Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site watcgl.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!watcgl!dmmartindale From: dmmartindale@watcgl.UUCP (Dave Martindale) Newsgroups: net.micro,net.research,net.cse Subject: Re: First Summary of PC's in Education Survey Message-ID: <2262@watcgl.UUCP> Date: Sat, 17-Mar-84 04:59:30 EST Article-I.D.: watcgl.2262 Posted: Sat Mar 17 04:59:30 1984 Date-Received: Sat, 17-Mar-84 07:05:39 EST References: <3638@utzoo.UUCP> Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario Lines: 23 Could someone explain the background for the debate at U of T? Why is someone choosing a "standard computing environment"? At Waterloo, for reference, the computing environment seems much more varied than at UofT. The lower-year courses are taught on Commodore PETs upgraded by the addition of 6809's, IBM PC's, IBM 4300's running VM/CMS, PDP11's and IBM Series/1's running systems which allow editing of source and then submission of batch jobs on the 4300's, and probably something I've forgotten. Upper year courses are taught on the 4300's again, VAXes, a Honeywell DPS8 machine, and some micros used for specialized things. There is no master plan behind all of this (that I can see, anyway) - the current collection of hardware is due to people's perceptions of needs over the years, various people's experiments, and other random factors. And it will change continuously as time goes on. It may be disorganized, but it's reasonably flexible. For example, someone might decide that the PETs are no longer adequate for the courses which use them. Well, they've served us for several years, and there are only a couple of dozen of them, so replacing them with something else wouldn't be all that painful. (providing that the money could be found at all). Isn't picking one single standard "instructional computer" putting too many eggs in one basket?