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From: emv@ccunix.UUCP (Edward Vielmetti)
Newsgroups: net.college
Subject: Re: Computer access
Message-ID: <116@ccunix.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 4-Mar-86 17:34:38 EST
Article-I.D.: ccunix.116
Posted: Tue Mar  4 17:34:38 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 5-Mar-86 05:59:15 EST
Reply-To: emv@madvax.UUCP (Edward Vielmetti)
Distribution: net
Organization: University of Michigan, Computing Center, Ann Arbor, MI
Lines: 38
Summary: 

The U of M has about 350 micros scattered in 10 or so public
clusters on campus.  The mix is about 1/2 Apple Mac (some
anorexic Macs still around, but largely Fat Macs) and 1/2
Zenith PC compatibles (150s and 148s).  These are open for any
student with an ID.  Engineering students have IBM PCs, Apple
Macs, and Apollo workstations (I don't have exact #s, but this is
in addition to the public sites.)

The U's mainframe runs MTS, a locally developed os that runs on 
370 architecture computers.  The engin school has a couple vaxes
that get student use, but in general students don't get wide access
to the outside world for mail and news.  MTS is an ok system, but it's
not well connected with the rest of the world.

Any student can get a "request account" on one of the two machines 
running MTS (UB).  This is good for $12.50 / month; that translates
roughly into 10-12 hours/month on line at evening and weekend discount
rates.  I co-organize a conference (Meet:students) which draws about
100 people/day on-line; there's also quite a few small conferences
that are set up for classes.  (Very similar to having a discussion 
session always there--by my standards, the wave of the future in teaching.)
The conferences use Confer software (see the December Byte) for a 
description.  It's very similar to the setup on the Well or Ann
Arbor's own M-Net, except that for now there's only a very few conferences
going.  I would not be surprised to see 300 people a day using the  
system for confering in the next 3 years or so.

Students pay a $50/term (soon to be $100/term) Information Technology
Access Fee (The Fee), new this term; engineers have been paying
for their machines for 3 or so years now (currently $150/term).
The Michigan Student Assembly has been incredibly head-in-the-sand
about the whole issue, with the result that students haven't had
much if any formal role in teh decision-making process.  

Edward Vielmetti (LS&A junior) 

...!ihnp4!umich!madvax!emv   (maybe?)
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