A functional microcomputer network

ABSTRACT

Bishop's, like many other small universities and colleges, is constantly striving to supply state of the art computing facilities to students, faculty, and the administration from very limited funds. The very advantageous cost/performance ratio of this network has allowed the university to obtain such facilities while remaining within budget constraints.

The paper describes the computer network of microcomputers installed at Bishop's in the summer of 1981. The experience of the first academic year of actual operation will be outlined. The equipment will be used as the major computing facility on campus.

Briefly, the network consists of two nodes, with internode communication capability; 20 independent work stations (soon to be increased), two 80 MB Winchester disk drives, two floppy disk units, two high speed printers and a “Diablo-like” printer for word processing applications, and a digital plotter. There is also a communication link to the minicomputer being replaced by the new network.

Some of the features of the network include: automatic spooling of output to all printers, individual accounting controls (i.e. assignment of passwords, control of disk space including write protection of volumes, control of lines printed per job and per academic term), support of multiple operating systems, and support of multiple processors.

The paper will describe our very positive experience with the system, and our future plans.

Index Terms

• Hardware

  • Communication hardware, interfaces and storage

• Networks

• Social and professional topics

  • Professional topics

    • Computing education

      • Computing education programs

        • Computer science education

        • Information science education