New Computer, Terminal Room To Combat System Congestion

In an effort to relieve congestion at undergraduate computer terminals and allow for expanded computer use by undergraduates, Science Center officials have recently acquired a new $250,000 timesharing computer and soon plan to open a new terminal room in the Center's basement.

The officials declined to predict how long the new computing power will satisfy Harvard's rapidly growing needs, but even with the new system some overcrowding has already been evident.

A larger than expected enrollment in a new course, Applied Sciences 11, "Computers, Algorithms, and Programs," has resulted in a little overcrowding of the new VAX 11/780 computer, the course's teacher, Harry R. Lewis '68, McKay Professor of Computer Science, said yesterday.

Terminally Crowded?

Some of the 450 students coming to the class--about 100 more than expected--have started to complain about the limited number of lines, Lewis said, adding that only 16 people can presently use the computer at one time. "We talked about all this this summer. It's the price you pay for not having preregistration," he said.

As additional cabling is added to the computer and students drop out or switch to Applied Sciences 10, "Automatic Computing," the load may be eased, however, Lewis added.

New terminal space located in the University mail room will open in about two weeks and will house 12 additional terminals--and perhaps four more in the near future, John Y. Park, a systems manager for the Harvard-Radcliffe Student Timesharing System (HRSTS), said yesterday.

Students in Harvard extension courses will have priority on the new terminals because the extension program helped fund them and because extension students, many of whom are employed full time or have young children, need to be able to sign up for and receive terminal time without excessive delay, Park said, adding that other students will be able to use whatever time is left over.

Because of a 13-per-cent educational discount and a special agreement between Harvard's Aiken Computation Laboratory and the Digital Equipment Corporation, which sells the VAX and PDP line of computers, the University paid only about one half of the computer's regular price, officials said.

The VAX computer, which has a 32-bit memory, is considerably more powerful than the two HRSTS computers it joins--both PDP 11/70 computers. The new computer has roughly double the amount of disk storage and can do calculations much faster than the old ones.

More memory and disk space will have to be added to it in the future, though, Lewis A. Law, associate director of the Science Center, said yesterday.