Draft IT Dictionary Now Available on the Web


WASHINGTON DC -- December 13, 1999 -- A working draft of the Millennial Edition of American National Standard Dictionary of Information Technology (ANSDIT) is now available on the Web.  Karen Higginbottom, Chairman of NCITS, announced that the National Committee for Information Technology Standards (NCITS) released the first "Draft" of the Millennial Edition of the ANSDIT for public use.  It is available on the Web at http://www.ncits.org (click on Draft Dictionary).  This hypertext version of the dictionary can be browsed.  "The ANSDIT is a valuable resource that NCITS felt should be made available to the public throughout its development," noted Ms. Higginbottom.

This draft was prepared by the members of NCITS K5 and Gene Dwyer, Project Editor for NCITS Technical Committee K5 (Vocabulary).  It is based on the 1996 Edition of the American National Standard X3-172 of the same name, which evolved over the last 30 years.  Several hundred entries are being added prior to the official public review, which is expected to begin in the second half of the year 2000.

The draft currently contains approximately 2,800 entries ranging from abbreviated address calling to zooming, with some 70 illustrations, covering many areas of information technology, such as artificial intelligence, computer programming, computer hardware, data communications, virtual reality, and the World Wide Web. Readers are encouraged to comment on its content by e-mail to the Chairman of K5, Helmut E. Thiess at hthiess@erols.com.  Readers wishing to join K5 should go to http://www.ncits.org/tc_home/k5htm/wordsmith.htm.

For additional information on NCITS and any of its activities, please contact Monica Vago at 202-626-5739 or mvago@itic.org.

NCITS is sponsored by the Information Technology Industry Council (ITI). ITI is the association of leading U.S. providers of information technology products and services. It advocates growing the economy through innovation and supports free-market policies. ITI members had worldwide revenue of more than $440 billion in 1998 and employ more than 1.2 million people in the United States.

The National Committee for Information Technology Standards is an ANSI Accredited Committee which develops American National
Standards for Information Technology.

NCITS's mission is to produce market-driven, voluntary consensus standards in the areas of:

        multimedia (MPEG/JPEG),
        intercommunication among computing devices and information systems (including the Information Infrastructure, SCSI-2
        interfaces, Geographic Information Systems),
        storage media (hard drives, removable cartridges),
        database (including SQL3),
        security, and
        programming languages (such as C++).

NCITS' membership is comprised of many IT-related companies such as Apple Computer, AT&T, Compaq Computer, Hewlett-Packard,
Lucent Technologies, Sony, Sun Microsystems, Unisys and Xerox Corporation. Many IT corporate users such as DOD and NIST also
participate.