Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!cornell!rochester!ur-tut!sunybcs!boulder!hao!oddjob!nucsrl!gore
From: gore@nucsrl.UUCP (Jacob Gore)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Using Amigas in a graphics class?
Message-ID: <10260002@nucsrl.UUCP>
Date: 22 Feb 88 22:03:06 GMT
Organization: Northwestern U, Evanston IL, USA
Lines: 44

We have an undergraduate graphics class here (junior-senior level).  The
current textbook, for those of you who may be familiar with it, is
_Fundamentals of Interactive Computer Graphics_, by Foley and Van Dam.  The
class size is 45, give or take 15.

The class covers such things as world coordinates -> physical coordinates
chain of projections; transformations; clipping; some input stuff.  The exact
material depends a lot on who is teaching it.

Doing animation is not really necessary for this class (though students do
find it interesting, if it's easy enough to do).

We are now looking for a suitable lab configuration for this class.  I am
considering using Amigas.  What do you think?  Is it a good idea?  What would
be a good configuration?  Is there a graphics library that students can call
from their programs?

Let me throw in my initial idea, for the sake of starting the discussion:

  *  6-12 A2000's, with monitors (of course :-), I don't know how much memory

  *  Ethernet hardware, with TCP/IP and NFS software

  *  Hard disks for shared software, maybe for students' files (or students 
     can use their own floppies).  Two possibilities: 

     a)  Attach hard disk(s) to one or two of them (how much space?)
     b)  Have one of our VAXes farm out the disk space

If you can point out problems with this plan, I'd appreciate hearing your
thoughts.  Is any of this unnecessarily inconvenient? complicated?
underpowered? 

Finally, if you think that something other than an Amiga would be better for
this purpose, please let me know why you think so *** BY MAIL *** -- please,
let's not rekindle the wars!

Jacob Gore, Manager
Computer Science & Engineering Lab	Gore@EECS.NWU.Edu
Northwestern University			{oddjob,gargoyle,ihnp4}!nucsrl!gore
Evanston, IL 60208, USA

P.S.  Is there somebody at Commodore we should be talking to about obtaining
this equipment, or should we just go to a local dealer?