Imagine two mathematicians working at a blackboard, discussing their work as it develops; imagine three students sitting around a workstation, working on a homework assignment with the help of a mathematics system such as Maple or Matlab. What if one of the mathematicians is in Philadelphia, and the other is in Mumbay? What if two of the students are in their dorm rooms while the third is at her parents' home?

TechTalk is a mathematical collaboration system for the World Wide Web. It enables a group of people in different locations to perform calculations, generate graphical output, and discuss their results. It allows them to interact as though they were in the same room, even if they are located in different parts of the world. TechTalk attempts to simulate one or more rooms with several people with access to Maple and Matlab in each room (imagine all the people in a room looking at the same screen, but each with a separate keyboard). Since people sitting in a room tend to talk to each other, TechTalk includes support for conversation. All a user needs a Java-enabled web browser to participate in a TechTalk session.

From:
TechTALK:
A Web based system for mathematical collaboration
by Lakshman Y. N., Michael R. Miller

- Dr. Y. N. Lakshman
- Santiago V. Lombeyda
    A L U M N I
- Michael R. Miller
- Todd C. Zino
- Hoi Man Chang