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The construction of Fisher Hall and its computer facility
was completed in 1964. The Seeber Computation Laboratory, established
in 1958 through the foresight and encouragement of Dr. Rex Seeber (1879-1957),
was moved to this new facility.
There was much discussion at the time as to the
direction of computing at MTU (sounds familiar).
Digital versus analog computing was the
issue of the time. Partially due to this issue the facility was split into two
separate units and the name was changed. There was the Digital Computer
Laboratory under the direction of Dr. G. Cleaves Byers, Head of the Department
of Mathematical and Computer Sciences and the Analog Computer Laboratory
under the direction of Dr. K. M. McMillin. Because the directorship of the
Digital Computer Laboratory monopolized a good portion of Dr. Byers time and
efforts, Scott Johnson was appointed a full time position as the new
director in 1967. At that time the name was changed to Michigan Tech
Computer Center and along with the Analog Computer Laboratory, later to be known
as the Simulation Laboratory, served the academic needs of the entire
university. In October 1967 the first Computer Center Newsletter
was written. The computer at that time was the IBM-1620. A new IBM-1311
disk drive was added that summer allowing the use of the MONITOR-I
operating system.
In 1976 the Computer Center, later known as Academic Computer Services,
was moved to the newly completed EERC building. The Simulation Laboratory
was expanded to accommodate a newly acquired hybrid computer known as the
EAI (Electronic Associates, Inc.) model 8800 Scientific Computing System.
As the term hybrid implies,
this was a system consisting of a digital computer and an analog computer
along with sixteen channels of digital to analog and analog to digital
conversion. Systems like this provided the best way to do simulations
in real time. The cost of memory was too great to make it economically feasible
to store the needed data points to perform a simulation in real time (8KB of
memory then cost about ~$27,000.00).
During the next decade much
use was made of the hybrid computer. Many
projects were performed for the military and other research funding units.
Some projects were simulations and testing of
the hydroneumatic suspension system of the M113 A1 tank, stress analysis
of helicopter blades and rotor, St Lawrence Seaway and many more.
Math and Computer Science classes and labs were taught by Dr. McMillin
utilizing this hybrid computer during this era.
In 1984 Dr. McMillin retired and the Dean of the College of Sciences and Arts
decided to reorganize the Simulation Laboratory by folding it into
Academic Computer Services (ACS). The name was changed to Engineering Computer
Services and one year later was again changed to ACS-Fisher.
This reorganization did not work well and was destined to change.
In May of 1986 another reorganization took place. ACS-Fisher was returned
to the College of Sciences and Arts and the name was changed to Center for
Experimental Computation (CEC).
The Center for Experimental Computation (CEC) was established and directed
by Dr. A. Barry Kunz to coordinate
efforts in high-speed modern scientific computation.
Within the first year a rotating
directorship was set up and the new director was Dr. Darrell Hicks from
the Math department. The next director was Dr. Donald Beck from the Physics
department followed by Dr. David Poplawski from the Computer Science
department.
The CEC provided computing services of a diverse nature.
Everything from hypercubes to PCs to mini-mainframes are supported by the
CEC and complete data acquisition systems were designed and built in the
CEC for various research projects.
Due to the explosion of distributed computing vs. centralized computing
systems from 1988 to the present,
and the
required resources needed to support those systems, a CEC reorganization
took place in the summer of 1993.
The CEC today
Today the CEC continues to provide computer services, hardware, software,
and networking, to the departments of Mathematical Sciences, Computer
Sciences and Physics.
The staff of the CEC include Dave Kraus (Director and Senior Systems Programmer),
Jim Hoel (Systems Engineer),
Pat Krogel (Systems Administrator), and
Christopher Linn (System Administrator).
The staff of the CEC assists the various
departments by evaluating, purchasing, and installing computer systems
and software packages. User services such as backups and restores along
with general computer and network maintenance are also provided.
The CEC, located in Fisher Hall room 201, serves over 1000 faculty, staff,
graduate and undergraduate students who use over 150 workstations, PCs, and
mini-mainframes.
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