ABSTRACT
The first international meeting to set standards for data communications was held in Paris in 1865 to discuss interconnection of telegraph systems. Since that time, an elaborate network of institutions and procedures have grown up which attempt to coordinate the development of standards for telecommunications in general and data communications in particular. Standards axe written rules of uniform practice which facilitate interconnection in the physical sense between various machines. The X.25 protocol contains software rules for information interchange, as well as, specifying the lower layers of the ISO model which includes data-link and physical layers. The other layers are software, resident in IBM's processing equipment, and are transparent to the user. The art and science of communicating, especially where machines are involved, requires the establishment of standards and protocols by mutual agreement. The standards and protocols are emerging and converging slowly but caution must be exercised.
