As the
meeting began, President Carter joked that although he had requested the
meeting, at 70 he was really "too old" to be learning about the Internet.
Professor Terry Sullivan, director of PRESIDENT, assured both the Carters
that everyone there was very familiar with the concerns President Carter
voiced and that we looked forward to convincing them both that the
Internet was a valuable information resource.
The demonstration utilized a SPARC-20 workstation provided by a Sunsite corporate partner, Sun Microsystems, Inc. Robert Bowman, Vice President of Sun for the Eastern Division, is seated three down from Mrs. Carter. In addition to this machine, named "Sport" (after one of President Carter's poems), Sun provided three slave screens connected by an additional driver. The other three screens allowed Carter Center staff and representatives from each of the cooperating partners to view the demonstration. In addition, Sun provided a new Voyager laptop to act as a backup machine and to monitor network performance. Georgia Tech and Southern Bell brought into the library a new but temporary DSN line which afforded the Carters impressive performance. Gordon Wishon, the Director of GATech's Office of Information Technology, is in the background, closest to Mrs. Carter. Carnegie-Mellon and its crew at Lycos also stood by with a special connection for the Carters in case they were interested in searching the Web for useful information. Staff at Sunsite.unc.edu also stood by monitoring network performance.
The presentation covered
answers to four questions:
Answering the first three questions presented a brief overview of the PRESIDENT project. These three sections lasted about 10 minutes followed by questions from the Carters. The last section introduced an actual demonstration of the PRESIDENT project, including an exhibit on the Camp David Accords.
This section briefly covers the most important points of the meeting. Selecting here, you can view the full presentation to the Carters.
What is PRESIDENT?
Following the presentation, President
and Mrs. Carter graciously offered to have their pictures taken with all
of the staff who had worked so hard to help them with this presentation.
The following are some of those pictures (l to r):
Finally, you can visit SunSITE-USA, UNC Chapel
Hill, one of the premier information resources on the world wide
Internet.
Why Carolina & Why the
Carter Library?
Professor Sullivan made the
following points about UNC Chapel Hill and the Carter Library Project:
In the question and answer session,
President Carter was most concerned about ways in which the general public
could get access to PRESIDENT and how to get his own computer set up to
access the Internet. Gordon Wishon volunteered the services of Georgia
Tech (President Carter is an alumnus) and they scheduled a meeting for two
days later.
The
Carters then viewed a demonstration using materials from the Carter
Library and focussing on the Camp David
Accords. After that, President Carter spent some time looking at the
Internet Poetry Archives
on Sunsite. Professor Sullivan suggested that IPA could present some
drafts of his poems and a reading. President Carter agreed to do
that.
Staff involved in the
presentation.
The Carters with
Mr. John Mullin, Director of Planning and Programs at OIT, Georgia
Tech.
Professor Paul
Jones, Director of Sunsite.unc.edu, the Carters, and Mr. Richard Bowman,
Vice President Atlantic and Southeastern Region, Sun Microsystems.
Professor Terry
Sullivan, Director of PRESIDENT and Mr. Gordon Wishon, Director of OIT at
Georgia Tech with the Carters.
Not pictured, but who participated:
Select here for photographic credits.
Select Here for One of These Related Web
Resources
Select Sunsite Classic, the Internet Resource
Visit the LIA archives, UNC Chapel
Hill home of the Presidential Libraries IDEA Network and other useful
information resources. Or go directly to the Jimmy Carter
Presidential Library to locate other materials related to the Carter
Administration and information about the Carter Library's special project
for the Atlanta 1996 Olympics. Go to PRESIDENT, the
Presidential Libraries IDEA Network for an overview of the presidential
libraries and their holdings. Or visit the Clinton White House.
Photographic Credits
All of the photographs in this presentation -- Wittmayer
Photographers, Inc., Atlanta, Georgia.
Return to Carter presentation.
Return to What's New on PRESIDENT.
Select here for PRESIDENT.