Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site gatech.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gatech!arnold
From: arnold@gatech.UUCP (Mister Snuffle-upagus)
Newsgroups: net.micro,net.college
Subject: Re: Free and undirected campus computing facilities - Not at Waterloo (medium long)
Message-ID: <10996@gatech.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 28-Nov-84 10:36:04 EST
Article-I.D.: gatech.10996
Posted: Wed Nov 28 10:36:04 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 30-Nov-84 11:42:07 EST
References: <652@watdcsu.UUCP>, <9840@watmath.UUCP> <9844@watmath.UUCP> <208@ganehd.UUCP>
Organization: Sesame Street
Lines: 94
Xref: gatech net.micro:6592 net.college:355

> 	UGA is 200 years old this year; the oldest state charterd university
> (sorry UNC, Georgia was charterd first!) and the computing facilities are
> atleast 10 years behind the times!  There is no relief in site from any level
> (and I understand that Georgia Tech is also beginning to feel the money
> problem from the state, too)!  I sometimes wonder what they really do in
> Atlanta with all our tax money because the flagship University for the state
> system is in trouble and I don't think they care!
> 
> 	And people are wonder why I am leaving!!!!
> 		(all they use at the job I'm going to is UN*X!)
> -- 
> Scott A. Barman
> 	UUCP: {akgua, gatech}!ganehd!mp		(until Nov 28!
> 						 gone after that!)

	Things aren't exactly wonderful here at Georgia Tech, either.  We
are not "starting" to feel the money crunch; we've been feeling it for several
years now.  Let me elaborate. (Sorry that this is so long)

	Computing facilities for the campus are provided by the Office of
Computing Services: two CDC Cyber 170/855's and one IBM 4341.  The cyber's
are used for undergraduate education (all schools, not just us - ICS), and
for research computing.  The IBM 4341 is used by the administration (payroll
etc), almost nobody else can get to it.  The cybers are also used for some of
the graduate ICS courses.  Let me tell you, NOS is no fun.  And all but the
ICS grad students leave here thinking that Cybers and NOS (and Pascal!) are
what Computing is all about.

	Here in ICS, things could be better too.  We have one Prime P400
two P550-I's, which are aging and decaying rapidly.  We have been ordered
to phase them out.  Undergraduates are being moved to the cybers, and
graduates and faculty to a Pyramid that OCS has on a trial basis (gitpyr is
the site).  But the decision on whether we will purchase the Pyramid is
still in limbo.  How's that for planning?  The Vax 780 on which I'm writing
this is our CSnet machine, limited to faculty, staff and some of the grad
students (mainly PhD).  It is starting to get overloaded.  Disk space is
already fairly tight (4 300Mbyte storage modules), and at certain times,
the load average gets up around 10.  Under 4.1, response time gets pretty
bad.

	HP donated an HP 300/44 to ICS -- this machine exists in its own
little world.  It is used for about 3 undergraduate classes, and from what
I hear, HP's OS and Pascal compiler aren't exactly user friendly.  There is
NO communication between it and any other machine (file or mail transfer).
In fact, there is very little communication between any of the machines,
short of tape transfers.

	Three 750's have arrived, but those are for research.  One is on
loan to the ICS lab (site nimbus), but they only have one DZ each (i.e. 8
ports), and you can't put too many people on a 750 before it thrashes itself
to death.

	We are pushing to have OCS supply 4.2 Unix cycles for instruction
(the pyramid is a tentative first step in that direction), but the money
has to be found to buy the pyramid, and that is only a 32 user machine.  We
could easily use 2 or 3 pyramids if we wanted to put all our classes on
Unix machines (which we do).  But it is very doubtful that the administration
would come up with the money for them.  I (personally) doubt that we'll even
keep the one we have.  This is not OCS's fault; they would be happy to
move towards UNIX, but the administration is strangling them.

	The administration is also pretty tight with funds for ICS.  We
are not able to recruit faculty as well as we'd like to, and the laboratory
(where I am on the staff) is very understaffed.

	Due to all this, Georgia Tech has lost out twice in the past year
to other schools to bring in Industrial Research.  The Microcomputer Technology
Development group (or whatever they're called -- the consortium of 9
corporations) chose UT-Austin over us, and the DoD chose Carnegie Mellon over
us for their Software Development Institute (I forget the name).  Both of
these would have brought a lot of high technology companies into Atlanta
and Georgia, or created them here, but since Georgia Tech couldn't hack it
(cause we don't have the resources) they went elsewhere.

	I suppose things are better than they were:  At least we do have
some Unix machines within ICS, and OCS knows what Unix is and is interested
in going in that direction.  And OCS has eliminated all its card punches.
All undergraduate classes have to use terminals, and there is a campus
wide local network.  But, if Georgia Tech, which is the other flagship
University (there are other schools beside UGA, Scott!), is going to "stay"
on the forefront, and attract high technology to Georgia, the administration,
Board of Regents, and the legislature are all going to have to get on the
ball.

	Needless to say, all opinions expressed here are my own, not those
of my bosses, coworkers, Georgia Tech, etc.
-- 
Arnold Robbins
CSNET: arnold@gatech	ARPA:	arnold%gatech.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa
UUCP: { akgua, allegra, hplabs, ihnp4 }!gatech!arnold
					      !gitpyr!arnold
					      !stratus!nimbus!arnold

Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Sesame Street?