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industrial qualit y control, CA DI
CAM , and mu sicology have in common?
You guessed it. Our littl e (and
getting littler ) binary buddies .
T hese days the Comput ing Center,
where lights burn and termin als glow
sixteen hours a day, is one of the
bu siest spots on campus . Bruce V an
Atta, its director, notes that instructor s
and stude nts in more th an 200 cou rses
use some part of th e Computing
Center reso urces in some wa y. " And
that's not counting their ow n syste ms
or tie-ins to externa l computers," h e
adds.
An d the re 's more to come . T he recen
t report of the "Intermedi ate
R an ge Pla nning Task Force for Unive
rsity Comput ing Services" defined
six major a reas to be emphas ized in
planned expan sion . T hese incl ude
ha rd wa re enhance me nt (buy ing new
machi nes, bi g and small), improvement
ofcomm un ica tio ns bet ween the
existing facilities (ins talling a data
switch and add ing more term inals),
an d working to int egrat e com pu ting
more fully in to the u nd er graduateand
graduate-cu rriculu m (ne w tech ­
niques and softwa re) .
So far, Rochester's com plete d shopping
list for add itions to Computing
C enter resources available to all
stude n ts and faculty includes two big
new time-sharing machines-a VAX
11/78 0 a nd a DEC -2060 ; six ty new term
inals; expans ion of its collect ion of
micros with th e addition of fifteen
APPLE II s and twenty IBM per son al
compute rs; and th e newly in stalled
data switch that perm its any keyboard
around th e U niversity to talk to almost
any compu ter it wa nts to .
110 Data, Graduate School
of Management: Brand new
Hewlett-Packard 3000 Series
64, three times previous
capacity, can now sustain
100 concurrent interactive
users·
"One big advantage at R och ester,"
Stonehill rep ort s, " is the variety of
hardware available: ou r five large
compu ters, more than a score of megam
in i co m pu ters, at least a hundred
m in is, and well over that number of
m icros. From micr o to mainframe, our
goal is to ge t students ex posed to th is
diversity .
" W ith th e facilities we hav e now ,
a ny stude nt wh o wa nts to get to a
keyb oard ca n do so . T he micros, for
ins ta nce, are availa ble sixtee n hours a
day, seve n days a week . Some stu ­
d en ts, of course , want to h ave th eir
own machines, and we 've worked it
o ut to make it as easy as possible for
the m (a nd facul ty too ofcou rse) to acqu
ire personal com puters at a twe nty
to thirty percent dis count."
120 Data, Medical Center:
DEC-10 mainframe interactive
facility; small computers
in specific labs.
Two examples: Ultrasonic
display of pregnant
no t har t s abdomen digitized
:0 diagnos e growth retardation
in utero; VAX 780
to digitize display of cancerous
organs and simulate
alternative radiation
treatments. Eastern Cooperative
Oncology Group
(E.C.O.G.) links Cancer
Center with >25 other inst
i tut ions to share treatment
resul t s . Innumerable
research appl icat ions of
small c o mput e r s in
laboratories.
So mu ch of th e research at the
M edical Cente r uses com puters that it
mi ght be easier to list wh ere th e
m achines are N O T in u se , rathe r than
where they are. " Everywhe re yo u tu rn
a co rne r over there ," remarks co m ­
puter- science professor Christopher
M. Bro wn, "you'll find a research
progra m usin g co mputers ."
In the Perinatal C omputing Facility ,
for exam ple , Vasant Sain i an d D .
M aulik a re pion eering research in
ult rasonic measu re me n t ofblood flow
in the umbilica l co rd. They us e th e
dat a to d etect the effects of clin ica l
trea tme nts on th e transfer of nu trients
and oxy gen across th e cord . Paul
Schloerb (to cite anothe r example) is
com puterizing th e Nutritional Support
Service, to th e ben efit of pat ien ts who
a re fed intravenously . From complete
data on the pa tien t 's diagnosis, height,
wei ght, and other vital statistics, the
com puter calc ulates ene rgy needs, and
th e amoun t and kind of nutrition
ca lled for.
But the eyes of the new s media-if
no t those of the general pu blic th us
" me d iated"- focus on computers in
ed ucation these days. So let' s turn our
atte n tion to wha t the Rochester undergra
d uate ca n look forw ard to.
For one th ing, the U n ivers ity plans
th is fall to introd uce two new un dergraduate
degrees (B .A. a nd B.S.) in
co mputer sciences, offe re d throu gh the
Dep artmen t of M a thematics. T he
new degrees will broaden the existing
range ofcompu ter concen tratio ns th at
have been av ail able for some time
through programs in eng ineering,
manageme n t, an d ed ucation, as well as
in math .
Teachers see a vast poten tial for the
co mputer within th e libe ral arts curriculum.
" Computing, as a formal
discipline , has substantial intellectu al
a nd aesthetic content," notes Willia m
Arcu ri, who holds the title of U n iversity
co mp uting fellow. "Computer
literacy conno tes mi ni mal com pe tence
in a progra m mi ng langu age, bu t compu
ting concer ns muc h m or e than
merely th e syn ta x a nd sema ntics of
langu age . It enco mpasses an appreciation
of the power as well as th e lim its of
symbolic processes. " M an y faculty
members are beginnin g to share Arcuri's
en th us ias m fo r co m puting as
" a n in tellec tually worthy to pic of
study."
130 Data, undergraduate
course' 'Computer Arts and
Intellectics," F. William
Arcuri (instructor); students
program game strategies
for computer, engage
in computer' 'tournaments'
': Programs play each
other to decide best program·
"Computer Arts' '=
art of computational technique
and its relationship
to problem solving, "Intellectics"
=" Athletics
of the Mind," computer as
critic of students' problem-solving
strategies.
An easy d istinc tion is that be twee n
hardware (that whi ch lies beh ind the
gla ss pane ls, in the midst of mazes of
wires and Ligh t-Emitting D iodes), a nd
software (the an im ating force with in the
hardware-the plan th a t contro ls the
manipula tion of in pu t). So let' s look at
hardware first.
The central po rt ion of Taylor H all,
the Comput ing C en ter' s Ri ver Cam­
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