, Phil. Who Invented "Invented"?:Tracing the Real Story of the "Al Gore Invented the Internet" Hoax. 17 October 2000
 * Bush, George H.W. "Remarks on Signing the High-Performance Computing Act of 1991, 9 December 1991.
 * Campbell-Kelly, Martin; Aspray, William. Computer: A History of the Information Machine. New York: BasicBooks, 1996.
 * Chapman, Gary and Marc Rotenberg. The National Information Infrastructure:A Public Interest Opportunity. In Computers, Ethics, & Social Values. Deborah G. Johnson and Helen Nissanbaum (eds.). Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1995: 628-644.
 * Kahn, Bob and Vint Cerf. Al Gore and the Internet. 29 September 2000.
 * Kleinrock, Leonard, Bob Kahn, Vint Cerf, et al. A Brief History of the Internet. 10 December 2003
 * LaQuey, Tracy. The Internet Companion:A Beginner's Guide to Global Networking (2nd edition), 1994.
 * Lee, Cynthia and Linda Steiner Lee. Gore Details Telecommunications Ideas. UCLA TODAY, Vol. 14, #9, January 13, 1994:1, 4. (The Superhighway Summit)
 * Stix, Gary. Gigabit Gestalt: Clinton and Gore embrace an activist technology policy. Scientific American, May, 1993.
 * Highways of the Mind or Toll Roads Between Information Castles? – Whole Earth Review (issue #70), 1991.

Development and passage -- statement attributed to George H. W. Bush
This Wikipedia page currently has one sentence about George H. W. Bush signing the HPC Act into law:

“President George H. W. Bush predicted that the Act would help "unlock the secrets of DNA," open up foreign markets to free trade, and a promise of cooperation between government, academia, and industry.[9]"

Reference 9 is: Bush, George H. W. (9 December 1991). "Remarks on Signing the High-Performance Computing Act of 1991". bushlibrary.tamu.edu. George Bush Presidential Library. Retrieved 2008-01-16.

This sentence also appears at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore_and_information_technology, which has the following reference:

Bush, George H.W. (1991-12-09). "Remarks on Signing the High-Performance Computing Act of 1991". bushlibrary.tamu.edu. George Bush Presidential Library. Archived from the original on 10 January 2008. Retrieved 2008-01-16.

The word “Archived” is a link to https://web.archive.org/web/20080110001546/http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu/research/public_papers.php?id=3723&year=1991&month=12.

Proposed rewrite of the sentence:

In signing the bill into law, President George H. W. Bush stated that the “program will help researchers meet the grand challenges in science” such as to "unlock the secrets of DNA", and that the program is “an excellent example of how Government, industry, and academia can work together to develop new and important technologies.”

Proposed edit to the reference:

Replace it with the one at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore_and_information_technology.

Reasons for edits to the text:

(1) At the signing ceremony, Bush said the following about DNA:

“This program will help researchers meet the grand challenges in science: To unlock the secrets of DNA, to forecast severe weather events, and to discover new superconducting materials.”

The proposed rewrite quotes part of this: “program will help researchers meet the grand challenges in science” and cites unlocking the secrets of DNA as an example. (“Grand Challenges” appears in the HPC Act, “DNA” does not.)

(2) At the signing ceremony, Bush said the following about foreign markets and free trade:

“In addition to these critical investments in R&D, we've been working to prepare America to compete in the next century by opening up foreign markets to U.S. export through a new GATT round and a North American free-trade agreement, proposing tax policies, such as making permanent R&D tax credit, and reducing taxes on capital gains to promote long-term investment, and preparing our work force to compete through sharp increases in funding for math and science education and through our America 2000 broad reform initiative.”

He did not say that the HPC Act would "open up foreign markets to free trade", and the proposed rewrite doesn’t either.

(3) At the signing ceremony, Bush said the following about Government, academia, and industry:

“The high-performance computing initiative is an excellent example of the philosophy of this administration: To invest in the future, to create new jobs and new opportunities for sustained economic growth. It is also an excellent example of how Government, industry, and academia can work together to develop new and important technologies.”

Bush did not say that the initiative held "a promise of cooperation between government, academia, and industry." Rather, he said that the high-performance computing initiative was an example of how the three sectors "can work together to develop new and important technologies", which, as the Act describes, they were already doing.

''Disclaimer: From 1992 to 2007 I worked at the National Coordination Office for HPCC. OSTP established the NCO in 1992 to coordinate the program authorized by the HPC Act of 1991. The HPCC Program is now the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) Program.''

Seaquill (talk) 16:22, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on High Performance Computing Act of 1991. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20061001232135/http://www.nal.usda.gov/pgdic/Probe/v1n1_2/info.html to http://www.nal.usda.gov/pgdic/Probe/v1n1_2/info.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 11:46, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on High Performance Computing Act of 1991. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070609213537/http://www.law.indiana.edu/fclj/pubs/v46/no3/blake.html to http://www.law.indiana.edu/fclj/pubs/v46/no3/blake.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 16:07, 3 November 2017 (UTC)