jim@mit-athena.ARPA (Jim Fulton) (12/04/84)
I had been waiting for awhile before posting anything, but the time now seems
right. I too have been quite interested in comparing the resources available
to students at the various undergraduate colleges that submit to the net. In
fact, I think that this has been the MOST worthwhile discussion that's been
held in a long time.
So, here is first pass at the resources that are available at MIT to an
undergraduate who might be interested in using computers. It is by no means a
complete list, and may contain errors which I'm sure someone will kindly jump
all over. I also have a few words of advise/discussion at the end.
Right now there are:
- at least 4 TOPS-20 machines used as follows:
o MIT-EECS used for classwork within EECS (surprise). It is
administered by students who do a rather good job.
It is used primarily for Software Engineering and Compiler
Design. Usually the two courses are staggered so that
the machine doesn't flounder too much, but increased
enrollment in EECS at MIT has caused the the former to be
offered both terms. The load varies put the machine is
usually busy at all hours of the day (and night).
o MIT-SPEECH is used by some of the VLSI courses and is a
research machine.
o MIT-XX, MIT-OZ are research machines.
- several 20's running ITS which are slowing dieing out. They are
used for research and general network usefulness (MIT-MC is one of
them).
- Several VAX/780 VMS systems primarily used by the non-EECS
engineering departments for academic work and for research. MIT-JCF
is the most prominent and used to be the source of a lot of very
interesting VMS hackery before Project Athena stole all of the
top people away.
- Many Lisp Machines used for random purposes. Somebody else might
want to comment on this and most of the non-Athena stuff.
- The VAX farm, consisting of 28(?) VAX/750 UNIX systems on a ringnet
(among other things). These are used for research.
- MIT-EDDIE, a VAX/750 UNIX system that is run by the same people who
run MIT-EECS. A number of students can get accounts if they give
a good reason (or their favorite color).
- MIT-MULTICS, a Honeywell Multics system which is used by most
non-EECS students for doing papers. It is busy 24 hours a day and
support somewhere between 30-50-100 people depending on how slow
you want the machine to be.
- Lots of small vaxes and pdp's and micros in labs around MIT (most
undergraduates work in some research lab or another). I don't
think anybody has ever counted.
- Project Athena which I will get to in a moment. Can you say,
"MIT decides that it likes UNIX"?
Of the above, just about anyone who is interested in doing research work or
who is in a class that is using a system can get an account. As in most
places, EECS majors tend to have account more often than non-EECS majors do.
However, anybody who wants an account can get one on MIT-MULTICS and, soon,
on Project Athena (MIT's $70 million experiment in getting DEC and IBM to
donate about 10-Cray's worth of computing power for educational use [including
hacking] which I will describe). Some people also have accounts on MIT-EECS.
All of the systems, except for some of the small computers in isolated labs,
are connected together using the CHAOSnet. Also, MIT-XX, MIT-MC, and
MIT-MULTICS are connected to the ARPAnet. MIT-ATHENA, MIT-VAX (a 780 used
for CS research), and MIT-EDDIE are connected to the USENET. People do a
lot of hacking here, but even so most of the resources are overextended
(remember, roughly 1/4 of all undergraduates major in EECS here). Thus,
we come to Project Athena.
In May of 1983, MIT made an agreement with IBM and DEC in which the two
companies together would provide $50 million in hardware and people over
the next five years. The long term goal is for there to be 2600 workstations
spread throughout the campus (including dormitories and fraternities). These
workstations will comprise of:
o DEC VAXStations: MicroVAX II's with the VS100 1k x 1k display.
o IBM ?: They're not sure yet. This isn't IBM's market and they
don't really know what they are going to give us. In the
(hopefully) short run we will be using PC/AT's with hard disks,
the new color professional graphics monitor, and a floating
point coprocessor.
As of right now we have installed roughly 30-40 VAX 750's running UNIX (all
VAX UNIX systems at MIT are 4.2) to which we have added support for a window
system for the VS100 among other things. We are just getting a shipment of
160 of the AT's which will be installed in the spring. We also have about a
dozen uVAX's for staff development use. All of the systems are networked
together using TCP/IP. The purpose of the Project is to see if making
computers essentially an unlimited resource changes their use within courses.
To help people develop useful software MIT is raising $20 million of which
about $11 million will be spent on writing new programs.
So much for the background (why I mentioned details will be explained at the
end). There are currently 800 students enrolled in courses that use Athena.
These students will get to keep their accounts and will be able to use them
for anything they want. In addition we are dedicating 6 750's to unrestricted
use (there will be discquota about about 1/2 meg apiece since disks aren't
unlimited). It will also serve as a testing ground for neat new software like
out distributed file system. One of the VAX's is already being used by a
large number of students as a free for all in which people can have complete
access to the sources and can make changes (including the kernel). Although
there was some waffling at the beginning, people on the Athena staff have now
come to realize that this will be just as important as the more structured
class use will be. Starting in March any undergraduate who wants an account
can get one by just asking. Within three years it is expected that just about
everyone will use Athena equipment at some time during their stay at MIT. The
idea is to make computers as accessible and as easy to use as telephones.
We're hoping to have somewhere around 60 750's installed by the end of 1985
when we will then begin putting in the uVaxen.
The point to all of this, aside from simply describing what we have at MIT,
is to demostrate one solution to the problem of unrestricted resources. Even
now, we still feel the pinch of not being able to do everything that we want
to. Need always expands to fill capacity. However, finding a company that
is begging for a tax write-off seems to be the trend these days.
This is a sketchy outline of computer resources at MIT. In spite of our
reputation, not everyone knows how to use nor cares to use computers. However,
we too have been bitten by not having enough to go around (MIT is fairly big).
Assuming that we can find room for things, Athena will hopefully solve a number
of problems along those lines. Perhaps your administrations can be convinced
that they would like to try to strike similar deals. A number of schools
have already started and it can help a lot.
Jim Fulton '85
(Project Athena Staff)
{decvax, mit-eddie}!mit-athena!jim
jim%mit-athena@mit-mc.arpa
Questions about Athena are welcome, however please don't inflict it upon the
net unless you think that everyone might be interested.