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∂AIL Prof. Andrei P. Ershov↓Computation Center
↓Novosibirsk 630090↓USSR∞

Dear Andrei:

	We enjoyed our short visit to Helsinki after the WG2.2 meeting,
and it was pleasant to talk with you on the telephone.
Our new computer for student use will arrive in less than a month,
and I have been learning facts about the Stanford bureaucracy from
which I had apparently been previously sheltered.  Our problem
concerned putting air conditioning and power into the rooms
that were allocated for the new computer.  The Stanford Planning
Office said that while actual construction might take 4 to 6 weeks
their procedures of planning, engineering and bidding would make
it take five months.  So I went and got a private contractor to
bid $41,000 to do the job in one month.  They found reasons why it
couldn't be contracted to him, but said they could now do the job
in two months, and it would only cost $71,000.  Finally, the
administration discovered that the Government had paid for a
computer room in the new Education Building that was not going
to be used otherwise, so we will move in there.

	We decided to buy the 50 display terminals for the system
as kits and have them assembled by students.  This saved between
two and three hundred dollars per terminal, and the students are
assembling them for about $50 apiece.  So far about 15 have been
completed, and when I dropped by our "factory" today, four students
were busy soldering away.  We will see if the student assembled
terminals have more troubles than the factory assembled versions.
We will also be relying heavily on volunteer student labor for
software, but not much can be done about that till we get the
computer.

	One of our new graduate students, Ben Moszkowsky, would like
to spend a year in the Soviet Union at some place that does computer
science.  Since he has just arrived, I don't know how good he is,
but on the basis of his recommendations from UCLA and on his examination
scores, he was considered one of the two best candidates for admission.
There is no rush; the academic year 1978-79 or even 1979-80 would
be suitable for him.  The official programs he has looked into seem
to call for people who already have PhDs, so it occurs to me that
it might be possible for your computation center to take him as
an aspirant for a year.  Do you think this might be possible?
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	I was happy to hear that both Vasya and Aniuta are doing
so well, and I hope Nina's leg will be all well soon.

.reg