.TL
Minutes of CSPC No 36,
.br
held at 2:30pm
.br
on 20th Sept 1991
.AU
Minutes taken by Duncan White
.SH
36.1.1 : Those Present:
.LP
MSS (Chairman),
JIM,
DJH,
CLH,
SE,
DFG,
TJS,
DCW,
YAC,
RB
.SH
36.1.2 : New Members:
.LP
MSS welcomed the new members to CSPC.
These are:
.DS
Roger Bailey (RB)
Yannis Cosmadopolous (YAC)
Tim Sadler (TJS)
Duncan White (DCW)
.DE
.LP
DCW has agreed to become the Secretary.
.SH
36.1.3 : Minutes of the Previous Meeting
.LP
In 35.4.1, BARCO was spelt wrongly.
.LP
TJS pointed out that in 35.4.3,
Amanda's request for a Mac 2 with a large screen
and his request for replacing his Mac Plus with a Mac 2
with a large screen and scanner,
were in fact a single request - not two.
.SH
36.2 : Matters Arising
.LP
In 35.2, Equipment for TAs,
JIM pointed out that Peter Cutler and Mike Gera are to get
486 PC based colour X-terminals,
which they have seen and are happy with.
DCW queried the cost of these, which JIM put at 2.5K each.
.LP
JIM added that CSG would only take back the Suns
(currently on loan to Peter and Mike)
when their machines arrive and are ready.
.BX "JIM"
.SH
36.3 : Cooption of Chris Hankin (CLH)
.LP
MSS explained that normally,
both the Chairman and the Director of CSG
would be ex-officio members of CSPC.
At present, he is temporarily filling both roles,
so the Committee is short of one member.
The Committee is able to coopt extra members in such situations.
Chris Hankin, as a previous Director of CSG,
will bring a great deal of experience,
and has indicated his willingness to serve again.
.LP
He was accepted without demur.
.SH
36.4 : Summer Changes to Teaching Facilities
.LP
JIM summarised the state of the teaching facilities
after the summer changes:
.SH
36.4.1 : Serial Terminals
.LP
There are between 120 and 130 terminals in rooms 202 and 207 (unchanged).
.SH
36.4.2 : The Sun Lounge
.LP
The 19 monochrome Sun 3/50s in room 208 (the Tsuns) are turning into
X-terminals, and will be ready for the start of term.
.SH
36.4.3 : The Colour Suns
.LP
The 5 TCSuns in room 207 will remain as full Unix machines,
running a new X Windows startup program which allows X to be disabled.
This is in order to support Cadence,
which does not as yet run under X Windows.
.SH
36.4.4 : The HPs
.LP
The 10 colour HPs in room 207a are also turning into X-terminals,
which should result in much more use being made of them.
.SH
36.4.5 : The New SPARC Lab
.LP
The new SPARC lab in room 219 will not, regrettably,
be operational for the start of term.
JIM explained that the Computer Centre is
responsible for installing the machines,
and only hand them over to us when they are ready.
He hopes to have them operational by the 3rd week of term.
.LP
The Miranda and Modula-2 compilers have now arrived,
and will be installed soon.
The Sun Pascal compiler is on order,
and C and ANSI C compilers will be available.
.LP
In response to a question from DCW,
JIM added that none of the SPARC machines - workstations or servers -
have any serial lines.
The only machines that are accessible from serial terminals are
the sun3s (Flamingo, Pelican and the 5 Colour suns).
.SH
36.4.6 : Student Home Directories
.LP
The home directories of students will be distributed between
Heron, Toucan, and Lorikeet.
.SH
36.4.7 : Mac Lab
.LP
There are between 35 and 37 Mac Pluses in the Mac Lab (unchanged).
.LP
The Mac printing facilities are:
.IP "a)."
Spooled Unix line printers, for plain listings;
.IP "b)."
2 or 3 ImageWriters, for wordprocessing drafts;
.IP "c)."
Laserprinting is available at 10p a sheet
(each student may print a certain number of pages for free
when this is necessary - for example, when printing out
project reports).
.LP
RB added that the main problem with the existing Mac Lab is printing on
the Imagewriters.
JIM agreed, adding that the basic problem was that Apple appear unable
to produce a reliable graphic printer - the Imagewriters are excessively
unreliable, and do not even handling spooling properly!
.LP
RB suggested that, as Mac Pluses become free, two or three of them could
be dedicated to printing - each machine can have a single Imagewriter
attached to it,
and people can actually walk over to a free printing machine,
sit down, insert a disk and print their file.
This puts queueing onto a physical level - only one person can sit down and
insert a disk into a machine at one time!
.LP
This was agreed.
.BX "JIM"
.SH
36.4.8 : Mac Lab Upgrade
.LP
The Mac Pluses will need replacing with Mac LCs sometime within the next
Academic Year - and money has been allocated for this.
The main question is when to do it, and how to provide a migration path.
JIM suggested putting some Mac LCs in room 202
(replacing some terminals)
and letting assorted Lab personnel test them out for a while.
When everyone is satified with the new machines,
perhaps at Christmas or Easter,
the entire Mac Lab could be upgraded.
.LP
The new Mac LCs will be directly connected to the Ethernet.
.LP
One other question is: should the Mac LCs have local hard disks?
This would make them much more responsive, of course, since applications
could come from local disk rather than across the network,
but JIM suggested that this would cause a lot more work for CSG staff, because
the disks will get full and need clearing out regularly, and viruses may start
hitting the Lab.
RB suggested that this issue needs more discussion.
.BX "JIM/RB"
.SH
36.5 : Draft Budget
.LP
MSS presented the draft budget he circulated before the meeting.
The maintenance is in fact 55K, not 60K as shown.
.LP
He also mentioned the 6k allocated (at priority 3)
for additional disks for teaching servers:
this is by no means an immediate need,
but it may become apparent later in the year
that we need purchase these to enhance
the performance of the teaching servers.
.SH
36.6 : Equipment Requests
.SH
36.6.1 : Chairman Action
.LP
MSS said that the 10 Mac LCs already purchased had nearly all been allocated,
so he had ordered another 10 LCs,
which should arrive just after the start of term.
These can then be used to fulfil various requests without delay.
.SH
36.6.2 : Outstanding Requests
.IP "1)."
.I "Graham Benyon-Tinker (GBT)"
had requested a Unix workstation.
.IP "2)."
.I "Kim Harrison (KAH)"
requests a Mac.
.IP "3)."
.I "Tony Field (AJF)"
requests that the Barco in 308 be replaced.
.IP "4)."
.I "Chris Hogger (CJH)"
requests a Mac II with an A3 screen for exam marking
.IP "5)."
.I "TJS & Amanda Pash (AHP)"
request a Mac II with a large screen and a scanner.
.IP "6)."
.I "Krysia Broda (KB)"
requests a Mac LC.
.IP "7)."
.I "Liz Attree (EAA)"
requests that her Mac be upgraded to an LC.
.IP "8)."
.I "Stuart Cox (SMC)"
requests that his Mac be upgraded to an LC.
.IP "9)."
.I "Dave Adams (DJA)"
and
.I "Pete Turnbull (PJT)"
request a Mac Classic or Mac Plus.
.IP "10)."
.I "Anthony Finkelstein (ACWF)"
requests a Mac LC for Ben Beaumont (a law lecturer) for slide preparation.
.IP "11)."
.I "Chris Hogger (CJH)"
requests 3 Macs for the ALR section.
.IP "12)."
.I "Francois Leveque (FHL)"
requests an additional disk for the database machine, fulmar.
.IP "13)."
.I "Margaret Cunningham (MRC)"
requests a Mac LC.*
.FS
* : In fact, this was accidentally forgotten at the meeting.
.FE
.SH
36.6.3 : Decisions
.IP "1)."
The Unix workstation for
.I "GBT:"
it has been decided that he will get VLSI, soon.
.BX "JIM"
.IP "2)."
The Macintosh for
.I "KAH:"
she is now getting her Mac via research funds..
.BX "Cancel"
.IP "3)."
The Barco replacement (proposed by
.I "AJF"
): It was felt that the cost of replacing the Barco is impracticable.
.BX "Cancel"
.IP "4)."
The A3 screen Mac II for
.I "CJH"
(in his role as Examinations Secretary):
Several people (SE, DJH, RB)
felt that such a machine should be a shared Departmental machine.
MSS and JIM also pointed out that Apple are about to revise their
prices within the next month,
so it was agreed that we should delay purchase until then.
.BX "Delay"
.IP "5)."
The Mac II for
.I "TJS/AHP:"
It was felt that this was perfectly reasonable.
There was a brief discussion about whether an A4 screen would be adequate,
but an A3 seemed justified.
Again, this will be delayed until the prices change.
.BX "Delay"
.IP
The scanner, however, requires more thought:
RB suggested that a scanner situated in User Support
would be an extremely useful facility,
that might be appreciated by many staff.
JIM agreed, and added that a scanner + a monochrome Mac 2 (the minimum
sensible configuration, he felt) would cost about 4k.
.IP
It was agreed to move this request up in priority,
but delay purchase until the new prices are out.
.BX "Delay"
.IP "6,7,8)."
Mac LCs for various staff:
.I "KB, EAA"
and
.I "SMC's"
requests were all agreed,
and will be allocated out of the 10 currently on order.
.BX "JIM"
.IP "9)."
Mac for
.I "DJA/PJT:"
JIM said he would be reluctant to go out and buy a Mac Classic,
as it is so much slower than an LC.
However, he pointed out that a few Mac Plus's would be freed
by the decision to upgrade Macs to Mac LCs.
One of these spare machines could be given to DJA and PJT,
if they really want a slow Mac rather than a faster Mac!
This was agreed.
.BX "JIM"
.IP "10)."
Mac for
.I "Ben Beaumont:"
It was suggested that a Mac Plus would be
perfectly adequate for preparation of slides.
This was agreed.
.BX "JIM"
.IP "11)."
The Macs for the ALR section, requested by
.I "CJH:"
it was felt that we needed more information about this request:
normally, such machines would come out of Section funds.
.BX "MSS"
.IP "12)."
Additional disk for fulmar, requested by
.I "FHL:"
this was discussed separately in
.I "Any Other Business."
.IP "13)."
Mac for
.I "MRC:"
Because her request was accidentally forgotten at the meeting,
it is therefore postponed until the next meeting.
.BX "Delay"
.LP
MSS said he would revise the shopping list and budget.
.BX "MSS"
.SH
36.6.4 : Macintosh Software
.LP
JIM pointed out that every (staff) Macintosh requires a wordprocessing
package, a painting/drawing tool, a spreadsheet and (sometimes) a database.
Several different packages (especially wordprocessors!) are already in use
in the Deparment, and there is no intention to force staff towards one or
the other.
.LP
The 15K allocated to Mac software is to ensure that all members of staff
have fully legal copies of all the software they use.
.LP
SE suggested that a small number of Modula-2 compilers on the
Mac Lab machines might be extremely useful for group/individual project use.
It was agreed to purchase 3 Modula-2 compilers.
.BX "JIM"
.SH
36.6.5 : More equipment for the TAs
.LP
SE pointed out that the TAs laser printer was about to collapse under the
strain of printing lab specs, and (where necessary) electronically
submitted work.
DJH queried the wisdom of moving from a situation in which students make
their own printouts on cheap lineprinter paper, to a situation in which
electronically submitted work may increasingly get printed on laserprinters.
.LP
SE requested a fast, heavy duty laser printer to replace this existing
printer.
This was agreed in principle, so JIM will investigate the options,
and the money will be allocated out of the 8k allocated to TAs this year.
.BX "JIM/SE"
.LP
Sue pointed out that when the 3 TA posts are filled,
some more machines may be needed by the new TAs.
At first, however, they can probably borrow Mac LCs,
until it becomes apparent what they would prefer.
.SH
36.6.6 : Any Other Business
.SH
36.6.6.1 : Ingres on Fulmar
.LP
SE presented the meeting with a list of requests from FHL,
regarding Ingres on fulmar.
.LP
In order to be confident of using Ingres for teaching,
FHL suggested that fulmar would need:
regular backups,
mail,
user accounts,
an operator console,
serial lines and
a second disk.
In addition, multiple copies of the Ingres documentation would be required.
.LP
JIM pointed out that fulmar is, at present, still an evaluation machine
and requested that FHL submit a report (to Academic Committee) on the
success of the Ingres evaluation before any decision about the suitability
of Ingres for teaching should be made.
.LP
DJH interjected that he and some other members of Academic Committee have
discussed this with FHL, and on that basis have decided that Ingres should
be used:
in the first term, for running one or two Group Projects on,
and, if possible, in the second term, for a 2nd year exercise - ie. over
100 students!
SE added that FHL nows feels confident of meeting these requirements,
given adequate support from CSG in running the machine.
.LP
JIM said that he was not aware of this decision,
and was concerned to learn,
two weeks before the start of term,
that Ingres would be provided as a first term academic service,
even on a limited scale.
He said that, in the circumstances, he couldn't guarantee to provide such a
service, but added that CSG would try their best.
He stressed that FHL would have to deal with all Ingres related problems
and queries - CSG would just run the machine.
.BX "JIM/FHL"
.SH
36.6.7 : Date Of Next Meeting
.LP
12:30pm Wednesday 23rd October in room 433.