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From: tli@uscvax.UUCP (Tony Li)
Newsgroups: net.college
Subject: Re: Free and undirected campus computing facilities - Not at Waterloo
Message-ID: <1180@uscvax.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 22-Nov-84 04:31:08 EST
Article-I.D.: uscvax.1180
Posted: Thu Nov 22 04:31:08 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 26-Nov-84 13:32:13 EST
References: <425@watcgl.UUCP> <652@watdcsu.UUCP> <9840@watmath.UUCP> <150@harvard.ARPA> <288@muddcs.UUCP>
Organization: CS&CE Depts, U.S.C., Los Angeles, CA
Lines: 51

> 	At Mudd, there are NO charges for computing time on any
> of the machines, and almost anyone with any sort of reason at all
> can get an account on any of the machines, FREE.
> 
> 	But, there are practical considerations concerning the staff
> here.  These are:  Terminals (we have eight for general use),
> Disk space (we have ONE ra81), Lack of Dial-up Lines and Modems
> (we have ONE dial-in, through which comes all uucp), and the load of
> multiple users on our little VAX750 (as noted in a previous posting,
> when the classes in op-sys, compilers, etc. get rolling, the load gets
> pretty high).
> 
> 	Thus, we have made the decision to restrict access to some of
> the facilities which might be considered desirable to a 'hacker', i.e.
> network access, news posting, source code access...
> 
> 	Personally, I would like to see the system opened up more to
> the users, but again, practical considerations come up.  For instance,
> if we allow networking, will that cause people to use one of our eight
> terminals to log into another system if that one is crowded ?  We cannot
> afford to let the system get tied up, or even go down, because approximately
> 100 students at a time may be taking computer classes, all with weekly
> (or so) assignments, (and of course they all wait until the night before
> the assignment is due before they start coding :-).

As a Mudd alum, I'm not at all in agreement with what I hear.  Historically,
Mudd has been very generous with the computing facilities, and yes,
computing has been free.  However, in recent years, Mudd has roughly tripled
their computing capacity.  In concert with this, more restrictions exist on
computing than ever before.  

I think that all of these wonderful restrictions are very useful.  Since
people want to learn about computers, we'll give them an account.  Then,
when they want to REALLY use the computer, we'll tell them they can't.
Sigh.  How neanderthal.  Yes, there are some problems with resource
allocation in any bounded system.  Erlinger's Lemma (pardon me, Mike, I
can't resist) says it all:  "Mudd can absorb computers until there's a
terminal on every desk". 

No, I find the spirit of these restrictions very discordant with the nature
of Mudd.  In ye olden days of KA10's, 1 Vax, and the good 'ol IMLAC, we
would share.  Yes, there were few resources, but they were completely
shared.  At Mudd, there are no privileged people.

Tony Li, HMC '82 Computer Science

-- 
Tony Li ;-)		Usc Computer Science
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