Harvard Set to Complete Major Computer Purchase

Harvard will probably complete a multi-million dollar deal to purchase computer equipment within the next two months, administrators said yesterday.

The purchase will mark a major step in what officials describe as Harvard's likely efforts to establish a decentralized computer network whereby work stations or personal computers would be spread throughout the campus.

"We're putting together several plans at the moment which will be finalized in the next few months," Vice President for Administration Robert H. Scott said yesterday. He refused to elaborate on the details of the proposed sale, but he said that the arrangement "would make large volumes of inexpensive materials available to students."

The current centralized time-sharing system "no longer seems the best way to go, with the price of work stations dropping so low, alternative methods to the centralized system seem like a reasonable solution."

Harvard, like most universities, currently provides most computing to students through large central computers to which hundreds of terminals are connected. Such a system, however, his been rendered inefficient by the growth of cheap personal computers.

The University plans to move the burnt of its computing off the main Science Center system onto a system of decentralized smaller computers connected probably by wires. However, officials have said they are unsure about what exactly such a system would look like.

Cut-Rate

By providing cut-rate equipment to students, officials have said they hope to encourage students to purchase the computers that could later he booked up to a network.

Other universities such as Brown and MIT have been developing and implementing decentralized work station computer networks over the past few years mainly to increase the efficiency of their systems and decrease costs.

The limitations of the Science Center complex for student use were brought home forcefully last spring Instructors of Applied Mathematics 110 decided to teach the course in a more complex computer language, which overtaxed the system and forced the students to wait up to 10 hours to get on the system.

Shopping Around

Harvard is currently dealing with several corporations in order to find an appropriate package, according to McKay Professor of Computer Science Harry M. Lewis '67.

While Harvard administrators refused to specify which corporations they are dealing with a Digital Electronics Corporation sales representative said yesterday that he "is currently involved in a number of sales operations at Harvard."

Other Moves

In other recent moves to modernize Harvard computer facilities the University purchased two new $200,000 VAX computer from Digital last September for instructional use in the Science Center.

At the same time the University also added approximately 30 new terminals to the Science Center facilities, increasing the number of terminals to about 125. And last October the Faculty created a task force to examine how computers can be most effectively used and it is currently looking to fill a newly created Faculty post that would administer and oversee Harvard's computer decentralization plans.