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Path: utzoo!utcsrgv!peterr
From: peterr@utcsrgv.UUCP (Peter Rowley)
Newsgroups: net.micro,net.college
Subject: Free and undirected campus computing facilities
Message-ID: <457@utcsrgv.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 13-Nov-84 00:52:08 EST
Article-I.D.: utcsrgv.457
Posted: Tue Nov 13 00:52:08 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 13-Nov-84 01:43:48 EST
Reply-To: peterr@utcsrgv.UUCP (Peter Rowley)
Organization: CSRI, University of Toronto
Lines: 49

[pagan ritual]

While at the University of Waterloo from '77 to '82, I witnessed the shutdown
of free computing services and the effect it had.  While others on the net
were more directly involved with the free computing than I (and they may well
want to comment), I did notice the benefits of free computing and the many
disadvantages of not having it.

Some specifics:  the math faculty (home of CS at Waterloo) had an 11/45 left
over from a research project.  It fell into the hands of a devoted group of
UNIX(tm) hacks who spent a *lot* of time with it.  That group went on to become
world-class UNIX experts; some wrote Coherent(tm) at Mark Williams Co. and
others became valuable systems people at Waterloo.  Still others undoubtedly
did impressive things I'm not aware of.

But all good things pass... the 45 started to be used for courses and
where one used to be able to get an account very easily, one now had to
have a particular project to work on.  I'm not quite sure how it finally
died, but soon thereafter, free computing in math at UW ended.  (It may have
been reborn since; I don't know)

The number of UNIX hacks dropped drastically, of course.  Some micro-
computer hacks appeared, due to the dropping prices of micro hardware,
but it wasn't the same-- they lacked a meeting place (the 45's terminal
room) and a common sense of purpose (making UNIX better).  CS became
more mundane.  Hacks are still around, but most work on specifically
funded projects-- contract work, etc.  The creative freedom possible
with free computing has been diminished (but not eliminated-- again, others
still at UW may well want to comment on this).

I think one needs free computing, to give creativity an outlet-- to let
people pursue projects that don't have to work or be done by a certain
time.  Thus will come some flops, but some truly innovative software also.
And also some people who know particular machines and operating systems
inside out-- and better versions of those operating systems.

So, to any hardware manufacturers out there, I urge you to have an
"Undirected Computing Grant Programme" to supply machines to hack on.
In 5 years or even less you will probably have some world-class experts.
Of course, the equipment must be hackable-- source code has to be supplied
for example.  And there has to be a promise from the university that it
won't be used for course work and that free access will be given.  It
probably helps for the operating system to be a bit obscure (like UNIX)
so that there is enough of a barrier to large numbers of people who would
otherwise use the machine for homework.

(UNIX is a trademark of Bell Labs, Coherent is a trademark of Mark Williams)

p. rowley, U. Toronto