Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site sdcc3.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!sdcsvax!sdcc3!brian From: br...@sdcc3.UUCP (Brian Kantor) Newsgroups: net.college,net.cse Subject: Computing Facilities at UCSD Message-ID: <2555@sdcc3.UUCP> Date: Sat, 15-Dec-84 15:34:49 EST Article-I.D.: sdcc3.2555 Posted: Sat Dec 15 15:34:49 1984 Date-Received: Wed, 19-Dec-84 03:08:47 EST Distribution: net Organization: UCSD wombat breeding society Lines: 119 Well, I guess its time for a unofficial look at UCSD's computing facilities. There are three main student-accessable computing facilities on campus: The Academic Computering Center, the EECS department, and ``everybody else''. --- The Academic Computering Center: The ACC has 3 VAX 780s, 5 VAX 750s, 2 Pyramid 90Xs, 2 11/70s, a Sun 2/120, and a Burroughs 7805. One of the 780s [VMS] and two 750s [one VMS, one 4.2BSD], as well as one of the Pyramids [4.2 and Sys-V] are used for ``recharge'' computing, which costs departments real budget money. Same for the Burroughs. Student accounts aren't usually available on these. The Sun is used for network control and some administrative work. The remaining machines (2 780s, 4 750s, and one Pyramid) are used each quarter for classwork. Accounts are issued the first or second week of class, and expire when the class ends (some classes are multi-quarter classes, and the account spans those quarters). There are also ``research'' accounts, for which you must have a faculty sponsor. These are good for a year, but must be renewed quarterly (all you have to do is show your student id each quarter). Most of these are used by grad students researching or wordprocessing their theses. The student machines have lots of users, but the load average stays around 2 to 4 until the last week of the quarter, when it climbs. The research machines are always heavily loaded during working hours, but you can get a whole vax to yourself around 3 to 7 in the morning. Our record load average is about 100, set a few years ago before all the 750s arrived. In addition to class and research accounts, any student can get a ``computer literacy'' account on one of the VMS or 4.2 Vaxen. This is good for some $100 of pseudo-computer-dollars. If desired, the student can add real money to extend the account. These accounts are valid until the end of the school year, have the student's id number as the login name (so that correspondents don't have to change everybody's address every year) and are only usable from 6 pm to 8 am weekdays during the busy times of the quarter. You can use up $100 pseudo-dollars in a week or two if you are doing program development. Until recently, it was relatively easy for ``hacker'' types to get a sort of ``benificence'' account: The person needed only to convince the system manager that he would be doing more good than harm by having such an account, and he usually got one. With a change in system managers, this policy seems to have gone by the wayside, and these sort of people have moved elsewhere, if they are still around at all. Pity. Oh yes - microcomputers: One Macintosh, one IBM PC/XT, one Apple, one Kaypro II, and 5 or 6 DEC Rainbows. The Rainbows are off in an math lab somewhere, and the other micros are publicly available during the hours when the ACC Consulting Office is open. They are mainly there to support file transfers to/from the other ACC systems. There is also an IBM PC/XT bolted down in a public terminal area and available 24 hrs a day, but its on loan from IBM and they are taking it back in a couple of weeks. We've been promised an AT&T 6300 PC to replace it (donated by AT&T). --- The EE/CS Department: EECS has a VAX 780, a 750, 5 Sun workstations [plus a server], about 40 Teraks, about 50 IBM PCs, around 20 Apples, 3 Western Digital Pascal Microengines, 6 HP64000 microprocessor development workstations, 6 Intel MDS development workstations, and a handful of miscellaneous micros in labs and offices. The 780 [sdcsvax] is used for faculty and graduate research, and for departmental word processing. Its also one of the main mail/news ports for the campus and is always busy. Undergraduates in the EECS dept can get accounts on it if they are working on some faculty research project. The 750 and one of the suns are mainly for one professor's research on distributed/fault-tolerant/networking stuff, but she has been kind enough to let other people use the machines when her project doesn't need them. Four Sun workstations are in the Computer Graphics Lab. Accounts on them are automatically provided to all EECS faculty and grad students. Two quarters a year, a computer graphics introductory course is taught on them, with about 35 undergraduates using them. Hacker accounts on the suns are available to people who convince the lab manager that they have a sincere interest in graphics or networks or something else that the suns do well. The IBM PCs are bolted down in a lab and used to teach an introductory programming course in UCSD Pascal. They are networked in some mysterious way to share a large disk and printer. The TERAKs are used mainly to teach a machine-language programming course. ATT has donated a bunch of machines that should be arriving Real Soon Now. Two 3B20 systems will augment the undergraduate teaching facilities, and about 50 3B2/300s will replace the Teraks for the machine language and other courses. Some other vendors have given or promised us other stuff, notably some graphics workstations, terminals, and i/o thingys. Probably these will be available to anyone who shows a sincere interest in playing with them. --- Everybody else: There are about 20 more VAXen, 25 Suns, some Pr1mes, and a bunch of miscellaneous machines scattered around the campus. There are a couple of Evans-Sutherland Picture Systems [including the first one ever shipped!], some IBIS graphics engines, and a whole mess of laboratory computers in the various departments. Generally you have to be working for or doing research in the department in order to use them, but on occasion a system administrator will show his human side and be amenable to persuasion. There are also a bunch of computers out to sea on the Scripps Institution of Oceanography research ships. Most of these seem to be HP1000/2000s. I know I've missed some things, but I can't think what. Anyway, that gives you an idea of what is available. Brian Kantor UC San Diego decvax\ br...@ucsd.arpa akgua >--- sdcsvax --- brian ucbvax/ Kantor@Nosc ``Celebrating my 13th year as a student at UCSD''
Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site sdcc3.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!godot!harvard! talcott!wjh12!genrad!decvax!ittvax!dcdwest!sdcsvax!sdcc3!brian From: br...@sdcc3.UUCP (Brian Kantor) Newsgroups: net.college,net.cse Subject: Computing Facilities at UCSD Message-ID: <2557@sdcc3.UUCP> Date: Sat, 15-Dec-84 15:48:04 EST Article-I.D.: sdcc3.2557 Posted: Sat Dec 15 15:48:04 1984 Date-Received: Mon, 17-Dec-84 03:59:55 EST Distribution: net Organization: UCSD wombat breeding society Lines: 114 Well, I guess its time for a unofficial look at UCSD's computing facilities. There are three main student-accessable computing facilities on campus: The Academic Computering Center, the EECS department, and ``everybody else''. --- The Academic Computering Center: The ACC has 3 VAX 780s, 5 VAX 750s, 2 Pyramid 90Xs, 2 11/70s, a Sun 2/120, and a Burroughs 7805. One of the 780s [VMS] and two 750s [one VMS, one 4.2BSD], as well as one of the Pyramids [4.2 and Sys-V] are used for ``recharge'' computing, which costs departments real budget money. Same for the Burroughs. Student accounts aren't usually available on these. The Sun is used for network control and some administrative work. The remaining machines (2 780s, 4 750s, and one Pyramid) are used each quarter for classwork. Accounts are issued the first or second week of class, and expire when the class ends (some classes are multi-quarter classes, and the account spans those quarters). There are also ``research'' accounts, for which you must have a faculty sponsor. These are good for a year, but must be renewed quarterly (all you have to do is show your student id each quarter). Most of these are used by grad students researching or wordprocessing their theses. The student machines have lots of users, but the load average stays around 2 to 4 until the last week of the quarter, when it climbs. The research machines are always heavily loaded during working hours, but you can get a whole vax to yourself around 3 to 7 in the morning. Our record load average is about 100, set a few years ago before all the 750s arrived. In addition to class and research accounts, any student can get a ``computer literacy'' account on one of the VMS or 4.2 Vaxen. This is good for some $100 of pseudo-computer-dollars. If desired, the student can add real money to extend the account. These accounts are valid until the end of the school year, have the student's id number as the login name (so that correspondents don't have to change everybody's address every year) and are only usable from 6 pm to 8 am weekdays during the busy times of the quarter. You can use up $100 pseudo-dollars in a week or two if you are doing program development. Until recently, it was relatively easy for ``hacker'' types to get a sort of ``benificence'' account: The person needed only to convince the system manager that he would be doing more good than harm by having such an account, and he usually got one. With a change in system managers, this policy seems to have gone by the wayside, and these sort of people have moved elsewhere, if they are still around at all. Pity. Oh yes - microcomputers: One Macintosh, one IBM PC/XT, one Apple, one Kaypro II, and 5 or 6 DEC Rainbows. The Rainbows are off in a math lab somewhere, and the other micros are publicly available during the hours when the ACC Consulting Office is open. They are mainly there to support file transfers to/from the other ACC systems. There is also an IBM PC/XT bolted down in a public terminal area and available 24 hrs a day, but its on loan from IBM and they are taking it back in a couple of weeks. We've been promised an AT&T 6300 PC to replace it (donated by AT&T). --- The EE/CS Department: EECS has a VAX 780, a 750, 5 Sun workstations [plus a server], about 40 Teraks, about 50 IBM PCs, around 20 Apples, 3 Western Digital Pascal Microengines, 6 HP64000 microprocessor development workstations, 6 Intel MDS development workstations, and a handful of miscellaneous micros in labs and offices. The 780 [sdcsvax] is used for faculty and graduate research, and for departmental word processing. Its also one of the main mail/news ports for the campus and is always busy. Undergraduates in the EECS dept can get accounts on it if they are working on some faculty research project. The 750 and one of the suns are mainly for one professor's research on distributed/fault-tolerant/networking stuff, but she has been kind enough to let other people use the machines when her project doesn't need them. Four Sun workstations are in the Computer Graphics Lab. Accounts on them are automatically provided to all EECS faculty and grad students. Two quarters a year, a computer graphics introductory course is taught on them, with about 35 undergraduates using them. Hacker accounts on the suns are available to people who convince the lab manager that they have a sincere interest in graphics or networks or something else that the suns do well. The IBM PCs are bolted down in a lab and used to teach an introductory programming course in UCSD Pascal. They are networked in some mysterious way to share a large disk and printer. The TERAKs are used mainly to teach a machine-language programming course. Some other vendors have given or promised us other stuff, notably some graphics workstations, terminals, and i/o thingys. Probably these will be available to anyone who shows a sincere interest in playing with them. --- Everybody else: There are about 20 more VAXen, 25 Suns, some Pr1mes, and a bunch of miscellaneous machines scattered around the campus. There are a couple of Evans-Sutherland Picture Systems [including the first one ever shipped!], some IBIS graphics engines, and a whole mess of laboratory computers in the various departments. Generally you have to be working for or doing research in the department in order to use them, but on occasion a system administrator will show his human side and be amenable to persuasion. There are also a bunch of computers out to sea on the Scripps Institution of Oceanography research ships. Most of these seem to be HP1000/2000s. I know I've missed some things, but I can't think what. Anyway, that gives you an idea of what is available. Brian Kantor UC San Diego decvax\ br...@ucsd.arpa akgua >--- sdcsvax --- brian ucbvax/ Kantor@Nosc ``Celebrating my 13th year as a student at UCSD''