00100	Computer Science Department
00200	
00300	February 20, 1971
00400	
00500	
00600	To: Computer Facilities Committee
00700	
00800	From: John McCarthy, Professor of Computer Science
00900	
01000	Subject: The report "Computing at Stanford, Report of the Long
01100	Term Planning Project"
01200	
01300	
01400		In my opinion, the report in question is technically
01500	incompetent in its neglect of the
01600	opportunity and need for Stanford to pland to switch from its
01700	present main reliance on batch-processing to time-sharing.  Any
01800	expensive action taken on the basis of this report will later be
01900	regretted.
02000	
02100		I would further recommend to the Computer Science Department
02200	that for its own needs for teaching graduate and undergraduate students
02300	and for its research needs that it ask to be included out
02400	of the proposed plans and that it request support from the Board of
02500	Trustees for a separate solution if the plans proposed here are
02600	implemented for the campus as a whole.
02700	
02800		If the Computer Facilities Committee is interested, I
02900	will be glad to meet with them and explain the reasons for my opinion.
03000	
03100		I should mention my bias as one of the originators of time-sharing
03200	and also that my suffering from the results of implementation of the
03300	proposed plan will be minimal, because the Artificial Intelligence
03400	Project has a reasonably adequate computer facility.