Excerpt from Working Paper and the Control of Interfaces Compatibility is an essential aspect of conduct and performance in many industries, most notably the information industries. Telecommunications would be unworkable without compatibility, and as commercially-written software, networking, and portability become ever more important compared to stand-alone operation, the computer industry is approaching the same degree of dependence on compatibility.' Compatibility may be achieved through standardization: an explicit or implicit agreement to do certain key things in a uniform way. Standardization occurs when computer manufacturers use the same interfaces for attaching peripherals, when cameras are designed to use a common 35mm film format, or when software designers adopt a common user interface. Standardization in turn may emerge through the independent actions of market participants, through the formal coordination activities of voluntary industry standards committees, or through government action. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.