Extracts from Newsletters Volume 2

October 1974

Services and Facilities

The current position.

New users to the centre will find a general guide to the services and facilities in the 1974/75 edition of the "Introduction to the Computer Centre" shortly available from job reception and the Program Enquiry Office.

For old users there are some significant enhancements.

(i) Network and user hours have been extended as shown by the revised weekly timetable.

(ii) Agreement has now been reached on the extent of additional cpu and file space resources available to Bristol users on other network machines and these will be further extended with the installation of the Exeter 4-72 scheduled for introduction in January.

(iii) In addition to further resources, the Network offers users the ability to run jobs greater than 250K overnight at Cardiff, the facilities of the Numerical Algorithms Library now in use extensively on many University machines throughout the United Kingdom (again at Cardiff), limited fully interactive Multijob facilities at Bath, and jobs may be sent directly to ULCC.

(iv) At job reception, a video terminal has been installed so that receptionists can monitor for users the progress of jobs within the 4-75.

(v) A second Tektronix terminal is now available to supplement the existing graphical facilities. . . .

(vi) The PDP 8 remote job entry station in Chemistry has been upgraded from 1200 to 2400 baud working, and a similar increase in line speed will be made to the Economics PDP 8E facilities as soon as the appropriate modems can be delivered to the Post Office.

(vii) The Program Enquiry Office is now able to offer statistical advice.

Operations Timetables

5 day x 24 hour operation commencing 22.00 hours Sunday until 22.00 hours Friday. Engineering cover 8a.m. to 10p.m.

The system is available to users under the Multijob System except as below:-

    Monday     8a.m. - noon         Engineering maintenance
    Tuesday -  8a.m. - 9a.m.               "
      Friday
    "    "     9a.m. - 10a.m.       Network Development
    Monday -
      Friday   noon  - 1p.m.        System Development

                       8p.m.        Computer Centre closes -
                                    Operation continues without
                                    BASIC and without Centre
                                    terminals.

Notes:
1. Since the Mathematics building must be closed by 8p.m. access to the Computer Centre cannot be guaranteed after 7.45p.m.
2. The period 5 to 6p.m. daily must not be considered as a guaranteed user period as any urgent System maintenance required to ensure satisfactory over night running will be carried out then. Course usage of terminals should not be planned during this time.

Terminal Usage

With the increasing interest in the use of BASIC, it is expected that users may have difficulty in obtaining a terminal at the Computer Centre until further ICL hardware, scheduled for December, is delivered.

The booking system in previous use has therefore been reintroduced and sessions for any one user are limited to half an hour. Users should also note that some revision of the use of the least used terminal characters has been made.

In order to achieve Network Compatibility, it has been agreed that a small change will be made to the teletype character representation. The character [ will be represented for input from and output to the teletype only by the keyboard character |. The keyboard character ! will no longer be used to represent |.

. . .

    Teletype    Card Code    ICL
]  (SHIFT + M)  (11-7-8) ¬    ¬
[  (SHIFT + K)  (12-7-8) |    |
~  (SHIFT + L)  (3-8)    #    #
#  (SHIFT + 3)  (12-2-8) $    £
   (SHIFT + 4)  (11-3-8) £    $

Centre Courses

Date      Start  Total     Topic
                 Time

30. 9.74  09.30  5 days    Programming Course - Using ALGOLW
30. 9.74  09.30  5 days    Programming Course - Using WATFOR
 7.10.74  16.00  1 hour    Introduction to the Computer Centre
 9.10.74  09.30  2½ hours  Introduction to Multijob (1): Batch
 9.10.74  09.30  1 hour    A survey of Multijob
16.10.74  09.30  2½ hours  Introduction to Multijob (2): Terminals
23.10.74  14.15  1 hour    Introduction to ULCC facilities
 6.11.74  14.15  2½ hours  Forum on Packages and Libraries
20.11.74  14.15  1 hour    Conversion Course to BASIC Programming
 4.12.74  14.15  1 hour    Conversion Course to ALGOLW Programming

December 1974

Enquiry terminal at Job Reception

With the introduction os a Stabletron Visual Display Unit in the Job Reception Area it will now be possible to present users with certain information concerning the queueing and running of jobs in the 4-75 computer. The information is found using a system program. In addition this terminal may be used to inspect System Journals (Print, Plot, etc) for information about specific files. (Complete file identifiers must be given).

This display unit may not be used for user's work. The operation of the terminal is done by the receptionists, from whom further details may be obtained.

Satellite one usage

With effect from 2 December the Satellite One terminal in Oldbury House will be reserved for linking to Cambridge at the following times:-

                     10 a.m. - 10.45 a.m.
                      4 p.m. -  4.45 p.m.

although Cambridge cannot guarantee access at these times.

. . .

ULCC users are reminded that it is now possible to access ULCC via the S.W. Network.

February 1975

The South West Universities Computer Centre

As users will probably already know, the ICL 2980 is now definitely going to be installed in Bath, and the expected delivery date is currently March 1976. If all goes well the machine should be accessible to users by the autumn of that year and it is expected that the initial usage will consist mainly of large FORTRAN programs and some standard packages. With regard to packages, users will be interested to know that the Program Library Unit at Edinburgh Regional Computing Centre is currently converting XRAY74, ATMOL and version 4 of SPSS to run on the ICL New Range. Other packages, including GENSTAT, SIMULA and Version 6 of SPSS, are also being considered and we hope to have more detailed information from ERCC later in the year.

Things to Come

Initial documentation on tasking is now nearing completion and should be ready in early March, although the software will not be implemented at other sites in the network until the Easter vacation. We will notify you of the exact date as soon as it is finalised.

As you will probably already know, this new software has been designed to provide benefits in a number of areas, including easier job control, and improved control of both file space and journal handling.

In addition to this, however, tasking will provide convenient access to private disc volumes, which can be allocated to individual users or departments. This improvement in file space generally coupled with the increased number of usernames now available to us means that it should be possible to allocate individual usernames to users later in the year. This does not mean, of course, that it will not be possible to continue sharing a username where users wish to do so, but users are asked to consider now which approach they will wish to adopt.

A further change which is likely to take place in the summer is the removal of BASIC to Exeter. This will involve some transmission of files from Bristol initially, but thereafter the only change for Bristol users will be that it will be necessary to specify a 'site code' on the LOGIN command. It is expected that the consequent increase in the available store at Bristol will enable us to provide a quicker turn-around for various types of job. It is hoped too that Exeter will be able to provide sufficient effort to develop the BASIC compiler further, in particular to incorporate string handling.

Users may remember that we have been assisting ICL Dataskil to implement the graphics package, GINO-F, on System 4 and will be interested to hear that the work is now virtually complete. Dataskil have yet to carry out the final validation and the package has then to be formally accepted by the CAD Centre, Cambridge, before it can be made available. Once this stage has been reached we are allowed free use of the package for 6 months and will then have to decide whether it is worth paying for!

Formation of a PDP 11/8 (Mini Computer) Users Group

Extract from Cambridge Computing Service Newsletter:-

"It is becoming increasingly apparent to more research workers that, in a large number of cases, a mini/micro computer can play an important and flexible role in a particular research or teaching programme. From this it follows that there will be an increasing use of such small computers, and a wide variety of application and expertise within the University. Therefore, there is an obvious need to pool this knowledge and provide in some way an informal forum for the exchange of ideas, and provide a basis through which economies of scale in various maintenance agreements can become possible."

Documentation

In early 1974 in an attempt to overcome the problems caused by incorrect or out of date documentation, a Working Party was set up by the South West Universities to study possible improvements to the system. This working party has produced a report and made recommendations which have been accepted by the appropriate Network bodies. A copy of this of this report can be seen in Program Advisory. As a result, work has now started on the compilation of an intersite Virtual Manual system to be known as the South West Information Manual (SWIM).

Obviously it will be some time before a complete Manual is produced. In the meanwhile, new documents in a standard SWIM format and with new administrative details (such as Document Number) will start appearing. A fuller explanation of the system and its advantages will be sent out in due course when more documents become available.

June 1975

The current shortage of staff coupled with an increasing documentation work load has meant that little effort has been available for the production of this Newsletter and it has, therefore, been produced both late and more hastily than usual. I apologise on both counts.

Tasking

The first official release of the Tasking Job Management System is scheduled for 1 July on all four machines connected to the Network.

. . .

Many users are aware that tasking has been available on a trial basis for some time and at Bristol for over 6 months. The major recent change for them is the extension of the COPY statement to deal with any type of non-dedicated file. For users who have not used tasking, the following highlights may whet their appetites:

All Job Control, program run and subsystem diagnostics within a task are directed to a single file, the task journal.
All Job Control is obeyed in strict sequence. This is a much more powerful version of the STARTSEQ feature in standard MULTIJOB which is restricted to program runs.
Powerful statements are available to perform various combinations of compiling, composing and running programs. Trials job descriptions are made obsolete.
Other new statements perform new functions, such as copying files and private volume handling.
A transient filespace facility is provided. Transient files are not charged against a user's file space allocation and the housekeeping of these files is handling automatically by the system.
The SITE statement enables a task to be transported to any other site, accompanied by its transient files.
Run number and qualifier number problems are reduced by the concept of the unique task number.

This first release is a well tested, stable system. The Network is committed to producing at least one more release with further extensions, but an important consideration will be the preservation of the existing user interface.

ULCC Link

The long awaited private line to ULCC now links the SAT-1 at Oldbury House reliably to London.

The line speed is 2400 baud - twice that of the dial-up system, and there is no restriction on the amount of connect time as there is a flat-rate charge irrespective of use.

The general reaction of users is extremely favourable.

The arrangements for connecting to Cambridge are not affected by the change.

NAG - A New Release

The Mark 2 version of the NAG library has been upgraded to Mark 4. There are 84 new routines making a total of 276. Many of the existing routines have been improved and the documentation has been completely updated.

Currently the library is only available at Cardiff, but from 1 July 1975, it will also be available at Bristol. NAG provides a comprehensive range of numerical routines which are well documented and easy to use, so please try to use it and let us have your reactions.

The majority of the library will shortly be available to ALGOLW users as well as in FORTRAN and details will be published as soon as possible.

Maintained by John P Baker