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.cb LOW OVERHEAD TIME-SHARING FOR STANFORD UNIVERSITY


Stanford University has established a new computation facility called
LOTS (Low Overhead Time-Sharing) for teaching, unsponsored research, and
general computing by faculty and students.  LOTS will make high quality
interactive computing available for students and faculty at a cost the
University can afford.

On-line use of a computer permits faster learning and faster debugging
of programs than the more traditional batch processing.  Users write their
programs and data sets as computer files using on-line editors and store
them in the computer's file system rather than punching them on cards.
Time-sharing also permits programs that interact with the user.

The computer will be operational during Winter Quarter.  It will be
used by a small number of courses during the winter; we hope this will
enable us to present a completely solid and well running system for Spring
Quarter.  To facilitate the orderly conversion of many other courses to
LOTS for Spring Quarter, orientation sessions will be held frequently
during Winter Quarter.  We hope that interested Faculty and TAs will avail
themselves of this opportunity to learn how to use LOTS for their Spring
Quarter courses.  Use of LOTS during Winter Quarter for the conversion of
existing programs will be encouraged.  Interested students will be
encouraged to use the computer facility apart from any course
requirements.

The first priority of LOTS is course work, but there will be
sufficient resources for extensive other use.  LOTS will also explore the
convenience and economics of letting students and faculty prepare reports
and papers on computer terminals allowing convenient editing, updating,
and reference.

The computer will be a Digital Equipment Corporation 2040, a new
computer in that company's PDP-10 series.  It is generally compatible with
the three other PDP-10 facilities on campus.  The initial configuration
includes 256K 36 bit words of core memory, one magnetic tape unit, 200
megabytes of file disk, and 48 on-line terminals.  Although the initial
2040 configuration is somewhat slower than the 360/67, it represents a
significant increase in resources available to the student and unsponsored
research communities, because it will be entirely theirs.

The computer will be located in the Stanford Center for Research and
Development in Teaching (SCRDT) building, room 128.  Public terminals and
the LOTS staff will be in SCRDT room 105.  Other terminals will be located
in room 303 in Engineering corner.  There may be a third terminal cluster
in the Jordan Quad area.  Each of these locations will provide display
terminals and an upper/lower case line printer that is capable of some
graphics.  LOTS will also be accessible from remote terminals via the SCIP
TRAN.  Eventually, most of the terminals will be located in departmental
and living group areas; printers will be provided in some of these areas.
LOTS will also encourage the individual ownership of terminals.

The computer languages that will be available include Fortran, LISP,
the SAIL dialect of ALGOL, BASIC, and PDP-10 assembly language.  Some
applications programs, such as SPSS, will be transported from the 370 or
be made available by other means.  Others may be added by users or the
staff (or purchased if there is enough demand).  During Winter Quarter,
the LOTS staff will offer some assistance in moving programs and files
from the 370 to LOTS.

There will be no charges for the use of LOTS.  Any faculty member or
student can get an account by applying at the LOTS office.  Allocation of
resources will be subject to priorities determined by the Director and the
Advisory Board; courses will get first priority.  Although disk storage
space is limited, we hope that individual users will be able to keep the
equivalent of 500 to 1000 cards on the disk.  LOTS will not be available
to non-Stanford users and will not be available to sponsored projects.

Many courses will transfer their computing from the 370/168 to LOTS in
Spring 1977.  The transfer of all courses that are going to transfer will
be complete by Fall 1977.  Departmental budgets for the use of SCIP
reflect the expectation that most course work will be transferred to LOTS.
When the creation of LOTS was discussed during Spring 1976, it was
unanimously agreed that the advantages of on-line course work would more
than repay the work of making the transfer.  Departments should plan to
transfer their courses to LOTS this year.

The staff of LOTS will consist of four people: a manager, a half-time
student co-ordinator, a systems programmer, and a secretary.  This is
where the "low overhead" comes from.  Users will be expected to learn most
of what they need to know from the manuals.  Complete manuals for the
machine, its programming languages, and its utility programs will be
available from the Stanford Bookstore in December.  Many of the programs
will have %2help%1 features.  The tiny staff will be able to give only
limited assistance to users in learning the system.  The faculty and
teaching assistants will be responsible for getting their courses on the
machine.

This mode of operation relies on the computer experience that Stanford
faculty and students have gained over the years.  Instead of hiring a
staff to provide consulting services, we expect that the more experienced
users will help the others.  Users will be expected to tear off their
printer listings. Some users will be shown how to load paper in the
printer and how to restart the system after crashes.  Besides informal
help, we expect a free market in programming and consulting for
researchers to develop.  TAs will provide the consulting for the courses.

The success of LOTS will depend to a large degree on student volunteer
work, and many students have already helped and expressed interest.  Some
office space will be provided for the student volunteer staff; these
students will be given substantial responsibilities.

The Director of LOTS is Professor John McCarthy of the Computer
Science Department; the Manager is Mr. Ralph Gorin formerly of the
Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.  Mr. David Roode is Student
Co-ordinator.  There is also a faculty and student Advisory Board with
members from several departments and schools.  Its Chairman is Professor
James L. Adams of Industrial Engineering.  LOTS is not administratively
connected with SCIP.

Although the machine won't arrive until November, work has already
started in converting programs and languages to the 2040.  Volunteers are
solicited to help with this.  Departments are urged to start planning the
conversion of their courses now and to discuss their problems in this with
Ralph Gorin (497-1360), John McCarthy (497-4430) and David Roode
(497-3214).  Students interested in helping LOTS should contact one of the
above people, especially David Roode.

The LOTS office (497-3214), presently in Cedar Hall, is now occupied
part time.  The LOTS office will move to the SCRDT building, room 105, in
mid-November, and be staffed full time.

A document entitled %2Use of LOTS for Classes%1 will be available as
soon as recommended procedures have been developed.

A LOTS mailing list is being established to aid in the distribution of
further information.  To be placed on the mailing list, please communicate
your name and I.D. mail address, in writing, to the LOTS office (at Cedar
Hall until November 15, at SCRDT 105 thereafter).  The schedule of LOTS
Winter Quarter orientation sessions will be distributed when it is known.