00100	                                                      August 31, 1970
00200	
00300	To: Computer Science Department
00400	
00500	From: John McCarthy
00600	
00700	Subject: Meeting our computer needs
00800	
00900		At the initiative of Professor Miller and under the direction
01000	of  David  Phillips, a study aimed at producing a long range plan for
01100	computing at Stanford has been started. In connection  with  this,  I
01200	think the Computer Science Department should carry out a study of its
01300	own needs.  In my opinion, we need a time-sharing  computer  facility
01400	cost-effective   enough   to  be  used  by  all  our  students.   The
01500	Computation Center does not provide this, and they  are  unlikely  to
01600	propose it until IBM has done it and sells it to them.  What they may
01700	propose is to spend a lot of money on an IBM 370 to  be  operated  in
01800	the  same  way  as  the  present facility.  This would be a disaster,
01900	because it would commit Stanford to at least another  five  years  of
02000	the same bad system.
02100	
02200		Therefore, I suggest that a committee of faculty and students
02300	of the computer science department undertake an independent study  of
02400	ways of getting a suitable interactive system.  Last time, we left it
02500	to the Computation Center and the result is an inferior  system  five
02600	years later.
02700	
02800						John McCarthy
02900	
03000	
03100						Professor of Computer Science