Students, Faculty Praise New Computer

Harvard's new computer, purchased by the Faculty in July for $150,000, has been hailed as a great success by administrators, professors and students.

The new PDP 11/45, which occupies two rooms in the Science Center, is available 24 hours a day and will eventually be able to handle as many as 32 users at a time.

Until this year the Faculty rented time from First Data Corporation's PDP 10 at a rate of $10,000 a month. With the rising costs of time-sharing and greatly increased Harvard usage, William H. Bossert '59, McKay Professor of Applied Mathematics,

who taught Nat Sci 110 until this year, was convinced that Harvard students should have access to a privately owned computer. Also First Data had indicated that it would not renew its contract with the University.

Last year, students in Nat Sci 110, "Automatic Computing," and other students in Computer, Math, Applied Math, Economics and Physics courses were allowed to use the computer terminals only between 6 p.m. and midnight. This accounted for long lines each night at computer terminals in the Science Center and at Quincy and Currier Houses.

Flop

Two years ago a plan to buy a computer with funding from the National Science Foundation fell through. But the dramatic drop in the price of computer hardward since then enabled Harvard to purchase the computer, Charles J. Prenner, assistant professor of Computer Science, said yesterday.

Prenner estimated that the new computer has doubled or even tripled the amount of work which can be done at Harvard's computer terminals. He said the extended hours of access to the computer, new cathode-ray tube display terminals, a high-speed line printer and the generally improved quality of service to users are the main reasons for the warm reception given the computers.

Debra Sheetz '75 who works under Prenner and Louis Law, director of technical services at the Science Center, said yesterday that she has given out 1500 new computer accounts since September. She said that only 2000 accounts were given out last year.

All Harvard students have free access to the new computer and now there is time to accomodate as many as are interested in "logging on." Prenner said the increased computer time available is "a luxury Harvard could never afford before."

Sheetz said that the computer's memory core can supply eight times as much storage as the First Data system had last year.